A Visit with John Cox, Both Avid Fan and Expert in All Things Houdini

I discovered John Cox in 2014 after writing about the late John Bushey's Houdini memorabilia and handcuff collections. It was an informative interview that brought back a lifetime of memories regarding my own personal fascination with magic and magicians.

While looking for information on Orson Welles for a potential blog post this week I rediscovered John Cox's Wild About Harry blog. (Harry Houdini, of course) 

It was John Bushey who shared with me the notion that Dylan himself was fascinated with Harry Houdini. This is the story John told me:

Bob Dylan was asked once, “If you could go back in history to see any one moment in
time, what would it be?”

He replied, “I would like to go back and see when Harry Houdini was cuffed and chained and chained inside a crate and dropped into the East River.” (New York.)

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Seven years have past and the Wild About Harry blog is still going strong. I caught up with John Cox today and we continued from where we left off. 

EN: You have been a lifelong Houdini fan. As a teen you even did some magic shows and performances of your own. What did you do for a career when you finished school?

Collector and Houdini authority, John Cox
Photo by Athena Stamos

John Cox: I always wanted to work in the movie business, so after I graduated from USC Film School, I landed a job with Michael Jackson’s film production company. This was in 1990 and this was part of his overall deal with Sony Entertainment. That was a real education in the movie business! But the company didn’t last and in 1995 I got a job doing quality control with Lucasfilm THX . Essentially, I was part of a team of people who got paid to watch movies over and over. It was a dream job for a movie lover! But I had creative ambitions, and in 1996 I sold my first screenplay. So for the next 15 years or so I was a moderately successful and a very busy Hollywood screenwriter. That work began to dry up right around the time I started Wild About Harry, so I went back to doing quality control, now in the digital era. I’m currently the Director of the company (SGI QC), and I’ve struck a nice balance between having a job that pays the bills and working on my Houdini projects, which are my true passions in life.

EN: Have you always been a Houdini collector of sorts?

Shackled, to be dropped into the East River

John Cox: Yes, I’ve always been a collector. I have that gene! And not just Houdini. I’ve also put together a collection of James Bond first editions. I’m lucky to have acquired many of my Houdini items back in the late 70s and 80s when things were still affordable. Nowadays its all so outrageously expensive. But I still allow myself to buy one very nice Houdini item a year, so I have continued to build a small but very select collection that I really enjoy. I also have every book that has ever been written about Houdini, but I treat that as more of a working reference library than a collection.

EN: You started your Wild About Houdini blog in 2010. How often do you post and where do you find all the content that you share?

John Cox: I post almost every day, which is crazy. Believe it or not, I try not to post so much. I would be happy with three posts a week. But there's just always so much Houdini activity to cover that I have to post every day to keep up! My content comes from everywhere really. Things I see in the news, things people send me, and my own discoveries while doing research on future books. It’s Houdini! His continued fame and popularity provides me with all the content I can handle.

EN: I love your Wild About Houdini YouTube channel. When did you start that and how do you gather all this rare footage?

Film that lit the spark for young John Cox.

John Cox: Thanks. I really haven’t developed my YouTube channel. It’s basically just a place where I collect footage so I can embed clips on the blog. I would like to begin to make some specific videos exploring Houdini history. However, that’s a whole new skill set that I haven’t developed. The current footage comes from various sources. The best stuff comes from private collectors who allow me share. There’s a lot of Houdini footage out there, but many collectors don’t really know what they have as far as what footage might be new to people. So I’m always excited to help them discover that and showcase it. There’s some great hidden Houdini history in these old clips.

EN: Houdini’s career is one of legends. How would he hold up today? Would he be a Las Vegas act or something else?

John Cox: It’s so hard to say what he’d be doing as he was such an original of his day. The escape act was really a new form of entertainment. So he would be doing something just as original and unique today. He might not even be a magician! He would follow his passion and instincts and give us something amazing. I think the only thing we can know for sure is he would be a Superstar!

EN: Who are your favorite magicians today?

John Cox: David Copperfield, Penn & Teller, and David Blaine are my “favorites", although I enjoy ALL magicians really. But I gravitate towards these giants of our time because their lives are writing the history of magic in this age, and I love magic history first and foremost. I also think they are all components of Houdini. Take these three men, add in James Randi and Lady Gaga, and you have Houdini!

