HOUDINNIT?

This could hardly be more fascinating: plans are afoot to exhume the earthly remains of the famed illusionist and international spy Harry Houdini.

But why? Why? Why? Also, why? Could it have something to do with his bitter, lifelong rivalry with fellow magician (and former lover) Harry Blackstone, during which 33 individuals were killed or injured in the crossfire? Or his stint as a shape-shifting triple agent in the Balkan region during the years leading up to WWI, when he stood in for the already-murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand at the sham assassination that started it all? Or his reputation as a notoriously clumsy man, and the persistent rumors that in actuality he tripped and stumbled off San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, his corpse never recovered?

The answer, despite certain theories that his death was caused by poison or injury or something, is most likely an amalgam of all these factors. A man as multifaceted as Houdini – performer, espionage agent, oaf – is not likely to have one single explanation for his death. In fact, he is not like to have one single death. Catlike, is it not possible that Houdini still lives on, in a seventh or eighth incarnation? (And no, we’re not talking about that dickwad David Blaine.) It’s only too possible that digging up his grave will only create more mysteries which, when solved, will then create further mysteries, stemming out to strangle the future in a hydra-esque tangle of unknownness.

It will come as a shock to some of you to hear us say this, but perhaps Houdini’s final resting place should remain unblemished. And this is NOT because we would like to take advantage of the lull to dig it up ourselves, thank you very much. Despite his bumbling demeanor, Houdini was, after all, a master escape artist. If it turns out that he escaped death itself, what else do we common mortals have to live for? What need will you, Dear Reader, have for a poor Apocryphist?