Fixing Vintage Magic Tricks
Interesting and informative article by Bill Stevens for the Tampa Bay Times…
“Four white doves share a cage in the Amazing Lembo’s workshop, constantly cooing and making a noise that sounds like laughter. "Mating call,” says Lembo, who most often goes by Paul. He once had 20 doves that flew from top hats and handkerchiefs, but even a magician can’t make things live forever. “The last four are retired,” he says, “like me.”
He’s a 76-year-old cancer survivor, but hardly what you would consider retired. Mail trucks regularly deliver broken magic tricks to his house in the Golden Acres community near New Port Richey and Lembo fixes them. He’s rarely stumped and maintains the same patience and ingenuity that years ago earned him a place on the team to land astronauts on the moon.
Last week he accepted a much different mission. He opened a package from a collector in Sarasota and pulled out a small black plastic box with wires hanging every which way. Its inventor gave it a name: “Compu-psycho Galvanometer….”