The Art of Manliness - The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:10.800 Quick, think of a famous magician. Dimes to donuts you just thought of Harry Houdini.

00:00:16.500 Though it's been almost a century since his death, Houdini still occupies a prime place

00:00:19.860 in the cultural imagination and my guest today explains why in his book, The Life and Afterlife

00:00:24.240 of Harry Houdini. His name is Joe Posnanski and we begin our conversation with Houdini's

00:00:27.780 childhood, how he mythologized it and carved a path out for himself with a desire to not

00:00:31.820 be like his father. We then discuss Houdini's early days as a magician, the trick he honed

00:00:35.920 that helped make his name, and the outsized importance of that name in his fame and legacy.

00:00:39.800 We then explore how escape artistry became Houdini's calling card and why it resonated

00:00:44.000 so much with the public. We get in the way Houdini brought an athlete's physicality and

00:00:47.700 mindset to his performance and how the difference between magic and escape artistry can be described

00:00:51.860 as the difference between the impossible and the amazing. From there we turn to the fact

00:00:55.660 that Houdini was and wasn't interested in money, his insatiable ambition and drive for

00:01:00.060 fame, and how the turn he took later in life towards debunking spiritualism kept him in

00:01:04.120 the public eye. We're in a conversation with why some modern magicians downplay Houdini's

00:01:07.940 talent while he yet remains an enduring cultural icon amongst the public. After the show's over,

00:01:12.560 check out the show notes at awim.is slash Houdini.

00:01:14.940 All right, Joe Posnacki, welcome to the show.

00:01:25.520 Great to be here.

00:01:26.320 So you are a sports writer, but you've also written a biography of Harry Houdini and his

00:01:33.000 impact on our culture. What led a sports writer to write a biography about this famous magician?

00:01:39.240 Yeah, it's a good question. One that I ask myself all the time. I think for me, it began as many

00:01:46.920 things do with sports. I was approached about writing a book about Babe Ruth. I had done,

00:01:55.020 I think this was my fifth book and my previous four were all sports books. And there was sort of

00:02:01.320 this feeling that maybe I should try to take on this big biography, that this was maybe the next step

00:02:07.560 for me. And so I was approached about doing this book about Babe Ruth, and I had to say it did not

00:02:12.780 interest me at all. I just felt like that was well-covered ground. And there was another book

00:02:19.660 in the works at the time by a friend of mine, Jane Levy. So it wasn't something that interested me,

00:02:26.120 but I still thought about it. And I thought, well, if I did do a Babe Ruth book, what would it be about?

00:02:30.960 And what interests me about Ruth ended up being the same exact thing that interests me about

00:02:37.160 Harry Houdini. It is that he's still with us in so many ways, that people still think about him,

00:02:45.320 talk about him. He's considered the greatest of all time by many people. I'm talking about Babe Ruth.

00:02:52.160 And so that interests me. Why is that? We don't really feel that way about many things from the 1920s,

00:02:59.580 many people, from the 1920s. And so I kind of came up with this thought in my mind about wonder and

00:03:07.220 how much we crave it, even in today's time. And I thought, I'd like to write that book. That book

00:03:15.020 sounds interesting to me, but I don't think Ruth is the right guy to do it. And I've been sort of this

00:03:20.720 very behind-the-scenes magic fan for many years. And I thought, you know, this book should be about

00:03:28.760 Harry Houdini. Who better represents my thoughts here on somebody who survives, thrives a hundred

00:03:36.300 years or so after his death? People still talk about him. People still know him. People still

00:03:42.040 consider him the greatest. And he's just in the news every day in some form or another. And so I

00:03:49.180 thought, that's the story I want to tell, if I can tell this story about Harry Houdini and why we

00:03:55.180 still care about him. All right. So Houdini is obviously a character that's larger than life.

00:03:59.260 He's become a metaphor almost for lots of different things. Sure. So it's kind of hard to unpack,

00:04:04.360 like, okay, what's the real Harry Houdini, right? Like what's the story? What's the myth? And what is

00:04:08.940 the actual Harry Houdini? So let's talk about like, what is childhood? Like, what do we know about

00:04:12.820 Houdini's childhood? And were there glimpses when he was a boy that he would become this icon in

00:04:18.840 like Western culture? It's really hard to say because so much of what we know about his childhood,

00:04:25.640 we only learned after the fact. It was not the childhood he ever talked about. Harry Houdini was

00:04:31.660 insistent on never being really associated with the character that he was before he named himself

00:04:38.960 Harry Houdini, right? He was Eric Weiss. That was his birth name. He came to America when he was four

00:04:44.680 years old. He was brought over and ended up in Appleton, Wisconsin. His father was the first

00:04:50.320 rabbi at the temple in Appleton before losing his job. And his childhood is essentially very,

00:04:57.260 very bleak. It's a family that had no money, that was really running away from, you know,

00:05:03.040 people collecting rent and food, you know, for his entire childhood, essentially. He ran away from

00:05:10.880 home when he was 12. And he worked very, very hard to cover up that part of his life. He wanted Harry

00:05:18.320 Houdini to be this larger than life character, like you say. And that was very important to him from

00:05:23.920 the very start. So he created this mythology about Houdini, who was born in America, who had this

00:05:30.520 mystical ability to escape from things, even as a boy who, you know, stole his mother's apple cake when

00:05:37.840 he was, you know, just barely a toddler. Even though she locked it up, he figured out how to

00:05:43.640 get into the lock. And, you know, these were the myths that he told about himself again and again

00:05:49.780 and again. And so, you know, there are stories about him being interested in becoming an entertainer.

00:05:57.280 He worked for a brief time with a circus. He probably ran away from home at 12 to join the circus.

00:06:03.440 So it seems like there was definitely this idea of performing in front of people was something that I

00:06:10.360 think was always with him. But I don't know that we could really look at his childhood if we see his

00:06:16.460 true childhood and see what he was going to become. I mean, he definitely created the person that is

00:06:22.700 Harry Houdini.

00:06:24.000 And, you know, something that I thought was interesting, it wasn't until like the 1970s that they finally

00:06:28.480 figured out he wasn't born in Appleton, Wisconsin, that he was born in Budapest.

00:06:31.900 That's right.

00:06:33.120 That's how pervasive the myth was. Like he was able to convince so many people that he was like, well,

00:06:37.160 it's true though. Harry Houdini was born in Appleton, Wisconsin. Eric Weiss was born in Budapest.

