I was in Hawaii a long time ago. I happened across a magic shop in the middle of a shopping center. I don't remember the name of the man there, but I DO remember him telling me about performing sponge balls for Sinatra...who smiled, snapped his fingers at one of his aids who gave the performer a fifty dollar tip.

I am not ordinarily a linger-er around magic shops. But I spent an hour there with this guy. It's an afternoon I STILL remember.

I was fairly new to performing and he showed me this new Tenyo effect called "Diabolicus" -- and I loved it immediately. He charged me $19 for it -- which I thought was a little high.

But sometimes you just connect with a prop, right? That's what it was like for me and Diabolicus. LOVE that effect. I performed it right up until a summer afternoon at a large fair where I was doing close-up and a kid picked my precious prop off the table, threw it to the ground and stomped on it. I was speechless. The mother was sorry...etc...but my perfect prop was ruined.

I tried to content myself with the MB copy -- the Knight's Tomb (?) but it just wasn't the same.

I haunted eBay. I dropped hints here and everywhere. I'd been looking for a new Diabolicus EVERYWHERE. I found one on eBay, recently, sold by our own Stuartle and managed to get it.

It arrived last week. And it made me smile because I remembered tropical Hawaiian breezes and the literal hundreds of gigs where that baby was in my close-up bag.

I am still smiling.

Thought I would thank Stuartle here...and share the story with you guys -- because I expect you'll understand how a little rectangular bit of plastic and tape can make a grown man happy.

David

Great story David!...it's incredible how we can feel connected with inanimate things....I think Pablo Neruda expressed it very well in his Ode to Things:

I have a crazy,
crazy love of things.
I like pliers,
and scissors.
I love
cups,
rings,
and bowls –
not to speak, of course,
of hats.
I love all things,
not just the grandest,
also the infinite-
ly
small –
thimbles,
spurs,
plates,
and flower vases.

Oh yes,
the planet
is sublime!
It’s full of
pipes
weaving
hand-held
through tobacco smoke,
and keys
and salt shakers –
everything,
I mean,
that is made
by the hand of man, every little thing:
shapely shoes,
and fabric,
and each new
bloodless birth
of gold,
eyeglasses,
carpenter’s nails,
brushes,
clocks, compasses,
coins, and the so-soft
softness of chairs.

Mankind has
built
oh so many
perfect
things!
Built them of wool
and of wood,
of glass and
of rope:
remarkable
tables,
ships, and stairways.

I love
all
things,
not because they are
passionate
or sweet-smelling
but because,
I don’t know,
because
this ocean is yours,
and mine:
these buttons
and wheels
and little
forgotten
treasures,
fans upon
whose feathers
love has scattered
its blossoms,
glasses, knives and
scissors –
all bear
the trace
of someone’s fingers
on their handle or surface,
the trace of a distant hand
lost
in the depths of forgetfulness.

I pause in houses,
streets and
elevators,
touching things,
identifying objects
that I secretly covet:
this one because it rings,
that one because
it’s as soft
as the softness of a woman’s hip,
that one there for its deep-sea color,
and that one for its velvet feel.

O irrevocable
river
of things:
no one can say
that I loved
only
fish,
or the plants of the jungle and the field,
that I loved
only
those things that leap and climb, desire, and survive.
It’s not true:
many things conspired
to tell me the whole story.
Not only did they touch me,
or my hand touched them:
they were
so close
that they were a part
of my being,
they were so alive with me
that they lived half my life
and will die half my death.

If you tell us the name of this impudent imp, we will all concentrate the full force of our mental power, and "this very night he will be suffering".

You are very welcome David, hope you have years of fun again with the prop! All The Best, Stuart

The impudent imp is probably in college by now...which would make him an impudent much bigger imp.

His name was Trevor. But I don't know the last name. Perhaps we should simply punish ALL Trevors...

David