Spencer Horsman aims to be next Harry Houdini, not David Blaine
Remember a few weeks ago, when Spencer Horsman had a bloody accident at Illusions: Magic Bar and Lounge that sent him to the hospital for five hours? In Sunday's paper, we have a full profile of the 24-year-old. Here's the beginning:
Every Friday night for the past three years, to the delight of an audience, magician Spencer Horsman escapes from his straitjacket.
By his own estimate, he's done the trick 400 times already. And until a recent Friday, he'd never made any missteps in an escape, invented by Harry Houdini 100 years ago, that is fraught with peril.
Dangling from a crane above the stage at Illusions: Magic Bar and Lounge, he was two minutes into the escape and had almost freed himself from the jacket.
But suddenly, with all the spinning, a bolt loosened, and the crane, the straitjacket and the 125-pound magician hanging from it all fell flat on the stage. One minute, the audience was clapping, bartender Ben Rosen recalled; and the next, there was "thud" and "a bunch of gasps."
Horsman later said, "I didn't realize how bad it was until I took my hand off my forehead and the blood gushed all over the stage."
The accident sent him to the emergency room, nearly fractured his skull and resulted in 16 stitches, but the next week he was back on stage. Why so soon? Why else? The show must go on.
"Entertainment isn't a 9-to-5 job," he said. "It's a lifestyle."
The rest of this story is here.
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Erik Maza is a features reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He writes for several sections of the Sun paper and contributes weekly columns on music and nightlife. He also writes and edits the Midnight Sun blog. He often covers entertainment, business, and the business of entertainment. Occasionally, he writes about Four Loko, The Block, the liquor board, and those who practice "