00:06:41.440 That's right. No, that's exactly, you said it exactly right. It's interesting. There were really,

00:06:48.500 it was not something people felt like they even needed to check, right? I mean, who would lie about

00:06:53.460 where they were born? And why would you? Especially once you achieved the international worldwide fame of

00:07:01.380 Harry Houdini, what difference does it make, right? But for Houdini, it was so important that

00:07:06.460 when you trace back his life, you trace back to this all-American boy, this all-American childhood,

00:07:14.380 he was not ashamed of the family being poor. He would talk about that some, but he never talked

00:07:20.520 about being born, you know, being an immigrant. He never talked about, you know, not having this sort 0.97

00:07:26.620 American childhood that people could recognize. That was so important to him. And you're right,

00:07:32.080 for many, many years, there was actually, as I write about in the book, in the 1970s, there was a

00:07:38.060 committee put together by a magic organization that spent a year looking into him. They called it the

00:07:44.500 Houdini Birthplace Committee. And they literally spent a year looking into where Harry Houdini was born,

00:07:50.800 finding insurance papers and wills and all these other things to fully say that he was born in

00:07:59.900 Budapest and not born in the United States. And that's, you know, 50 years after his death. So

00:08:06.140 it was pervasive and it was really important to Houdini to make it that way.

00:08:11.400 Well, let's put Houdini on the therapist's couch and talk about his influence, the influence his father

00:08:17.860 and mother had on him throughout his life. Can you talk a little bit about that?

00:08:21.900 Sure, sure. I mean, and we are, we are playing a little bit of therapist and Houdini has always

00:08:27.800 intrigued therapists, particularly because of the very, very close relationship he had with his

00:08:33.320 mother, which was even in his time, very famous. You know, he would call his mother his sweetheart and,

00:08:40.320 you know, the most important woman in the world to him, even after he had been married to Bess for many

00:08:45.500 years. So that has been, you know, that's pretty well covered ground. I mean, it is no question that

00:08:50.500 Houdini basically wanted to create his success in large part to support his mother, to make his

00:08:57.660 mother proud, to achieve these things that he felt like his father never did for her. And so that is

00:09:04.260 interesting. But I've always been, you know, at least since writing this book, I've been at least

00:09:09.480 as interested in the, you know, what his father's impact was. His father, as I mentioned, was a rabbi

00:09:15.520 and, you know, was the first rabbi in Appleton, Wisconsin. So there was some success there, but it

00:09:23.760 was really fleeting. And he spent the rest of his life after he was let go trying to find work. And he

00:09:29.940 was very unsuccessful. I mean, he tried to be, you know, various things. He tried to be, you know,

00:09:36.420 many things as a rabbi. He tried to, you know, to do all kinds of, he sold, tried to sell Jewish books

00:09:42.440 and various other things, but also worked in factories. I mean, he was always, he was kind

00:09:48.360 of a drifter when it came to trying to find work. And I don't know that it was anything other than

00:09:54.000 bad luck, bad timing, you know, being in the wrong place. I don't know that it was something that

00:09:59.720 related to him not, you know, having the ambition. It just seemed like he was defeated by life.

00:10:05.880 And for me, that is really interesting when you look at Houdini, because Houdini,

00:10:11.340 as he grew older, came to represent, in my mind, the exact opposite of his father. He always found

00:10:17.100 work and he always was fighting for money. And he always was pushing to support his mother. And he

00:10:24.860 was always, I think, afraid of becoming in any way, shape or form what his father was. And so I've

00:10:33.020 always thought, even though he would say very respectful things about his father, he would

00:10:37.660 talk about how his father was the smartest person he ever knew and the greatest writer he'd ever knew

00:10:42.820 and all these other things. I think the way he lived his life is pretty direct as opposition to

00:10:48.500 the way his father had lived.

00:10:50.640 It's an archetypical story then in a lot of, you see that in a lot of famous great men.

00:10:55.660 They're just basically trying to be the opposite of their dad.

00:10:57.520 Well, so Houdini, he ran away to the circus, had a penchant for being an entertainer. When did he

00:11:04.060 first start practicing magic? And then I guess maybe it'd be useful to talk about, like, what was

00:11:08.280 the state of magic when Houdini started to get into the business?

00:11:11.480 Well, there were magicians. Obviously, this was long, long, long before television or radio or

00:11:17.760 movies or anything. So, you know, these were magicians who would go from town to town and

00:11:23.500 perform some of them on, you know, very small stages. There were a few fairly big stage magicians.

00:11:31.080 As best we can tell, it was in New York that Houdini started to get interested in magic. And

00:11:37.380 this was after he ran away from home, perhaps tried to join the circus. We don't know exactly

00:11:43.620 what the running away from home thing was about. Even Houdini would say that he didn't even remember

00:11:47.980 exactly what his motivations were. But after running away from home, he ended up in New York and his

00:11:53.260 father joined him there. And he worked in a factory that created neckties. And that was really when it

00:12:00.680 seems like he fell in love with magic, probably through the reading of a book by the guy who

00:12:06.780 would end up being his hero and also, in many ways, his nemesis, Robert Udan, who is even now widely

00:12:13.320 called the father of magic. And Robert Udan was this magician. He was gone by the time that Houdini

00:12:21.540 was reading his autobiography. But he was this very, very famous stage magician who, to this day,

00:12:29.240 gets credit for so many things that magicians still do, you know, dressing up in evening clothes,

00:12:37.460 tuxedos, that kind of thing, you know, creating various kinds of stage magic. And Houdini read this

00:12:44.180 biography and it clearly did have an enormous impact on his life. And he was probably at that point

00:12:50.960 interested enough in magic that he was doing a few things. He had a friend within the necktie factory

00:12:57.140 who also liked magic. And after they read the book, both of them read this autobiography,

00:13:03.880 they decided to create a magic act that they would try to make a living doing magic in small shows in

00:13:11.060 various places. And because, you know, and I'm sure we'll come back to the name, but they named

00:13:17.200 themselves after Robert Udan. They thought it was pronounced Houdin. They added an I to the end of his

00:13:23.820 name, thinking that I would make, there are different reasons that have been given for why they added

00:13:31.220 the I. Some said it's because, you know, they wanted to make it sound exotic. And some thought an I in

00:13:36.340 Italian means it's somebody you want to be like. And they call themselves the Houdini brothers. And of course,

00:13:43.880 his name was Eric Weiss. They called him Ari. So he changed that and Americanized that to Harry. And that's how

00:13:50.100 he became Harry Houdini.

