Houdini's Secret Diaries

When I was a kid, I was fascinated with Harry Houdini, and read multiple biographies, with varying levels of historical accuracy. Years later, as a smartass adult, I transformed that love into this humor piece, which has a few actual Houdini facts scattered around in the nonsense. We lampoon that which we love.*

*Also that which we hate. And some stuff in the middle. We lampoon a lot of things.

(This piece originally appeared in the pages of the late, lamented Whim Quarterly. It has been lightly revised.)

Oct. 9. 1883
I know what I'm going to be when I grow up, Diary!  A magician.  Today, grandpapa said he'd show me some magic; then he pulled a coin from my ear.  The ability to dispense legal tender from my auditory canal should be a real financial boon in this hardscrabble tenement life of mine.

Oct. 16
After a week of self-inflicted earaches, I've learned the money thing was a "trick." It's almost enough to make me reconsider my career plans, but I've already spent my ear coin on business cards that say “magician," so I guess it's too late to switch now.

Aug. 1, 1887
My magic skills have landed me my first job!  I am to be a circus acrobat, "Ehrich, Prince of the Air." Tonight I debut what I hope will become my signature trick—picking up pins with my eyelids.  Wish me luck, Diary!

Aug 2
Severely scratched corneas.  Squinting.  Painful 2 write.  Essential I ankle circus biz.  Heard about new type of "magician," who specializes in removing handcuffs.  Seems easy.  I shall become an escapist. 

Must go dip eyes in aloe.

Jan 15, 1888
Turns out I was thinking about cufflinks, not handcuffs. Handcuffs are actually quite difficult to remove.  I need to stop making snap decisions.  Research!

Sept. 2, 1891
I have saved enough money to purchase my first pair of "cuffs."  Have been wearing them for the past week.  V. confident I'll crack them soon.  Somewhat less confident the sensation in my fingers will return.

Sept. 3
Bank ledger: minus 3.2 cents for "executive hacksaw."

Dec. 6
Procured new handcuffs.  Feel I've learned a lot since last time.  Still, will my new escape attempt be a success... or a failure?

Dec. 7
Failure.

Dec. 8
Failure.

Dec. 9
Failure.

Dec. 10
Success!  No, wait.  Hard to write with handcuffs on.  I meant "failure."

Dec. 11
Failure.

Dec. 12
Hacksaw expenditures out of control.  On the positive side, I have devised a new escape, whereby I ask someone to handcuff me, I catch the 5:06 trolley to the locksmith district, and return unshackled and triumphant by 7:15 (provided the locksmith is not on dinner break).  It remains unknown whether an audience will remain seated for a trick so long in duration.  Perhaps if I serve wine?

May 2, 1893
Married my beloved Bess today.  I still remember the day we met: She, an audience volunteer. Me, the magician who handcuffed her to my wrist.  Some say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I'll be damned if months of enforced proximity aren't just as effective.  I cherish the way her cries of "Seriously, you can't unlock this?" eventually gave way to the sweetest endearments.  I just hope our union will not prove unlucky. The cuffs made it V. hard not to see her in her wedding dress pre-ceremony.

Nov. 9, 1898
Brainwave.  I will use keys to open the locks.  In situations where a key would not be considered sporting, I shall either (1) use something called a "lock-pick," or (2) still use a key, but not tell anyone about it.  This is the breakthrough I've dreamed of!

Jan. 1, 1889
My new success demands a new name.  In honor of the great French prestidigitator Robert Houdin, I shall henceforth be known as Houdini!  My manager says it "sounds Italian," but he also called my given name, Ehrich Weiss, "too ethnic."  Beginning to suspect my manager is racist.  "Houdini" is also a perfect name for my planned side-project—I've been developing a musical genre based primarily on the rhythmic busting of rhymes.  I've already written one song, inspired by my sideshow days, on the topic of freaks (specifically their tendency to come out at night). 

Nov. 25, 1900
I have become the biggest man in vaudeville!  (Although some say it's Milton Berle.) I devise new tricks daily—The Escape From the Chains, The Escape From the Ropes, The Escape From the
Really Tight Ropes, The Escape From the Chains That Were Mistakenly Left Unlocked but Someone Tied My Shoelaces Together, and The Escape to the Small Bed and Breakfast Upstate (actually an excuse to take a vacation with Bess as a tax write-off).  The truest magic is love! And it barely chafes your wrists, if you do it right!

Apr. 23, 1915
Uneasy is the head that wears the crown.  I worry constantly that I'm repeating myself.  Is my Milk Can escape too similar to my "Escape From a Large Can of Barley?"  And is there dignity in a life escaping from giant foodstuffs?  Despondent.  I argued with Bess today.  She never tires of observing that my "greatest escape" comes when it's time to clean the spittoons.  I asked her why a family that doesn't chew tobacco needs so many spittoons, but she simply stared at me.  One of her barbs struck me to the core—am I an escape artist, or merely an escape craftsman? 

Oct. 30, 1926
Devised a new trick, whereby I am repeatedly punched in the stomach, with a force that would kill most mortal men.  This is the one they'll remember me for!  (Note: essential I remember metal abdomen plate.)

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