Word: houdini
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...gathered round to hear the reading of the will. They are treated to the astounding revelation that the Cahills are in fact secretly the most powerful family in the world. It turns out that just about everybody important in the history of modern civilization - Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Harry Houdini - was actually a Cahill...
...Lily Dale Assembly, a gated compound in far western New York State, as "the most famous and aristocratic spiritualistic camp in America." Freethinking, forward-leaning, this was a place for prophets of all kinds. Susan B. Anthony visited half a dozen times; Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt came, and Harry Houdini and Mae West, and seekers from around the world looking to explore the continuity between life and what locals refer to as "so-called death...
...David: I'd always wanted to do these types of things - pieces of magic I could put out not as illusions, but really doing it. Which is really in the tradition of Houdini, who was an escape artist but who was really doing things: training hard, keeping a serious regimen. For the coffin, I read about an Indian fakir who was buried alive for a month. I thought instead of burying myself under dirt, I'd bury myself under water so everybody could see that you're there. I got a coffin in Brooklyn and I started practicing sleeping...
...remember me as a guy who brought magic to the people. You know, pushed the boundaries of wonder. And by magic, I don't think there is a clear definition. I don't think you can say something is or isn't magic. That's what was cool about Houdini, because he was a magician who had a magic show, but he was also an escape artist, and they kind of, over time, blended together. They both kind of enhance each other, I think...
...Accelerate is that optimistic, but the best bits are. On Houston, about people displaced by Hurricane Katrina, there's venom for the government but hope too ("Houston is filled with promise/Laredo's a beautiful place"), while Supernatural Superserious zooms from summer camp to a Harry Houdini reference to a classic pop climax ("inexperience, sweet, delirious/supernatural, superserious") with giddy confidence...