00:13:51.780 And the name is interesting because Houdini, it's something about the name. It's like you always remember it.

00:13:57.780 Like it's hard to forget. What do you think is going on there?

00:14:00.360 It's just, it's, it's just the perfect magic name. I mean, you know, I don't think a couple of kids

00:14:06.360 at the time fully appreciated. I think the name is a very, very big part of the success that he would

00:14:13.420 have. It's, it really is an unforgettable name. There's something mystical about it, something

00:14:19.880 exotic and foreign a little bit about it, but yet it's, it's, you know, it's not like you see it and

00:14:25.360 have trouble pronouncing it or anything. It's, it's, it's always there. And I think it was a big

00:14:31.460 part of, you know, as, as the years would go on, he would fight for the name a little bit. He, he

00:14:36.580 actually had to tear away the name from his friend who, who might've been the one who actually came up

00:14:42.040 with it. They actually had a big fight over the name and, uh, and then other people would start

00:14:46.980 using some version of that name. You know, people who were, were imitators of Houdini would call

00:14:52.780 themselves various other things that sounded like Houdini. And so the name was just always a

00:14:59.400 very, very big part of, of who he was. And, and I do think that, you know, you look back at some of

00:15:05.740 these incredible magicians at the time who were, you know, probably just as popular as he was,

00:15:11.360 but something about their names, you know, just doesn't quite carry through the years the way the

00:15:17.860 name Houdini does. So he started this act with his buddy or the Houdini brothers.

00:15:22.540 Did they, was there an act that put them on the map and kind of put Harry Houdini on the path to

00:15:27.160 becoming, you know, who he is today?

00:15:29.660 Well, the, the answer is yes and no. I mean, they were not very successful and soon the friend left

00:15:37.100 because they were not successful. And then Houdini's own brother joined the act, the, the,

00:15:41.440 his friend's brother joined the act and eventually Bess, who even before she ended up being his wife 0.79

00:15:47.720 joined the act. So, so numerous different people tried to be the Houdini brothers or the Houdini

00:15:53.180 act, or later on, it was just Harry Houdini and, and assistant, whatever, whatever the case may be.

00:15:58.620 But with, with the, the act itself, it was not very successful, but there were already signs

00:16:05.560 of it becoming successful and signs of Houdini, what Houdini would become as the years went on.

00:16:12.200 And my favorite of those was this one act that he called metamorphosis and metamorphosis was,

00:16:18.980 you know, it, it, it could be fairly easy explained. Somebody is essentially tied up

00:16:24.120 and put, you know, all sorts of handcuffs and rope and, and tied up and locked up.

00:16:29.360 And at the beginning, this was Houdini's assistant who was tied up. But, but as the act went on,

00:16:36.220 Houdini realized that he needed to be the one who was tied up, which is obviously a very big part

00:16:40.520 of what Houdini would become, but he would get tied up and then they would put him inside of a,

00:16:45.400 of a giant bag with a drawstring at the top. They would tie the drawstring. Sometimes Houdini would

00:16:51.460 wear, would ask somebody in the crowd to wear, if he could wear his jacket. So he would put on a

00:16:56.460 stranger's jacket before getting tied up. And then they would put this bag with, with the tied up

00:17:01.880 Houdini inside of a, of a chest, a magic chest. They would lock that chest on many different sides,

00:17:08.180 obviously always showing that there was no possible way to escape. And then the assistant,

00:17:13.820 originally his friend, later his wife would say to the crowd, okay, watch the effect. It's going to

00:17:20.520 happen fast. It's going to happen in the count of three. And she would count one, two, and she would

00:17:26.160 lift up this curtain that they had. And then Houdini would say three and pull down the curtain

00:17:32.480 and he was out. And, and, you know, of course this was, this was a very fun act, but the best part of

00:17:39.940 it was that at that point they would then unlock the chest, which of course took time to do all of

00:17:46.280 this. And then they would pull down the bag and there would be his wife in all the ropes, 1.00

00:17:51.820 in all the handcuffs wearing the stranger's jacket. So that was, that was metamorphosis and it was not

00:17:58.260 necessarily a new act. I mean, it really borrowed from a lot of different things that had already

00:18:04.960 been out there, but they made it new. He made it new. He made it because if it was so fast and it was

00:18:10.860 so shocking to, to see on the count of three, there's Harry Houdini, you know, already out of this,

00:18:16.620 out of this chest, the speed of it was, was such a big part of it and people liked it. And, and he

00:18:23.200 did get some very good reviews for it, but it really did not lead to success. It just led him

00:18:29.500 on the path that eventually led him to success. Right. So that prefigures that, that trick

00:18:34.820 metamorphosis prefigures what he became famous for when that was being an escape artist. And I think

00:18:40.400 people, they often associate escape artistry with magic because Houdini was considered a magician,

00:18:46.060 but they're, they're kind of separate genres. So first, like, how did he make that transition

00:18:50.860 from magic to escape artistry? And, you know, what was his first escape trick?

00:18:55.600 Well, he always blended the two, particularly in his younger days, he wanted to be a magician. He

00:19:00.500 didn't necessarily, you know, later on he would, he would say, oh, you know, magicians are a dime a

00:19:05.780 dozen, but escape artists are, you know, the, the rare, this rare thing, but that's not how he wanted

00:19:11.360 to be. And, and really all of his life, he was utterly fascinated with magic. And by magic,

00:19:16.380 we're talking about card tricks. We're talking about illusions. We're talking about, you know,

00:19:21.660 levitation or, or, you know, making something appear or disappear. He was always in love with

00:19:28.300 those sorts of things and would, would do magic throughout his life. And I, you know, there might

00:19:33.860 have been a little resentment later in life, not certainly when he was at the top of his game,

00:19:38.680 but later in life that people didn't appreciate him as a magician as much as they appreciated him

00:19:43.600 as an escape artist. But he always had this escape part of his, of his act. And when he was very young,

00:19:52.120 he came upon this idea of going whatever town he was in. And these were usually at that, at that time,

00:19:58.240 very, very small towns, most of them in the Northeast. He would, before the show, he would go

00:20:04.820 to the local jail and ask them to allow him to put him in handcuffs and put him in a jail cell

00:20:11.540 and see if he could escape. And he would try to bring reporters out there. And this was,

00:20:17.240 you know, I've said many times, this is long before social media. So this was the original,

00:20:21.800 you know, Instagram. This was the original, you know, Snapchat where you're, you're essentially

00:20:27.300 trying to reach out to lots and lots of people through some sort of, you know, really, I think,

00:20:34.580 kind of a TikTok stunt, right? I mean, this is what he tried to do, trying to escape from these

00:20:39.080 jails. And, and they let him do it, you know, not everybody, but, but a lot of these places were

00:20:44.060 intrigued enough by the idea that they let him do it. He was always successful, at least in the early

00:20:48.880 days. And so that was a big part of his act. And, you know, it was, it was separate from the magic

00:20:56.060 that he was doing, but he saw it all as one thing in those days. Later, you know, after many years of

00:21:03.540 failure for him, he came to realize that, you know, as much as he loved the magic, it was really the

00:21:10.500 escape artistry that was, that was his calling card. And, and that was the thing that was going to

00:21:15.340 make him world famous. We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:21:21.480 And now back to the show. Why do you think the escape artistry was like so appealing to like,

00:21:26.620 why, why were people drawn to it? What, why did it become such a huge phenomenon?

