I know certain musicians who feel they know Mozart. I don't mean they "know him" like they've had a beer with him, but, as if you sort of knew where he was coming from musically. I know a guitarist whom other guitarists pay to watch because he communes with his instrument and "becomes one" with it. I once saw a player of a one stringed instrument on the banks of the Ganges have his eyes roll back in his head because he was so "in tune" the tune he played on his simple instrument.

Now, imagine, a magician plays a one stringed instrument. That instrument is a wand. And, the wand is invisible.

Now, consider this invisible wand-wielding gentleman to be a real character. A mover. A shaker. A big leaguer. A tough guy. He called himself Malini.

He carried little, drank a lot, died of malnutrition and, at times, played the violin.

He astounded the US Congress, got headlines for it, and sped off to offer card tricks for the Queen at Balmoral Castle where, legend has it, he made a dead chicken run across the royal dining table.

He toyed with the hoy paloye and laughed like hell. This cherubic sprite, who looked like Al Capone in a wide brimmed fedora, was a king among kings. Not a king of a country, but a true King of Magic.

What he touched behaved as he desired. Coins inside muffins for breakfast? No problem.

Removing sewn buttons and then boldly reattaching previously unmended messes? EZ.

Perhaps a floating cigar will do President Harding?

The conjuror speaks: "Ahhh, the General Pershing and me, we half a schmoke and he say 'Nice stogie' and I just laugh right along, and say 'Much obliged Mister General Sir.' " Malini's autobiography goes unpblished, though colorful the tongue of the author.

The famous Raffles Hotel, Singapore, as it appeared to Malini's camera, 1938.

Max Malini: "The Napoleon of Magic" (he sort of looked like the French general as a young man hence the moniker); "The Last of the Mountebanks," whose business card read:

Malini "Entertainer of Kings. King of Entertainers." He made thousands a night, where others slugged it out 8-a-week for their star slary of $500. Remember this was pre-income tax!

Malini. A man of the old school awash in the modern age. That's my perception of this small, dapper character.

I became inteested in Malini wehen I was about 12. Somewhere, I believe it was a Mulholland book, Malini was mentioned.

 

"Now this is one to study" said I. And I have. My adventures in pursuit of this elusive little character has taken me literally around the world from the Lower East Side of New York on Ludlow Street to Seattle, Tokyo, Bangkok, Kathmandu, Brussels, London and back to New York, and that was just one trip...but I digress.

I've sought sign-in chits from hotels he stayed at, I've quizzed old Maitre D's in Hawaii who swear they saw him once, maybe on a wind-swept, ocean-view deck with a deck of cards making everybody howl.

I own his fountain pen, invisible to those he used it on, amazing to the magical mind. I received it as a present from a man who had Malini entertain in 1913. Unfortunately the magician left behind one of his props and never reclaimed it. The man I received it from could never figure out certain attributes of this amazing little, innocuus-looking fountain pen. To me, it is a wand that transports me to another age.

His manager 's family lent me some leaves from his scrapbook of the star attraction for several seasons before parting amicably (the manager wanted out because Malini was too demanding).

No situation betrayed his magical desires. His wife's funeral posed an opportunity for magical showmanship. When his son was seven years of age, he was presented as a prodigy worthy of his teacher / father. Malini never missed the pomotional moment. Both events were covered in the press.

What was Malini like? My understanding comes from having seen one of his small suitcases that he carried some of his props in. It is tiny. It weighs about 2 pounds, has tough black leather and silver locks, one of which is broken. Inside the lid, there are two pockets held tight by elastic sewn in the hem. The case is made in Shanghai, China.

One the bottom of this marvelous little piece of luggage, there are four small silver feet, the metal matching the the locks. It is said you can tell a lot about a man by what he spends his money on.

In Malini's case, this particular case was a copy of his friend, a fellow the back room pundits refer to as "Pops." Last name, Kreiger. And apparently Pops had some doing in teaching little Max Katz what was what on the Bowery at the dawn of the twentieth century.

From Kreiger came the case. Small enough to fit almost anywhere, big enough to hold Malini's full show. By today's standards, this case holds 19 decks of cards end to end. That is a lot of card tricks, especially for a man who stabbed cards. Those of us who stab cards know it is a costly pursuit.

I don't know how many times I have been reproached with the line "Hey, ya just lost a card, now the deck is ruined, gee you must go through a lot of cards?" Yes, I do. So did Malini.

In no way am I comparing myself to this man, as we live in different times, with different skills. Though we both work with our hands as our closest allies.

Malini worked at the White House for at least four US Presidents, maybe more. I only received a polite personal letter from Jimmy Carter's social secretary when I offered to perform at his daughter's birthday party. Frankly, I would not perform at the White House now if asked, and I don't expect an invitation anytime soon. That's the difference between Malini and me. His politics (had he any) would not stand in his professional way.

I come from a much different place than little Max who garnered a double front page headline in 1902 in the Philadelphia North American:

Six pictures with different Senators. One cartoon. Mystical art work on the one page. The text is formatted in a large cross. This was no lame card trickster; this was the devil incarnate with a sense of humor. Malini did not do tricks. Malini did miracles as if they were part of every day life. Now you begin to understand this man. He was an arch opportunist who got his way through being a sometimes brutish personality.

In Washington he was called "an unknown little wizard," yet two columns later the writer blushes that in all Washington society, "Malini is the rage." He stops Congressional business. He made bricks appear on the heads of Senators.