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Related Links

Wild About Harry 

Houdini and the Water Torture Cell

Houdini's Famous 1912 Escape from Certain Death in the East River

My 2014 interview with Mr. Cox:

Five Minutes with John Cox, Because He's Wild About Harry (Houdini, That Is)

Photos courtesy John Cox

Just a Few Comments About the Dylan Allegations

Adam Swanson painting based on opening scene in 
D.A. Pennebaker's Dont Look Back

By now nearly everyone has heard the story. An unnamed woman has filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court stating that Dylan sexually abused her at his New York apartment over a six-week period between April and May 1965. She was 12 years old at the time.

What's silly about these allegation is that Bob Dylan is probably the most documented human being on the planet. In May he was on tour in England, filmed endlessly by documentarian D.A. Pennebaker whose epic Dont Look Back is considered by many to be the best rockumentary ever.

Dylan's whereabouts and activities have been observed and recorded from the earliest days of his career. ExpectingRain.com has links to a year by year summary of his entire career...  concerts, recording studio activities, album releases and other significant whereabouts. 

Here's an outline of Dylan's 1965 calendar. 1965 was an incredible year for Bob. It began with the recording of Bringing It All Back Home, the first of a trio of albums that is unmatched in the history of music. In June he would record Highway 61 Revisited, following up with Blonde On Blonde in the first half of 1966.

There are still more details about that spring at ThreadReaderApp. 

Still from Dont Look Back

In March 1965, Bob Dylan had left his home in New York for an American concert tour with Joan Baez. At the end of March, he played Santa Monica and Berkeley, with a second Berkeley show on April 3. On the 9th, he was in Vancouver, British Columbia, and played Portland, Oregon on the 23rd. In the intervening month, he was in California most of the time with Sara Lownds. On April 26th, Dylan arrived in London for an English tour. For the first two weeks of May, 1965, he was on tour in England. The Guardian reported they were asked to leave their Sheffield hotel on May Day. Bob didn't like any misbehavior on the tour. The tour was being filmed by D.A. Pennebaker. In mid-May, Dylan went to Portugal with Sara on holiday — "drinkin' white rum in a Portugal bar." Returning to London on the eve of his May 24th birthday, Bob was sick enough to be hospitalized. He and Sara, and his film crew and fellow musicians, stayed in London through June and perhaps into July (experts disagree). 

The civil lawsuit says Dylan sexually abused her at his New York apartment over a six-week period between April and May in 1965, “leaving her emotionally scarred and psychologically damaged to this day”. 

It doesn't make sense. Most of April he was on the West Coast, a long ways from New York. He was preparing for his concert tour in England that would be fully documented. He was also preparing to marry and start a family with Sara, a beautiful woman he would soon take as his bride. 

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It's fairly well known that Bob Dylan was into magic. In his new book Bob Dylan: On a Couch & 50 Cents a Day, Peter McKenzie tells about Bob showing him some magic tricks with a deck of cards. I've also shared here how much Dylan was into the magic of Harry Houdini. 

It's a given that Bob Dylan has performed miracles when it comes to songwriting and performing. Yet no matter how skilled he was as a magician, it is highly unlikely he was able to be two places at one time. Whether the other side of the Continent or the other side of the ocean, simultaneous appearances in New York City do not add up.

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ExpectingRain.com has plenty of stories about this if it matters to you. Personally, I think it's silly.

John Bushey Fund Raiser at the Clyde Iron Works

For more than two decades John Bushey has been giving back to the community, and to the world-at-large, through his magic and the music of Bob Dylan which he shares weekly on the KUMD program Highway 61 Revisited.

For the third time in a dozen years he's had to do the cancer battle, and though once more he is regaining the upper hand in his fight for life and health, it's a struggle that can produce extensive medical bills.

For this reason, friends of this Northland asset have assembled a fund raiser to help reduce the pocketbook pinch. Come out and support John and enjoy an afternoon food and diversion nearly as thrilling as seeing Houdini escape from a straightjacket. He's escaped death; maybe he will show us how he escapes from handcuffs.

The music lineup is top drawer. And there's even a meal. Join us a week from Sunday at the Clyde.