00:21:31.460 I think there, you know, at different stages of his career, I think the reason is a little bit

00:21:36.700 different. I think early on the notion of escape to this day is so powerful in our minds. I mean,

00:21:44.620 this is, you know, I know we'll get to this point of the answer to my question, which is why does

00:21:50.820 Houdini still last? Why do we, why do we still care about him? And I think the reason, one of those

00:21:56.700 reasons is that we're just as fascinated by impossible escapes now as we ever were. And, and,

00:22:02.900 you know, you can see that proof every single day when you look at a newspaper somewhere in the world,

00:22:08.900 there is a dog that gets out of a yard and nobody knows why, or there's a,

00:22:13.320 a person who escapes from prison and nobody knows how. And, and those people inevitably

00:22:19.340 are called Houdini in, you know, in the, in the papers, in my world of sports, Houdini is a,

00:22:26.260 you know, constantly being, you know, used for a quarterback who gets out of a, you know,

00:22:31.960 an impossible situation or a pitcher who gets out of a bases loaded jam. We, we, we call them Houdini.

00:22:37.200 And so I think that infatuation that we have, that fascination that we have with escape was always a

00:22:44.980 big part for him. Later, he was also cheating death. So it was this combination, not only of

00:22:50.740 escape, which was, you know, the thing that, that really drove his early success. And later it was,

00:22:56.880 you know, him being underwater, him being, you know, in a dangerous place, getting buried alive. I mean,

00:23:02.060 this was suddenly this thing became about cheating death and, and that took him to an entirely

00:23:07.460 different level. And the other thing too, I thought it was interesting. The distinction between magic

00:23:11.100 and escape artistry, magic, it's supposed to look effortless, painless, but Houdini realized what

00:23:16.920 people want to see is like physical struggle. And he made his acts like it was very physical. And he's

00:23:22.580 it's kind of, I think it ties in with your sports writing. He was almost an athletic event. Like he was

00:23:27.160 trying to show that he was really, really working hard. It wasn't magic. It was like Houdini physically

00:23:33.020 escaping from this stuff. No, that's a hundred percent. Right. I found so many sports analogies. You

00:23:39.240 know, he was an athlete when he was young, he was a boxer, he was a swimmer, he was a runner, you know,

00:23:44.980 had life been different for him, he might've gone into an athletic path. So he was an athlete and I've,

00:23:52.360 I believe, and maybe, you know, I've talked to people in magic about this and some of them,

00:23:57.140 have said, yeah, you know, that's just the sports writer and you talking. But I believe that so

00:24:01.560 much of what made Houdini successful was this athletic, not just the athletic prowess that he

00:24:07.300 had, but this athletic mindset that he had the earliest, you know, when once Houdini became famous,

00:24:13.680 so he, this really happened right at the turn of the century, 1899, 1900, once he went to, to Europe,

00:24:20.920 this is when he became famous. And for, you know, five to 10 years of his fame, his most famous

00:24:28.260 elements of his magic were challenges. People would challenge him to get out of something that

00:24:34.440 they created, whether it was handcuffs they invented or a box that they built or a, or a,

00:24:39.860 you know, an envelope, a football, every single night, he would take on these challenges and he

00:24:46.960 would always escape. He would always win. And, and this was the, this was the act. I mean, this was,

00:24:52.660 this was at the heart of it. And, and it was a different show every night because it was a

00:24:56.380 different challenge every night. That feels like sports to me. I mean, that feels like, Hey, I'm the,

00:25:02.100 I'm the world heavyweight champion, uh, come out every, any night and, and try to beat me. And,

00:25:07.500 you know, so I, I really do feel like that so much of the escape stuff, particularly the stuff when he

00:25:15.960 was accepting challenges really is directly related to sports. The, the other thing that you, that you

00:25:22.120 said, the original name of the book, at least in my mind was the amazing and the impossible. That was,

00:25:29.060 that was what I was going to call the book. Nobody liked it because it doesn't have Houdini's name in it.

00:25:34.060 It doesn't really make sense if you don't, if you don't know the context, but it comes from a quote

00:25:38.200 from a magician who I, we were talking and I said to him, you know, something about Houdini and he

00:25:45.200 said, you know, Houdini was not a magician. He was an escape artist, exactly like what you said.

00:25:49.820 And I said, well, what's the difference? And he said, well, magic is doing the impossible.

00:25:56.820 There is no possible way that you can make, you know, even the smallest version, you can make that coin

00:26:03.800 disappear. You can make that card, you know, show up in my pocket, even the simplest, it's impossible.

00:26:11.140 And what Houdini did was not impossible. It was escaping from these, from these different, 0.94

00:26:16.960 you know, challenges, but it wasn't impossible. It was, it was different. And I said, well,

00:26:22.280 I guess that's true, but you know, look, this guy escaped from, you know, they would throw him in the

00:26:27.920 water inside of, inside of caskets and, and bury him alive and, and, and do all of these other

00:26:33.920 things. I mean, that feels pretty impossible. And he said, no, that's the difference. That's amazing,

00:26:39.380 but it's not impossible. And I think that's the difference between, you know, sort of this escape

00:26:45.980 thing that Houdini made, you know, world famous and magic is, is that it's amazing what Houdini did

00:26:54.140 when he did escapes, but you wouldn't say it was impossible. You know, speaking to the athleticism

00:26:58.980 of Houdini, you had a picture in the book of him, like in a, a swimsuit. It's a singlet basically,

00:27:03.500 and chained up and his legs are just huge. Like they're just, it looks like he like he's, he squats

00:27:08.940 every day. Super muscular. I mean, just, you know, he was, he was a small man in height, but he was so

00:27:17.420 powerful and so flexible in order to do many of these escapes. He had to, he had to get himself in

00:27:25.260 these, in these crazy positions, but he was, he was very, very powerful. He used to go around,

00:27:31.340 speaking of challenges, he loved challenges of any kind. He would take on challenges. He used to have

00:27:36.480 this one challenge where he would see somebody reading a mystery and he would say, tell me, like,

00:27:43.360 read me a paragraph from three places in the book and I'll tell you who the murderer is. Like he,

00:27:48.420 he, he was, he lives for challenges. And one of the challenges was that he would go up to people

00:27:53.740 and he would say, let's, let's see who has bigger biceps. I mean, this was like, this was like a point

00:27:58.840 of pride for him. So he was, he was, yeah, he was absolutely a very, very powerful guy.

