Weird Magicians of Brooklyn

Posted by mike as Weird People

Brooklyn is alive with weird and wild people, places and stories. It’s also been home to some of the leading practitioners of the very unusual profession of magic. Contemporary magicians from Brooklyn include David Blaine and Ricky Jay. Mr. Blaine grew up in Kings County, New York before launching into an odd career that consists mainly of card tricks and public displays of endurance. He’s been frozen, buried, submerged and otherwise self-abused for the annoyment of millions. Mr. Jay who is recognized as the premier scholar on all things weird (author of “Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women”, “Cards as Weapons,” and “Jay’s Journal of Anomalies”) is also an accomplished oddball. He held the Guinness World Record for throwing a playing card 190 ft at 90 miles per hour.

But Blaine and Jay appear dull when compared to Brooklyn’s infamous magicians of the early 1900s. Sigmund Neuberger and William Ellsworth Robinson may be two of Brooklyn’s most unusual citizens. Neuberger, who emigrated from Munich as a young boy, was said to have taken his stage name, “The Great Lafayette,” from the Brooklyn avenue started his career in magic by imitating a famous Chinese magician, Ching Ling Foo.

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The Pintchik Oracle

Posted by mike as Weird People

Located on Bergen Street and Flatbush, the Pintchik Oracle is a billboard on the side of Pintchik’s Hardware. Across the street from the hardware store is a phone mounted on a wooden box with a sticker attached that says “Come With Questions… Leave With Answers.”. People are encouraged to pickup the phone and ask the oracle a question. The oracle (billboard) then displays an answer to the question.
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