Acts of Violet(31)
Tell me something. You ever slow your car down to get a closer look at a traffic accident?
CAMERON FRANK: Actually, no. But I’m not denying it’s human nature.
ACE MORGAN: Maybe you’re just a better human that the rest of us, huh? I think we should be better than that. But most of us aren’t. Violet should’ve been better than that. She didn’t need the bells and whistles. She should’ve cared about her craft more than her popularity. That’s why I did Magic Secrets Uncovered.
CAMERON FRANK: And you benefited pretty well from it. Why did you scrap the second TV special? Some have speculated Volk’s people paid you off.
ACE MORGAN: If they did, I bet they would’ve also had me sign an NDA to keep my mouth shut about it. But they didn’t. I just didn’t want to do a second special. Moving on.
CAMERON FRANK: Are there any specific illusions Violet performed that you’ve never been able to figure out?
ACE: Yes. In the Picture.
CAMERON FRANK [STUDIO]: If there was a single trick Violet Volk was known for, it was this one. In it, she would invite a group of volunteers onstage, and snap a photograph of them with a Polaroid camera. A small glass box would descend from the ceiling, and once the volunteers confirmed it was empty, Violet would place the photo in the box, which was raised just above their heads, connected to a projector screen. Though the audience couldn’t see the image as it developed, they could keep an eye on the Polaroid to make sure it wasn’t being tampered with.
Meanwhile, Violet would talk about how she’s never considered herself to be photogenic, how she preferred to be the one behind the camera instead of in front of it. She’d say the only person she trusted to take a decent photo of her was … herself. Remember, this is years before selfie culture and social media.
During her spiel, she’d use a stepladder to peek at the Polaroid in the box, keeping her arms behind her back. Violet spoke about how being in the public eye made it necessary to get over her camera inhibitions, particularly when fans asked for a photo with her. Fortunately, she said, she had found a way to do so. She promised she’d pose for a photo as long as she could take one of just them first.
This is when the box would rotate ninety degrees forward, revealing the Polaroid fully developed. The volunteers would be shown clustered together exactly as they posed for the camera … but there would be an extra person in the photo: Violet Volk.
ACE MORGAN: Nobody’s been able to figure out how she did that effect. Any magician who’s tried to copy it has ended up with a piss-poor imitation. Yeah, I’m still stumped by that one.
CAMERON FRANK: What do you think happened to Violet?
ACE MORGAN: I’m still asking myself. I hope she left by choice. Showbiz has a way of giving you everything while bleeding you dry. If she rigged her disappearance like she rigged everything else, chances are she’ll get bored of living under the radar. She could piss me off like nobody else, but … it wouldn’t be the worst thing, to see her again. Who doesn’t love a good comeback story?
CAMERON FRANK: If she did leave by choice, do you have any thoughts on how she could’ve pulled off such a disappearing act?
ACE MORGAN: Sure I do. But I’m gonna keep those to myself. When I broke my magician’s oath before, it was for a good reason. I wanted to shake things up, get performers to stop relying on all the same old illusions and breathe some new life into the craft. Violet did that with effects like In the Picture. She amazed all of us and got the world talking about magic. This time around, there’d be no good reason to break my oath again except to be a dick.
Here’s the thing. The older you get, the more you see what a shithole the world is. You lose your innocence and that’s it, it’s gone. You just keep going down this dark one-way street getting more and more jaded.
That sense of wonder you feel watching a really great magic trick, for me, it’s like a weapon against cynicism, the closest you can get to recapturing some of that innocence. Violet’s final disappearing act—for all the chaos it created—it’s still a great fucking trick. I’m not gonna mess with it. Let the world keep wondering.
[MALE VOICE]: He wouldn’t tell you, huh? What a hypocritical prick … I’m guessing nobody told you about her secret performances, either … Man, there’s so much people don’t know about her …
CAMERON: That’s Benjamin Martinez, Violet’s former choreographer and ex-husband. He has a lot to say about Violet Volk. We’ll hear from him next time.
Sasha
February 13, 2018
“‘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 of 1922…’”
I switch off the podcast and put on a Madonna playlist.
It’s a Tuesday afternoon in the salon, and Gabriel is sweeping up hair while I’m at the reception desk computer, looking over sales reports from the last month.
“That might be a new record. You made it—what, fifteen seconds into an episode this time?” he teases.
“I don’t love Cameron’s smug smooth-guy voice, it irks the crap out of me. But can I tell you how much I do love this new POS system?” I click between tabs, making a list of hair products to reorder. “I no longer want to kill myself doing inventory.”