00:28:04.100 And in some of these challenges too, he would do naked. Like he'd go to a jail and was like,

00:28:07.480 I'll strip my clothes and you can search me and I'll do this escape act in the buff.

00:28:12.460 And even back then people were like, this is pretty weird. Uh, and even Houdini,

00:28:16.560 he was kind of a prude, like he wasn't, but he was willing to do that.

00:28:20.440 Yeah. I mean, well, it just shows you the ambition of Houdini. I mean, he,

00:28:24.640 it came across the idea at one point, somebody had said, well, he's just hiding keys. You know,

00:28:31.820 I mean, I'm sure more than one person said that he's just hiding them. And he said, I, I,

00:28:36.080 I'm not hiding them and I can prove it. I would, I would do an escape in naked. I, I absolutely,

00:28:41.760 I am not hiding any keys. And at some point the challenge came and, and he did it naked.

00:28:49.540 And then he realized that this was, this was something that, that, uh, yeah, there was,

00:28:55.840 there was a, it's weird, but there was a real power to him doing these, these escapes naked. So

00:29:02.580 he, he went to a photo studio in St. Louis and took photos of himself in chains. This is the ones that

00:29:09.140 people have undoubtedly seen there. There's some of the most famous photos in American

00:29:13.240 pop culture history, uh, of him in chains, basically just wearing a, you know, just a

00:29:19.080 bathing suit of some kind. He's, he's almost entirely naked. And, and this is what he would

00:29:23.900 do. Uh, he would always, he would always say, okay, I'm just strip me down. And, and, you know,

00:29:29.660 because he knew that whatever his secrets were, they did not have anything to do with him hiding a

00:29:35.720 key in a pocket or something like that. I mean, he, he had his own methods. And so he was,

00:29:41.280 he was willing to do whatever it was taken. And it was, you know, he, he was not opposed,

00:29:45.940 even though he was a prude, he was not opposed to being a little bit scandalous if it meant getting

00:29:50.820 a bigger audience. So he had a lot of famous escape acts. He had the, you know, just basically

00:29:56.020 handcuffs. There's a lot of handcuffs challenges that are really famous, right? What was like the,

00:29:59.880 his most famous escape act? And do we still know, do we know how he did it?

00:30:05.800 Well, there, there, there are a couple of escape acts that in my mind are the most famous. I mean,

00:30:11.120 I think most people would tell you that the most famous escape for him was the water torture cell,

00:30:16.240 which he invented. And essentially he would be, you know, taken by the ankles, he'd be put in,

00:30:23.960 you know, strapped in, lifted up and dropped upside down into a tank filled with water.

00:30:30.740 And then they would lock the top of it and Houdini would escape from this, from this water

00:30:35.940 torture cell. And, and that was his most famous. It is the one that you still see people do some

00:30:41.560 version of today. And the answer is we kind of do know how he did it. I don't really write about

00:30:49.680 that. I mean, I do mention something in the book that might interest people about that,

00:30:54.060 but we kind of know how he did it. The one that interested me the most, as I was writing about

00:30:59.840 this book is a very famous escape. It's, it's just a pure handcuff escape, but a very famous escape

00:31:05.480 called the mirror cuffs, which was more than, you know, much more than a hundred years ago. It was

00:31:10.740 1906 or 1904. And essentially these were handcuffs that were brought to him by the daily mirror,

00:31:18.100 the newspaper in London. And they were supposedly built by this, this great locksmith who had spent

00:31:27.740 five years trying to build the most inescapable handcuffs ever built. And there's a, it's a very,

00:31:34.780 very famous story about him wanting, you know, trying to refuse the challenge, but then of course,

00:31:41.540 accepting it and going on stage and, and him being on stage for essentially an hour and a half,

00:31:46.540 you know, doing various different things and, and he keeps coming out. You know, he was, he used to do

00:31:52.540 all of his escapes behind a curtain or inside something he would call a little, a little ghost

00:31:57.760 house. He had like a little, a little place on stage so people couldn't see him. And three or four

00:32:03.140 times during this act, he came out and people cheered, but he wasn't out of, of the cuffs. He,

00:32:10.380 he, you know, came out once to ask for a pillow and he came out once saying he needed lights. And

00:32:15.000 anyway, it was, it was a very involved escape. And eventually he gets out and the place goes

00:32:22.660 absolutely crazy. And it's, you know, it might be the most famous escape in magic history. And that

00:32:29.200 one is super cool because we don't know how he did it. I mean, we, there are many, many people that

00:32:34.120 have come up with theories about it, including me, but we don't know for sure. And we never will know

00:32:39.100 for sure. And Houdini himself never told anybody or, or, or if he did, it was, it was something that

00:32:47.460 he told them to keep a secret to their, to the grave. One of my favorite little stories about the

00:32:52.080 mirror cuffs, which still exist. They, you can still, you can't see them because David Copperfield has

00:32:58.300 them in his museum in Las Vegas, which is not open to the public, but it is open to researchers.

00:33:04.400 A few people have been there. I was there. I got to see it there. It's, it's incredibly cool,

00:33:09.460 but there's a very famous story about them that his wife got the mirror cuffs after,

00:33:14.400 after he was gone and a magician came over and said, Oh, there are the mirror cuffs. Can I open them?

00:33:21.060 And she said, no, nobody ever opens them. They're never to be opened. And so, so I've always loved that.

