Harry Houdini

NEW YORK – Will wonders never cease?
A century after Harry Houdini thrilled audiences with daring escapes from handcuffs, straitjackets and watery tombs, the legendary magician has conjured a major art museum exhibition that explores his enduring legacy.
"Houdini: Art and Magic," which opens Friday at The Jewish Museum, tells the story of an impoverished son of Jewish immigrants who harnessed the power of the mass media, and the emerging technologies of film and photography, to become one of the 20th century's most famous performers.
The show is beautifully installed in galleries that feature the semi-dark theatrical lighting and spotlights of the vaudeville halls where Houdini got his start as a stage magician before turning to outdoor escape spectacles.
Scattered amid the historic photographs, art nouveau-era posters and archival films are more than two dozen recent works of art by such well-known artists as Matthew Barney, Vik Muniz and Raymond Pettibon that attest to Houdini's continuing influence as the consummate illusionist. The museum also displays some of his magic props, including handcuffs, shackles, a straitjacket, a milk can and a packing trunk that were featured in various escape acts.
Though he eventually became an international celebrity, Houdini was from the most modest of circumstances. He was born Erik Weisz in 1874 in Budapest, the son of a rabbi who immigrated to Wisconsin when Erik was a boy. When he was 12, he ran away from home to join the circus, but eventually returned home to help support the family. Tellingly, one of his earliest jobs was as an apprentice to a locksmith.
From an early age, he trained as a runner, swimmer and boxer, developing the physical strength and stamina that let him perform superhuman feats such as escaping, while handcuffed, from a padlocked crate thrown into an icy river.
Only after his father died in 1892 did the teenager launch his career as an entertainer, changing his name to Houdini in honor of the French magician Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin and performing in freak shows and traveling circuses.
Houdini's big break came in 1899, when he was discovered by the vaudeville impresario Martin Beck and started touring theaters across America and Europe.
Later in life, Houdini sought to debunk the fake spiritualists and mediums who claimed to be able to communicate with the dead. He also published books explaining some of the tricks of his trade, although the exhibition does not reveal any of those secrets.
Houdini died on Halloween 1926 of peritonitis — not trying to escape from a water-filled cell as depicted in the 1953 movie of his life starring Tony Curtis — and was buried in a Jewish cemetery in Queens, N.Y., where fans still make a pilgrimage on the anniversary of his death.
Curator Brooke Kamin Rapaport suggests that part of Houdini's appeal lay in the fact that his working-class audiences, many of whom came to America in search of political or religious freedom, identified with Houdini's immigrant background. His ability to emerge unscathed from handcuffs, chains and packing crates became an inspiring symbol of their own quest for freedom.
Houdini — who often closed his performances by asking "Will wonders never cease? — plays a central role in E.L. Doctorow's novel "Ragtime" and in Michael Chabon's "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay." The magician David Blaine reveres him, and he is mythologized by the American artist Deborah Oropallo in her oil painting "Escape Artist."
The show closes in New York on March 27, 2011, after which it travels to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Madison, Wis.

My Definition of the United States Working Class

The U.S. working class, a class which is multiracial, multinational, and unites men and women, young and old, employed and unemployed, organized and unorganized, gay and straight, native-born and immigrant, urban and rural, and composed of workers who perform a large range of physical and mental labor—the vast majority of our society. We are the party of the African American, Mexican American, Puerto Rican, all other Latino American, Native American, Asian American, and all racially and nationally civilized peoples, as well as women, youth, and all other working people.
United States has an outstanding history in the struggles for peace, democratic rights, racial and gender equality, economic justice, union organization, and international solidarity. Our country is organized on the principle of democratic centralism, combining maximum democratic discussion and decision-making with maximum unity of will and action, ensuring our ability to play a strong organizing role in the our communities. We strive to build the broadest unity for immediate gains and reforms that benefit all people, and for a progressive democratization of the government, the economy, and society of our country on the road to liberty and justice for all.

Message in a Bottle Survives Epic Journey

Last year, a high school student named Corey Swearingen put a letter in a bottle, sealed it up, and dropped it in the Atlantic Ocean, off the Florida coast. It was kind of an experiment for school. In the letter, he appealed to whomever came across the bottle to contact him and let him know where in the world it showed up. Amazingly, someone did.
About 16 months after the bottle was dropped, Swearingen's marine science teacher heard from someone in Ireland. The letter had made its way across the Atlantic Ocean and washed up on the shores of the Emerald Isle, found by a 17-year-old and his Dad while out for a stroll. In an interview with Florida Today, Swearingen said he never expected the message to be found.
Can't blame him for pessimism. After all, the wine bottle, which, according to Swearingen, is being put up on display in an Irish pub, did face long odds. But it's hardly the first message in a bottle to survive a perilous journey.
Another epic journey: Man's 859-mile walk down the Amazon
In 2009, a message in a bottle washed up on the shores of England. It had been tossed into the waters near the Bahamas nearly five years previous. Incredible, but that pales in comparison to a bottle sent by Emily Hwang. True, Hwang's bottle traveled "only" 1,735 miles from Seattle to Alaska, but it took an amazing 21 years to do so.
There's even a case of a message in a bottle helping a family find a new life. In 1979, Dorothy and John Henry Peckham dropped a message in a bottle in the Pacific Ocean while on a cruise. Amazingly, the bottle found its way to Southeast Asia where it was picked up by 31-year-old Hoa Van Nguyen.
Nguyen wrote back and began a correspondence that eventually led to the Peckhams helping to sponsor Nguyen and his family's immigration to the United States.

Assignment:
Write a "message in a bottle" that has the following posts:
1. your name, the country and city you live in
2. A brief description of yourself
3. Your School
4. Your goals and ambitions'
5. A cause you are passionate about. For example, animal abuse, deforestration, global warming, bullying, or anything you feel you take a stand for.
6. Why you are writing this message. What's in it for you? What do you hope may happen?
7. List five people that can contact if in case they cannot contact you.