G ··· i b e c i è r e Journal of The Conjuring Arts Research Center > ?
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V T CVM QVE NEW YORK MMVI
The Conjuring Arts Research Center Board of Directors William Kalush Dr. David Singmaster Steve Cuiffo Philip Varricchio David Blaine
© 2006 Printed in Iceland. ISSN 1558-8149 Gibecière is published semi-annually by The Conjuring Arts Research Center 11 West 30th, 5th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001 212-594-1033 www.gibeciere.com
Contents Pocket Notes—Stephen Minch 7 An Investigation into Magic in Japan After the Opening of the Country, Part I—Mitsunobu Matsuyama 9 Récréations Mathématiques: A Study of Its Authorship, Sources and Influence—Albrecht Heeffer 77 Del Adelphia, the Cowboy Magician—Mike Caveney 169 Contributors 197
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Summer 2006 \ Gibecière
Pocket Notes
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Where the first issue of Gibecière laid the groundwork hoped for by the Conjuring Arts Research Center, this second issue embraces it to a degree that is gratifying. The main goal of the organization is to create a worldwide network of researchers and historians who will, through cooperation, be enabled to aid each other in uncovering the history of the age-old practice of conjuring. This issue provides sound examples on which to evaluate our progress. In the opening article, Mitsunobu Matsuyama begins his investigation into the history of Japanese magic, how it spread to the western world and the roles both Japanese and western magicians played in the process of its assimilation. In exploring his topic, Mr. Matsuyama made contact with researchers in various countries. Of particular help in supplying scattered pieces of his story were Allister Hardiman of Australia, Edwin A. Dawes of England and Masaru Kawai of Japan, while Max Maven of the U.S.A. made some valuable suggestions. As Matsuyama’s article developed and grew, Magic Christian of Austria generously contributed a new piece of information that places Austria’s nineteenth-century master, J. N. Hofzinser, into a puzzling role in the story. Lori Pieper, the head translator for the Conjuring Arts Research Center in New York, Englished this information from the German, so that Matsuyama could evaluate it and incorporate it into his article. In this fashion, researchers from five countries, working in three languages, were drawn into a common effort with satisfying results. Summer 2006 \ Gibecière
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Gibecière
Dr. Albrecht Heeffer of Belgium has contributed an extraordinarily detailed article on Récréations mathématiques. In this study Heeffer examines the evidence for authorship of this foundational text, which previously has been argued for Henri van Etten and for Jean Leurechon. Dr. Heeffer suggests a new contender, Jean Appier Hanzelet. In addition, he traces the early and often recondite sources for the recreational mathematics and mathematical magic found in Récréations mathématiques, which were also sources for much that appeared in Ozanam and Guyot. While preparing this lengthy article for Gibecière, the Center’s staff was able to check various points for Dr. Heeffer in first- and early-edition holdings in the Center’s library, as well as to supply a few images from rare volumes, again establishing a valuable cooperation, this time between parties in Belgium and New York. The final article in this issue, contributed by Mike Caveney, is a unique history of an unjustly forgotten American magician, Del Adelphia. This biographic study was delivered as a talk on November 10, 2005, at the ninth Los Angeles Conference on Magic History. Although the Center’s Ask Alexander on-line reference resource was helpful to him, Mr. Caveney, being owner and curator of the Egyptian Hall Museum, one of the world’s largest and most prestigious collections of magic ephemera, didn’t need to reach far outside his private resources to complete this fascinating study of an obscure but important human detail in twentieth-century American magic. We hope our readers will share our enjoyment of these articles, made possible in part by international cooperation, and buttressed through access to the Center’s staff, library and Ask Alexander. Stephen Minch editor Gibecière / Vol. 1, No. 2
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An Investigation into Magic in Japan After the Opening of the Country a
Asakichi performing the Japanese Butterfly Trick in London, Illustrated London News, February 23, 1867
AN INVESTIGATION INTO MAGIC IN JAPAN AFTER THE OPENING OF THE COUNTRY Part I: The Butterfly Trick
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Mitsunobu Matsuyama
The number of written works on the history of magic in Japan is small. This has, for many years, caused magicians to rely on the few good books on the topic produced by Toyokichi Hata, Hakufu Hiraiwa and Keiichi Yamamoto. In contrast, a large body of historical research has been published in the western world on the history of magic and its performers. Several of these works include some very limited information on Japanese magic and its history, due in large part to the scarcity of a written history of magic in Japan itself. This has created two negative effects within the magic fraternity. 1. Because research on the history of Japanese magic has not been updated from past decades, researchers outside Japan tend to rely on old and often erroneous information. 2. There are some noteworthy Japanese magicians who were once famous in foreign lands, but who are, ironically, unknown in their own. The reverse is also true. This lack of communication between countries and cultures has prevented the creation of a common understanding of how magic and its performers traveled between Japan and the west, and has fostered the perpetuation of misinformation. Summer 2006 \ Gibecière
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