00:33:27.420 That's, that to me is really cool that there's still this mystery from more than a hundred years

00:33:32.160 ago that still exists today. So one of the themes that you see throughout your book,

00:33:36.340 I think you did a good, did a good job capturing is the ambition of Harry Houdini and this guy,

00:33:41.620 he was making money hand over fist and one of the most famous people in the world, but yet he lived

00:33:46.580 a really modest lifestyle. You know, people described him as dressing like a bum, his taste and food were

00:33:50.900 really simple. So if it wasn't money, what was driving Houdini his entire life?

00:33:56.040 Well, what's interesting is he was interested in money, but not interested in it for money's sake.

00:34:03.300 He just wanted to be the highest paid. That was incredibly important to him. And he had

00:34:07.780 terrible fights with promoters throughout his life because he felt like they were cheating him.

00:34:14.040 They weren't giving Houdini his, his, his fair, his fair due. So he wanted money, but he didn't care

00:34:20.840 for money. He wanted fame because that's how it related to money. And so his ambition for fame

00:34:30.340 was, you know, it was utterly insatiable. There, there was no, there was no amount of fame that he

00:34:37.760 could get that was enough. And, and not only that, there was no amount of fame he could reach where he

00:34:44.280 didn't have a constant and persistent fear that he was going to lose it. I mean, this was, this was

00:34:50.860 his, his thing. And, and, and so, you know, he would, he would, he, when he had his money, he would

00:34:58.040 spend so much of it on promoting himself. That was, that was where so much of his money went. He also

00:35:04.600 spent a lot of money on magic books, magic tricks. He was a, he was a tremendous collector,

00:35:10.200 not only of magic, but mostly of magic, but also other things. He was always a scrapbook keeper.

00:35:16.360 It's kind of a interesting elements of, of him as a, as a little bit of a, of an amateur historian,

00:35:22.860 but most of the money he would spend, he would spend on, on making sure that he was even more

00:35:27.660 famous next week. And, and so he would, he was constantly, you know, out there trying to get

00:35:34.340 reporters to do more things about him. He was constantly creating new and scarier illusions.

00:35:40.200 To try to, to try to get more famous. He went into the movies very early on in the silent film

00:35:46.340 stage to try to get more famous. That, I think that was his, I wouldn't say, maybe it was, I was

00:35:53.460 going to say, I wouldn't say that it's the only thing, but maybe it was, he had a singular ambition

00:35:58.160 for fame. And I don't know, I guess there are people that we could think of that are like that now,

00:36:03.540 but, uh, there's no question that what he wanted was for everybody to not only know Harry Houdini,

00:36:10.460 but respect him and admire him and, and think of him as the greatest in whatever field he was in.

00:36:16.880 Yeah. So he kind of, he's, he did a lot to contribute to sort of the celebrity culture

00:36:20.720 that we have today. Yeah. Yeah. And this kind of ties into with what, you know, the Babe Ruth

00:36:25.420 connection, because Babe Ruth, one of the reasons like we know so much about him is that he had,

00:36:30.180 you know, PR people who created this persona of the Babe and Houdini did something similar,

00:36:36.360 but he did it himself. Yeah, that's right. Well, I mean, it's, it's really interesting because

00:36:41.120 Babe Ruth did not really engineer his own fame. It was really the sports writers who did,

00:36:48.340 and they did it because they love the story, you know, they love the Babe and love the story. And,

00:36:54.960 and, and, and it, it, it made so much sense for them. You know, they were out there trying to,

00:37:00.740 to, to make a living as well. And, and people ate up Babe Ruth's story. So, so that was a big part,

00:37:06.420 but you're right with Houdini, it was all self-driven. I mean, as, as the years went on after his death,

00:37:13.740 there have been many, many people who have picked up the, uh, you know, picked up the banner. And of

00:37:18.360 course, that's a very big part of my book is writing about all of these people who have been

00:37:22.100 fascinated by Houdini through the years. But when he was alive, that was him literally, you know,

00:37:28.420 sending his clips to every newspaper in the country, making sure that he had advanced people

00:37:33.940 in every town that would be able to tell him, you know, how he was going to break through in Boston

00:37:38.760 or Washington or Philadelphia or New York or wherever he was going. And, and so, yeah, he was,

00:37:44.560 it was really self-driven for him. So something that happened later on in his career is he got into the

00:37:51.120 business of debunking spiritualist. Yes. For those who aren't familiar with spiritualism,

00:37:55.160 can you give us sort of a brief summary of the movement and then talk about Houdini's involvement?

00:37:59.200 Because he, at one point early on in his career, he did, he dabbled in spiritualism.

00:38:02.960 He did. He did. The spiritualist movement is, is really fascinating. And, and, you know,

00:38:07.800 there are many other books and I would recommend if people are interested in it there, it's very,

00:38:13.120 very interesting. I give a very brief, but hopefully interesting, uh, you know,

00:38:18.960 explainer of how spiritualism came about. It basically began with these sisters who claimed 0.56

00:38:25.060 that they could talk to the spirit in their home and, and, you know, they would do it through a

00:38:30.020 series of knocks where they would ask questions and, and this spirit would respond with various knocks.

00:38:36.300 And, and eventually they created a whole code and, and a way for, for the, uh, for the spirit to,

00:38:42.500 to, to actually talk to them. And in, through these, you know, however many knocks they did or the

00:38:47.500 pattern of the knocks. And, and this created a, quite a phenomenon in, in this is, you know,

00:38:53.700 well before Houdini, 20, 30, 40 years, uh, before he was even born. But this, this spiritualism is

00:39:00.600 really what led directly to, to much of what Houdini did as an escape artist, which is a whole

00:39:07.440 other element of this thing. That's kind of fun. This, the idea of escaping from, uh, ropes and

00:39:13.660 boxes and this sort of thing actually began with spiritualism and shows that were not about escape,

00:39:20.460 but more about trying to prove that spirits were with them when there was actually these people

00:39:26.320 who had escaped from ropes and were actually doing the work themselves. Anyway, this led to a huge

00:39:31.480 movement. And obviously there is long been, it always will be, I suppose, this fascination of,

00:39:36.940 can we reach out to, to those we have lost? Can we reach out to the, to the dead? And,

00:39:42.020 and spiritualism was particularly powerful after traumatic, tragic events. I mean, it was, uh,

00:39:50.740 after World War I, which is when Houdini really was out there debunking it. It had, it had found a new

00:39:56.500 life. It had found a new life at a big life after the civil war, which is, which is when it really

00:40:01.360 started to become so big in America. So Houdini, when he was very young and a performer with his wife,

00:40:09.400 he actually did a little bit of, you know, these seances where he would have claimed to be able

00:40:15.940 to talk to these people's, uh, you know, dead relatives and, and ask them questions. And,

00:40:21.360 and, you know, he, he, he was quite good at it, uh, because, because he would, he would walk through

00:40:27.420 cemeteries and learn secrets and talk to people in town and, and find out things that he supposedly

00:40:33.480 could never know. He was very good at that, but he hated it. Even from the very start,

00:40:38.520 he felt like he was, he was, this was, he was, he was always fine with fooling people. He was always

00:40:44.460 fine with, with, uh, convincing people something that wasn't true, but it had to be to entertain.

