DC -- Library of Congress -- Exhibit (Coolidge): Harry Houdini Collection:
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Description of Pictures: NBF Presents: Neil Patrick Harris | The Magic Misfits: The Minor Third
Join us for the kick-off event of the Library of Congress National Book Festival Presents series for an exciting evening of magic and moderated conversation with award-winning actor and author Neil Patrick Harris as he celebrates the publication of the third book in his New York Times bestselling book series, The Magic Misfits: The Minor Third.
Ticket holders will be invited to view a ‘magical’ display of the Library’s Harry Houdini collection in the Whittall Pavilion prior to the start of the event. The display will be available for viewing from 6:00pm – 7:00pm on the night of the program.
There will be a signing after the presentation.
Politics and Prose is proud to be the bookseller for this event.
Same Event: Wait! There's more! Because I took too many pictures, photos from this event were divided among the following pages:
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2019_09_11A1_NPHarris: Library of Congress -- Event: Neil Patrick Harris ("The Magic Misfits: The Minor Third") (205 photos from 09/11/2019)
2019_09_11B_NPHarris_Houdini: DC -- Library of Congress -- Exhibit (Coolidge): Harry Houdini Collection (84 photos from 09/11/2019)
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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
LOCHOU_190911_010.JPG: The Final Seance
"World Wide Final Houdini Seance Held by Mrs. Harry Houdini, conducted by Dr. Edward Saint, Hallowe'en, Oct. 31, 1936."
Typewritten manuscript, with holograph corrections, 1936.
LOCHOU_190911_014.JPG: To President Coolidge
An Open Letter to His Excellency Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States. Signed by Houdini.
LOCHOU_190911_018.JPG: To Arthur Conan Doyle
Harry Houdini to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Typewritten letter signed. Sheffield, March 17, 1920.
LOCHOU_190911_022.JPG: Spirit Photographs
Photo Album. Spirit Photographs from the Houdini Collection. Ca. 1920.
An album of 25 photographic prints of portraits of men and women with ghost images appearing in the frame of each photograph.
LOCHOU_190911_026.JPG: With Teddy Roosevelt
LOCHOU_190911_031.JPG: "Last Look at Mother"
Photograph of Houdini aboard a ship, 1913.
"Last look at Mother from boat, 1913." This would indeed be Houdini's last glimpse of his mother, Cecilia. She died while Houdini was touring Europe in 1913.
LOCHOU_190911_042.JPG: Houdini, King of Cards
LOCHOU_190911_053.JPG: Michelle Krowl (left) and Mark Dimunation, chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division (right)
LOCHOU_190911_061.JPG: "Greatest Throng Providence Saw Marvels as Harry Houdini Performs an Extra Hazardous Feat."
Providence, RI, Evening News, March 7, 1917.
LOCHOU_190911_067.JPG: The Challenge Performance
Scrapbook documenting challenges to Houdini.
LOCHOU_190911_090.JPG: Foreign Magicians
Scrapbook 44 from the Houdini Collection, entitled "Foreign Magicians," is filled with programmes and ephemera of Maskelyne & Cooke, Robert-Houdin, Madame Cora, and other performers.
LOCHOU_190911_104.JPG: Houdini's Stationery
Houdini: World's Greatest Mystery Man and Escape King, Known in Every Country on the Globe. Houdini's stationery.
Includes at bottom the Funk and Wagnall's definition of the newly coined term "houdinize," meaning "to release or extricate oneself from (confinement, bonds, or the like), as by wriggling out."
LOCHOU_190911_121.JPG: The Prop List
Houdini's Scene and Prop List
LOCHOU_190911_126.JPG: The Inventory Book
This ledger book, referred to as "The Inventory Book," lists the contents of crates and trunks, as well as other items owned by Houdini, presumably carried with him on the road. Covering the period 1911-1926, the book also refers to titles of antiquarian books, perhaps identifying those collected along the way and transported with the show, until Houdini returned home and added them to his library.
LOCHOU_190911_136.JPG: "I Had No Dress Suit"
Photograph: Harry Houdini, 1906.
Margin annotated as: "taken in 1906 in Chicago. I had no dress suit so I borrowed A[ugust]. Roterberg's + here it is. H. Houdini."
LOCHOU_190911_138.JPG: Harry Houdini's Scrapbooks
The future "Genius of Escape Who Will Startle and Amaze" ran away from home when he was twelve. A postcard from "Your truant son, Ehrich Weiss," to the mother he adored is the earliest example of Harry Houdini's handwriting in the collections of the Library of Congress, relic of the early evasion by the young man who had been born Erik Weisz in Budapest, Hungary, on March 24. 1874.
Throughout his life, Houdini explored, with depth and passion, the history and practice of the illusion arts. He administered the record of his own career with equal passion, and willed his entire collection to the Library of Congress. Ever the self-promoter, Houdini maintained scrapbooks of all of his promotional advertising.
LOCHOU_190911_163.JPG: One of the "Early Books"
Hoffmann, Professor.
Tricks with Cards. New York: Routledge, 1890
Inscribed by Houdini: "May 6, 1916. This book is one of the 'early books' in my library. In those days it was my wont to go to public libraries, but this book I bot [sic] and here it is. It was a lot of money for me in those days, but life's pathway is not always best at the early mileage, though the early days were the happiest of my life. H.H."
Houdini notes: "The sig[nature] is the way I used to sing myself. H.H."
On inside front cover, beneath Houdini's bookplates: Erich Weiss Houdini, Prestidigitatauer [sic], Spt. 28, 1893.
LOCHOU_190911_184.JPG: Newmann the Great, ca 1930
LOCHOU_190911_196.JPG: Carter the Great. The World's Weird Wonderful Wizard, 1920s
LOCHOU_190911_229.JPG: Carla Hayden and Michelle Krowl
LOCHOU_190911_230.JPG: Carla Hayden and Michelle Krowl
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Signage: You'll see a lot of signs in this group. Eventually, I'll type the text of the signs into the subject description and get rid of the signs themselves. This is pretty slow and tedious work though.
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
2017_DC_Preserving_PP1_171103 Library of Congress -- Event: Preserving Public Broadcasting at 50 Years -- Panel 1: Origins (w/Ervin Duggan, Nicholas Johnson, Bill Siemering, and Cokie Roberts) and Welcome
2019 photos: Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000.
Trips this year:
a four-day jaunt to Massachusetts (Boston, Stockbridge, and Springfield) to experience rain in another state,
Asheville, NC to visit Dad and his wife Dixie,
three trips to New York City (including the United Nations, Flushing, and the New York Comic-Con), and
my 14th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con (including sites in Utah).
That's it so far!
Partially Reviewed: Rough draft. I've gone through these pictures once, removing the worst ones, some duplication, etc. I usually take sequences of 4 or 5 pictures at a time and there are lots of near duplicates. I'll be doing a final review later which will cull the pictures down some. To be honest though, I'm way behind on doing final reviews.