“And at the end of the year, Houdini had to undergo an operation to lance an infected boil on his derriere that had been worsened by the constant pressure from one of the straps on his straitjacket.”
Blindfolded, I picked the book, “The Secret Life of Houdini: The making of America’s first superhero”, from my bookshelf in casa de Zamboni, and with eyes closed pointed to this passage on page 234. This is truth.
Reading further on this page are details of the darker side of the magic of Houdini. The fright of almost not getting out of a butter churn he was trapped into. The time he dived off a bridge with manacled hands and hit his head on a river bottom. The bruises and scrapes and panic behind the simple ooohs and ahhs of his audience.
So what does this non-seq have to teach great zamboni and you all tonite?
Creativity is tough. Though the result of it is sometimes magic, the brass tacks of the day to day doing is ugly and picayune like lancing a boil. I guess you have to be genius enough or sick enough to want to padlock yourself in a chest and get thrown off a bridge. As much as Houdini loved the applause, he must have loved overcoming his own fear too. He must have loved to work. I guess that is what this teaches me, the Zamboni tonite- just go to work. Grow a boil, get it lanced, and keep going. It’s a beautiful thought. And like Malcolm Gladwell says, all it takes is 10,000 hours right?
great zamboni 