00:40:50.980 It had to be a positive thing. And, and he felt like this was really taking advantage of people in

00:40:56.980 pain. And so he really hated it. And then after his mother passed away through a, through a long

00:41:04.000 series of, of, of different things, it eventually led to him saying, not only did he, did he hate it

00:41:10.160 and would never take part of it, but he felt like it was his responsibility to unmask all of these

00:41:16.460 people, show how they did it and prove that spiritualism did not exist. It became a huge part

00:41:23.040 of his, of his show. It, it became a big part of his life. He actually spoke to Congress

00:41:28.060 at one point about it. I mean, it was, it was a very big part of, of the last few years of Harry

00:41:33.320 Houdini. In typical Harry Houdini fashion, not only like, yeah, he was definitely righteous about it.

00:41:37.840 Like he definitely was sincere about it, but this also helped his fame and celebrity. Right. Yeah.

00:41:42.900 Well, and that's the interesting thing. Uh, when you look at Houdini's career, whenever he needed

00:41:48.180 something so he could stick, get back on top, he found it, you know, and, and so when the escape

00:41:55.520 act started to lose a little bit of the audience, he really created this, this idea of death and

00:42:02.200 danger in his act. And when that started to fade a little bit, although that never fully faded,

00:42:07.740 but when it started to fade a little bit, he, you know, he really did not have the success he wanted

00:42:13.000 in the movies. This spiritualism thing, I think you said it exactly right. I think it was very

00:42:18.340 legitimate. It was, it was not an act. He wasn't doing it just to be famous, but it did make him

00:42:24.120 famous again. And, and there's no question he, he liked playing that up. So yeah, he was, he was

00:42:30.020 somebody who I think always did follow where his instincts took him, but he, those instincts also

00:42:36.040 always took to putting him back on top in the entertainment world. All right. So Houdini, uh,

00:42:42.020 I think people know how he dies. It's sort of a myth or this sort of well-worn story. He

00:42:46.480 take part in a challenge. Uh, some guys said, I heard you let anyone sock you in the stomach as

00:42:52.280 hard as they can. And he gets punched in the stomach, wasn't ready for it. And then a couple

00:42:56.740 of days later he dies from the punch. I mean, is that what do we, do we know of like that the

00:43:00.960 punch is what did him in or was there some sort of underlying cause that the punch may have

00:43:04.760 exacerbated? Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm more on that line. I think he already, uh, had appendicitis

00:43:10.940 and was already, you know, quite ill when, when the punch happened, but I do think it

00:43:15.980 exacerbated it. And, uh, yeah, I mean, it was, it was really quickly afterward. And so

00:43:21.480 when people say, did the punch kill him? My answer is sort of yes, but not because I think

00:43:28.460 it created the peronitis that eventually killed him. But I think he was so embarrassed by the

00:43:35.340 fact that somebody's punch could create pain that he simply refused to get treatment. If he

00:43:40.600 had gotten treatment afterward, he would, he would have, even, even in those days with the medical

00:43:45.000 knowledge they had, then they would have removed his appendix and he would have been okay,

00:43:49.040 but he refused. He kept at, he kept performing. And like you say, it was five, five, six days later,

00:43:55.880 he was in Detroit and he was gone, you know? So, so it was, I don't think the punch itself created

00:44:02.880 the thing that killed him, but I do think the punch was a very, very big part of his death.

00:44:08.560 But how do you think the way he died? How did that influence his legacy?

00:44:13.120 Well, there's no question. It had a huge influence. I mean, he died young. I mean,

00:44:17.060 that's always, you know, that's the James Dean, you know, theory, I think, right? That dying young

00:44:23.020 is, is always going to sort of push the legacy. He died on Halloween. That's, you know, that's,

00:44:30.100 there's something powerful about that. He died at a time when he was doing all of this

00:44:35.840 spiritualism debunking. So death was so much a part of who he was anyway. And so it was,

00:44:44.120 I think his death was a very, very big part of, of why he lived on. And, you know, the,

00:44:49.940 to me, the biggest part of why he lived on is because his wife, Bess, wouldn't let him die. I mean,

00:44:54.220 she, she basically spent the next 20 years after his death or more promoting Harry Houdini and,

00:45:02.220 and eventually getting a movie made about him with Tony Curtis that gave him an all new life in,

00:45:08.260 in the 1950s. So, so I think that's the biggest reason, but yeah, you know, dying in a weird way

00:45:14.980 on Halloween when he was young and, and sort of still in his prime was, was definitely a big part

00:45:20.960 of, of why he still matters. So in this book, you talk to magicians today who all of them said

00:45:27.660 at one point, like Houdini was the guy that got them into magic. They saw, uh, they read a Houdini

00:45:32.720 book when they were a kid, they saw a Houdini poster and they're like, that's what I'm going to do.

00:45:37.260 But all of them kind of concurred that Houdini wasn't much of a magician. He was okay. There were,

00:45:43.340 there were better magicians, but nonetheless, Houdini is still this archetypal magician.

00:45:47.460 So how did this sort of okay magician become the archetypal magician?

00:45:52.640 Well, you know, I, I like my friend, magician, Joshua J says he, he said, you know, is,

00:46:01.140 is Bob Dylan the greatest, you know, performer songwriter ever? I mean, you, you could argue,

00:46:07.600 maybe he is, you could argue, maybe he isn't, but there's no question that the times were perfect

00:46:13.660 for him, you know, coming up in the sixties, exactly at that time in that world, when he could

00:46:20.260 have that sort of stage was a big part of why Bob Dylan became, you know, something larger than

00:46:25.800 life. And, and his argument is Houdini had the same thing that, that he, he came along at exactly

00:46:31.700 the right time. What he did, the escapes that he did made him, you know, had him stand out.

