| Despite being surrounded by oddities
he truly loved, Gene's most important possession was his typewriter.
It was his way of making money. It was also through his typewriter that
Gene escaped the walls of his cave and created imaginary worlds in his
mind, describing them in detail through his nimble typing fingers.
During his career he served as a magazine editor and wrote a number of
screenplays. His job classification was a scriptwriter. Magicians
know, he also wrote magic books describing elaborate and expensive
illusions which he "played" only in his mind. The
biggest and best, in my opinion was ILLUSIONS FOR PRINCES AND PAUPERS
published in 1983 by Lloyd Jones. Today this hardbound volume is a
collector's item. His other book, IMAGINATION: THE ILLUSIONS OF EUGENE
POINC is a soft bound book published in 1981 by Micky Hades. Both are
filled with offbeat, bizarre, but totally practical stage illusions.
Many of us in the self-imposed hermitage Gene imposed upon himself in his latter years would become bitter with the world and pine our lives away. Not Gene. Gene had one of the zaniest senses of humor I have ever known. He looked at the world with a twinkle in his eye. His writings and his artwork show this. The magicians in his cartoons always often dressed in skin-tight costumes decorated with garish designs and gemstones -- the very image of a magician Gene detested. And, the magicians were always doing stupid things (a way of looking at magic that Gene, in more recent years, included in his cartoon book, MERLIN UNMASKED). He detested bad magic and especially exposure. His garish magicians frequently were portrayed as exposing some basic trick while being pompous. Gene commented on the good and bad in magic through his artist's eye. I cannot relate many intimate details of Gene's life at the Magic Castle simply because that was all before I met him. I only know that at the time he entered my life he was a sad, ailing and tired man who had given up on a world he was sure had given up on him. But, as was his spirit, he decided the world was worth one last try to have fun in... POINC & ME. I am the Magic Editor of M.U.M. which is the official magazine of the Society of American Magicians. One of my functions is to collect tricks and routines to include each month. This is not an easy task. Magicians are reluctant to share treasured secrets and those that are willing often have trouble putting them down on paper. So, you can imagine how delighted I was when, out of the blue came a letter from Gene Poinc... a man, quite frankly I assumed was long deceased... asking if I would be interested in having him contribute a trick. Was I! I wrote back immediately and he responded immediately with a brilliant routine. I wrote and told him how much I loved his contribution and he was welcome to send me anything anytime. He responded immediately with another routine and a hand drawn picture of Merlin signed "For Larry White -- With Many Thanks for liking my stuff." If you click on the picture below you will see a larger version.
When I submitted his routines to David Goodsell, the Senior Editor, he too was delighted and suggested that Gene might like to contribute a "piece" listing ideas for using standard props with a Halloween theme for our October issue. I did and Gene, in about two days, sent back 3 dozen ideas. All brilliant! When I told Gene how much we liked the article he sent, at about one week intervals, articles for Christmas, New Year's, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Easter, Saint Patrick's Day, and every other holiday you can name and some you can't. Gene was obviously happy that a magazine once again "wanted him." |
