Vintage wonders and a budding business will headline the upcoming Halloween Hex-travaganza.
The whimsical, multifaceted get-together will be hosted by author/folklorist/magician — and Bainbridge High School grad — Birke Duncan, and feature a sampling of his collection of vintage toys in a “Wacky Windup Toy Circus,” a performance of his closeup conjuring chops, a few spooky stories and a trivia contest, complete with prizes.
Duncan quite literally wrote the book on tricky trivia: “Birke Duncan’s Tricky Trivia Party Games,” to be precise. And the Hex-travaganza will also serve as a way for him and fellow local author Sara Mossman (“Atlanta Locket to the Rescue,” “Onward Sophia”) to introduce curious scribes to Wynne Jacobson, head grammar guru behind Eagle Harbor Editing.
“Local authors would do well to avail themselves of this editorial service,” Duncan said. “Sara Mossman and I have both employed Wynne when penning our books.”
Both Duncan (when he’s not conjuring) and Mossman will be signing copies of their books at the event.
“Guests can visit the table for book signing and magic, the circus in another area, and a place for refreshments,” he said.
The Hex-travaganza will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 26 in the Community Room of the Virginia Villa (200 High School Road).
Duncan, a longtime employee at the iconic Magic Mouse Toys in Seattle, is a master of misdirection in more ways than one. Before he even begins his sleight of hand feats, his seemingly serious demeanor and Young Republican-esque attire belie the crazy contents of his briefcase. Unpacking and absently activating a swarm of wind up toys — some vintage tin, others newer, plastic creations — nimble hands darting from one illusion to another, Duncan punctuates an otherwise ordinary conversation about writing and editing with a whirling, twirling, hopping cavalcade of minute minions, and periodic ta-da flourishes in place of awkward pauses.
One could almost forget he’s talking about anything so seemingly stuffy as grammar.
“I want local writers to meet her and work with her because people need help,” Duncan said of Jacobson. “When you’re reading your own copy over and over and over again, after a while, in my case I’m going to gloss over some of the errors.
“I’ve looked at websites and I’ve said to [Jacobson], ‘These people need your help.’ I don’t know how to convince them, because they don’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”
To not adequately copy edit one’s writing, Duncan said, is tantamount to “not cleaning your house when a guest comes.”
“You look at people’s websites, where they have such appalling typos and grammatical errors that they really should go out of pocket,” he said. “It doesn’t cost much.”
Visit www.eagleharborediting.com, call 206-293-4264 or email wynnejacobson1121@gmail.com to learn more about Eagle Harbor Editing’s services.
Mossman has a new book slated to be released soon, and though Duncan himself has no new writing project on the horizon, he does have a retirement plan in mind, one truly befitting his interests.
“I’m going to be an organ grinder,” he said. “Just sit around collecting money. There was an old man who used to sit by the ferry terminal in Seattle all day and say, ‘Howdy!’ I said, ‘I’m going to wind up like him.’”
In the meantime though, Magic Mouse Toys is the perfect place for the author/folklorist/magician — with one notable exception.
“There’s one major disadvantage to working at Magic Mouse Toys,” Duncan said, engrossed in the operation of a windup toy. “That is that all these customers come in while I’m playing with toys and they interrupt me. One time I was doing something with a toy and a customer said, ‘Is this the best job you’ve ever had?’ I said, ‘Yes.’”
Duncan’s first book, “The Troll Tale & Other Scary Stories,” completed when he was a graduate student, became a required text at the University of Washington and Michigan State University. He knows more than a few spooky yarns, several of which he’ll share at the Hex-travaganza. Though, the recent resurgence of creepy clown mania surprised even an expert like Duncan.
“I don’t know why people say they’re afraid of clowns,” he said. “I like clowns.”
It’s probably the duplicitous nature of the performance (Who’s under the makeup? The jarring juxtaposition of a clown anywhere outside the circus) the mystified magician said, which accounts for most people’s coulrophobia.
“There’s also the whole easy counterpoint of it, like the ‘crying clown,’” Duncan said. “My mother used to say, ‘That’s as subtle as a brick.’
“The first case I know of a tragic clown was Pagliacci, in the opera where he kills his wife or his girlfriend,” he added. “He’s the frown behind the clown. Plus, you had the whole issue with John Gacy, who used to dress as Pogo the clown. He used to entice young men who worked for him to his home and then strangle them and bury them in the basement.
“I was wondering, ‘Why is it his makeup bothers me?’” Duncan mused of the real life killer clown’s facade. “It’s because he sharpened the areas around the eyes and mouth. Rounding and smoothing would make him more welcoming.”
Regarding what he calls the “greatest prank of all time,” the Halloween 1938 “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre — perhaps the original so-called fake news crisis — Duncan said he believes such a thing would absolutely be possible again today. It is, after all, that time of year.
The ardent illusionist almost wistfully pointed to the infamous April Fool’s Day broadcast, which claimed the Space Needle had fallen down.
From www.spaceneedle.com: “On April 1, 1989 … John Keister, host of the KING local comedy show ‘Almost Live,’ aired a fake news report that the Space Needle had fallen over. Despite the fact that ‘April 1’ appeared on the screen … Seattle went nuts.”
Magic, folklore and the child-like act of play — and toys, the tools of that trade — all of Duncan’s prime passions, are defiantly contrarian. The world says one thing, but these acts insist there exist alternative possibilities; essential tenets of humanity, particularly apropos at this, the time of year which sees adults don costumes and delight in fright, which remain important, especially in these trying times, and which Duncan and company hope to celebrate at the Hex-travaganza.
“If we were to ban eating vegetables, kids’ diets would improve dramatically,” he said. “Tell them that if they eat their spinach it will cause a steroid effect that leads to violence — as it did with Popeye — they’ll think it’s a performance enhancing drug.”