00:46:38.840 Even at a time where there were better magicians, there was nobody who was Houdini. There was nobody

00:46:43.520 who took up all the oxygen that Houdini did. And the way he spoke to people, you know, the way his,

00:46:49.000 his act spoke to people was different. You know, there were, there were other people who were,

00:46:54.280 who were, you know, very famous magicians, but that's what they were. And Houdini was not as

00:46:58.780 easy to classify. So I think that's a big part of it. The thing I find utterly fascinating and

00:47:06.040 interesting is that so many of these magicians, exactly as you say, you know, somewhere very,

00:47:13.880 very early on in the process of them realizing that they, that they were in love with this idea

00:47:20.360 of creating magic, creating wonder, every one of them just about at some point very early on

00:47:27.580 came upon Houdini because he is the most famous magician even now. So they came upon him,

00:47:33.160 they came to understand him and they, he was part of their journey into magic. Every one of them,

00:47:40.220 I think would say that somewhere along the way, Houdini was there, was there. But then as they

00:47:46.360 get on in magic, they come to realize that like laymen, which is what they call the rest of us,

00:47:53.700 we're the, we're the muggles, right? The ones that, that don't, that don't know anything about magic.

00:47:58.920 We all just think Houdini was the greatest everything. You know, the average person thinks

00:48:03.060 Houdini was the greatest magician because he's the one magician you've heard of.

00:48:06.120 So there's a little resentment that comes along from this, you know, there's a resentment that,

00:48:11.580 and, you know, so I, I got a lot of people in magic who said, ah, he was, he was not only not a

00:48:17.440 particularly good magician, he was a terrible magician. I mean, there, there, there are those

00:48:21.920 that think he was, he was actually a hack when it came to, to doing card tricks or doing various

00:48:27.800 other illusions and that he was not a magician at all, that he was a stunt man. And, and,

00:48:33.120 and there's a real resentment that builds up. And I think that's just inevitable when you're the

00:48:37.900 biggest and you're the most famous and, and, and people just attach everything in magic to

00:48:44.200 a certain person, the way that I think people do with magic and Houdini. Uh, I think that resentment

00:48:50.400 is absolutely natural. And why do you think Houdini still captivate people today? Like,

00:48:55.980 and you talk, even in the book, I love you just like, just count all the things that are named

00:48:59.980 after Houdini in the popular culture. Why is that? Well, I think there are, you know,

00:49:05.900 a bunch of different reasons, some that we've already gone over the name and, and the way he

00:49:10.700 died and, and the fact that he was such a larger than life figure, the myth that he created,

00:49:16.960 the way that we appreciate escape even now and, and, and find ourselves enthralled by,

00:49:23.180 by the idea of escape. But I, I think that there's something that is sort of people like,

00:49:30.940 there are not a lot. I mean, there are, I don't want to say that it's, it's not a big community.

00:49:35.580 There is a community of people in America that love magic. Right. But I think there are lots of

00:49:41.140 people who like it, like magic. They're, they're not huge magic fans, but they, they'll see magic on

00:49:48.020 America's got talent or, or they'll, they'll, you know, see a magician perform at their, at their

00:49:53.860 kid's birthday party or something. And they're like, this is fun, right? This is, this is interesting

00:50:00.860 and fun. And if you see a good magician, you don't, you don't appreciate that really is an art form.

00:50:06.740 I mean, at the, at the highest levels, it's, it's an extraordinary art, but you don't realize that

00:50:12.500 you're, you're just watching it. It's just fun. It's just fun stuff. And so because I think so

00:50:18.900 many people are drawn to that fun, Houdini is the guy. It's, I mean, if you're, if you're interested

00:50:25.460 in magic, if you're a kid and you're interested in magic, the book in your school library is going

00:50:30.580 to be about Houdini. And the, the first person that somebody is going to say to you, you're going

00:50:35.300 to say, oh, you know what? Magic is kind of cool. What's, what's the story with magic? They're going to

00:50:39.060 be like, oh, well, let me tell you about Harry Houdini. He, he reached a level, I think that

00:50:44.160 makes him sort of synonymous with magic for so many people. And I know there are lots of people

00:50:50.600 in magic who are not, they don't love that. They wish that, that some of the other great magicians

00:50:56.440 would get their say. And, and there are a lot of great magicians today. You know, some that people

00:51:01.540 know, I mean, Penn and Teller and David Copperfield and David Blaine, and there are a few that people

00:51:07.180 know, and there are a bunch who are just extraordinary artists who do things that

00:51:12.260 Houdini could never have dreamed of doing, who are completely or virtually unknown. And, and I think

00:51:18.760 that, that that's just sort of how it has to be. I think magic is, is something it's a, it's, it is a

00:51:24.520 world all its own. But I think that for people who are, who are just intrigued by it, who are just

00:51:30.240 interested by it, which is kind of everybody or most people I know have at least some connection,

00:51:36.300 you know, their, their, their uncle did magic tricks or something. They have some connection

00:51:40.900 to magic and for them, it will always be Houdini. I mean, he's, that's, that's just where Houdini

00:51:46.880 placed himself.

00:51:48.580 Well, Joe, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book

00:51:51.420 and your work?

00:51:53.120 Well, the book they should be able to find everywhere. I hope it's called the life and

00:51:56.400 afterlife of Harry Houdini. And I think it is, you know, you can get the paperback and get the

00:52:01.840 hardcover, you can get the audio book, which is, which is really good. I didn't read it.

00:52:06.100 So it's, it's really, it's really good. As far as my work goes, I've got a book coming out

00:52:11.320 this fall called the baseball 100, where I went back to my world of sports and did a countdown of

00:52:17.500 the hundred greatest baseball players ever. It is a mammoth. It is 300,000 words. It is this mammoth

00:52:24.680 book as I tell the stories of these hundred players and hopefully tell the history of baseball through

00:52:29.460 these hundred players. I'm online. I'm on Twitter at Jay Posnanski. And, and I'm a senior writer

00:52:35.920 for the athletics. So you can find me there as well. I'm, I'm around, I'm around, I think.

00:52:42.540 All right. Well, Joe Posnanski, thanks so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:52:45.040 Thank you.

00:52:46.540 My guest here is Joe Posnanski. He's the author of the book,

00:52:48.940 The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini. It's available on amazon.com and bookstores

00:52:52.280 everywhere. You can find out more information about his work at his website,

00:52:54.900 joeposnanski.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash Houdini.

00:52:58.980 We can find links to resources. We can delve deeper into this topic.

00:53:08.720 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website at

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00:53:42.340 this is Brett McKay, reminding you not only listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

00:53:55.760 Thank you.

The Art of Manliness - April 14, 2021

The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini

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