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over me and the silks I had produced him from! The kids thought it was hysterical! To make matters worse I was wearing a bright red sport coat. As the show went on my coat turned from red to milky pink as the stains dried. Travelling to my next show I had the wet 36 inch Rice picture silks dangling out my car's windows flapping and drying. It was a funny sight. The act really stunk that day - literally!
"Another time I was performing a Christmas show in a furniture store. The logistics were something else! It was like performing in fourteen different living rooms all at once. The people sat on and in all of the furni ture. Halfway through the show my rabbit which I had concealed in the bottom of my magic stand got loose and hopped out. I didn't see him escape. All of a sudden the children started clapping and cheering. I was dumb founded till I turned around and saw the stray hare.
"Why, look at that; it's my old friend Harry the hare! He likes the show so much that he wants to watch it from out front just like you! And so I sat the rabbit on his stand and there he stayed for the remainder of the show. It was a very good out." This incident again proves that the method of production is not nearly as important as the fact that there is an animal.
Although Al is now retired from active performing he can be found in full action behind the counter of Al's Magic Shop. Begun in 1936 by Al's father (now 82) the shop has seen three generations of Cohens. And since Al's son Stan now has a boy of his own it may not be too long before little Michael joins the crew and there will be four generations of dream merchants! Hal Diamond, % Dlorah Productions, P.O. Box 351, Kensington, Maryland 20895.
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Al Cohen has become something of a living legend in magic circles. He has performed literally thousands of shows in and around the nation's capital. He has had some pretty wild experiences with animals. Al is also generous enough to share them with you.
Al remembers a yery busy Christmas season many years ago. One Saturday he had five shows at five different places. The first one was early in the morning at the WTTG-TV studio.
"I was going to produce a dove and then place him in a flip-over box," says Al. "The show was being aired live as were most shows at that time. Producing the dove was easy, I had done it many, many times before, so he appeared right on cue. He fluttered nicely and then took off like a shot! I grabbed for him but ended up holding only a fist full of tail feathers! The studio audience laughed and clapped so I displayed the feathers as I would the bird, kissed them and then vanished the feathers in the flip-over box!
"After the show I had to climb up among the hot and dusty studio lights to retrieve the bird. For the rest of the day I performed using a bare-bottomed bird!
"And then there was the morning I never should have gotten out of bed. I was doing my school assembly show at Fort Hunt Elementary in Mt. Vernon, Virginia. I produced my rabbit and he wet all
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