Acts of Violet(28)
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Vanishing Violet
* * *
Dear Mr. Frank,
Very good. I must secure a new location for myself, but you will hear from me again soon.
Sincerely yours,
?
* * *
Date: February 13, 2018, at 9:05 AM
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Sasha update
* * *
You’ve had a month now. What’s the latest?
—TW
Tobin Woods
Editorial Director & Cofounder
Sidecar Studios
* * *
Date: February 13, 2018, at 9:36 AM
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Sasha update
* * *
I visited her at the salon just a couple of weeks ago. We had a brief chat. Still looking to set something up after the vigil, maybe late February/early March.
In the meantime, I’ve just come across an intriguing new lead claiming to have Violet intel. The info is so major, they’re remaining anonymous for now.
—CF
* * *
Date: February 13, 2018, at 9:42 AM
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Sasha update
* * *
We’re doing an entertainment podcast here, not bringing down Richard Nixon. Forget Deep Throat and get me Sasha.
Strange Exits
Episode 3: “Ace Morgan”
CAMERON FRANK [STUDIO]: Harry Houdini, history’s most legendary magician, boasted that he could figure out any illusion if he saw it performed three times. That is, until February 1922, when a young magician named Dai Vernon performed a card trick for him. Vernon had Houdini sign the ace of spades, slipped it beneath the top card, and squared the deck. A second later, Vernon turned over the top card, revealing the signed ace of spades. Puzzled at how his card had risen to the top of the deck, Houdini asked to see the trick a second time and a third, and Vernon obliged, adding a fourth and fifth demonstration, to no avail. Dai Vernon became known as “The Man Who Fooled Houdini,” and the illusion, dubbed the Ambitious Card, is a staple of the magician’s repertoire to this day.
Anyone who’s seen a magic show has likely seen a variation of this trick; sometimes the chosen card isn’t signed but bent or marked with an X and placed in the center of the deck. Sometimes the card isn’t marked at all, but instead of resurfacing at the top of the deck, it reappears in a wallet, pocket, shoe, behind a pane of glass, or is even coughed up by the performer. Among magicians, the trick is often used as a type of business card: each puts their own personal spin on it.
When Ace Morgan performed the Ambitious Card at Cyndi Yanoff’s eleventh birthday party in 1988, he was upstaged by a fifth grader named Violet Volkov. According to Willow Glen librarian Eleanor Toback, Violet hijacked his routine, making the selected card turn up in Cyndi’s birthday cake and then shocking partygoers by levitating a foot in the air.
Was this all truly unplanned? Or was it the inauguration of a decade-long mentorship that had already been in progress?
Today I’ll be sharing a conversation I had with magician and creative consultant Ace Morgan. Born Aesop Morgenstern, he grew up in Brooklyn and got an agent at sixteen, booking professional gigs as a magician, at which time he adopted the stage name he still uses to this day. He spent his twenties performing around the United States and Canada, establishing himself as a master of close-up magic. In fact, he won the Platinum Wand in the Close-Up Division of the 1989 International Magic Symposium, one of the most prestigious awards in the world of illusion. If there were an Olympics for magic, Morgan would be a gold medalist.
All of which is to say, when the Yanoffs hired a magician to perform at their daughter’s eleventh birthday, they spent good money to hire one of the best.
For much of his career, Ace Morgan didn’t receive the level of media attention his contemporaries did and was nowhere near as high-profile as his protégée Violet Volk. That changed in 1998, when he was unmasked as the disguised star of Magic Secrets Uncovered, a two-hour television special that revealed how some of the world’s most popular effects were performed. While the program received top ratings, it caused outrage in the magic community, where secrecy is paramount. He was swiftly banned from the Alcazar and nearly stripped of his Platinum Wand. Violet Volk was among those who voiced their outrage, because several of her most guarded and well-known illusions had been exposed.
While Morgan’s reputation was tarnished among his professional peers, television networks were clamoring to secure him for additional programs in which he’d spill more magic secrets. Soon the trades announced another TV special for Christmas, but a few weeks later, it was scrapped, with no explanation from the network or Morgan, who stated he chose to pursue other projects. He has not performed since then, opting to remain behind the scenes, working as a creative consultant in Los Angeles.
We caught up recently over the phone.
ACE MORGAN: I’m telling ya, I was as shocked as everyone else at that kid’s party.