He dissolves it in acid!

 Doves with trimmed wings and painted bodies, chickens bouncing off electrocuted cage floors, fish with needles stuck thru their bodies, and parrots crushed in their egg shells. Magus Cagliostro, an Israeli magician who never pulls rabbits out of his hats, writes about the cruel use of animals in magic shows

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It’s been 10 years since I last used animals in my magic shows. It all started because my ex-wife asked me to give away the 24 doves I kept in a white cage before my son was born ("they carry lice it will harm the baby", she ruled). Later on I learnt about animal rights groups who fight against the use of pets in shows. Today as I preach to a new generation of magicians and clients to avoid it, I realize that the kids agree with me, while parents don’t really care so much, as long as the child is happy.

I don’t know when the first rabbit was pulled out off a hat, but I do know why magicians use doves. They are very small, and whoever held one knows how helpless they can be, they squeeze easily, are quiet, never bite or scream, but when they open their wings appear grand and marvelous.

Only silk handkerchiefs have an equivalent effect, or doves with painted wings. A few years ago everyone did it, after a young magician won a contest by displaying colored doves. How he did it I have no clue, maybe by adding color to their drinking water.

Most people don’t know that to prevent doves from flying you trim their wings every two month. No it doesn’t hurt. But I'm sure that when it tries to fly it feels the consequences. In my youth I successfully trained them to sit still. Doves can freeze on stage, they can be mesmerized by light, and there is no reason for them to fly toward the audience that sits in the dark. Sometimes they try and usually land on a hot stage lamp.

Doves used in magic shows are called laughing doves, because the male makes an hysterical sound of laughter during the mating season, mostly early in the mornings., This and the fact that they shit everywhere is probably their only revenge, considering the huge amount of money magicians pay for dry-cleaning their expensive stage suits.

Magic? Pure cruelty

Compared to canaries, doves are considered lucky. At least  they are not crushed to death every time the magicians makes them disappear. They push the beautiful little creature through a grinder that looks like a cage. Today there are still shows in which canaries are made to disappear under the supervision off two volunteers. Today they use a rubber bird, but once they used real ones.

The worst fate belongs to the disappearing gold fish. The magician displays an aquarium full of water, into which he pores a gold fish from a goblet. He then covers the aquarium, and the fish disappears. How does it happen? Strong, transparent acid does the trick. The acid eats thru it and it just becomes another part off the sand.

And what about the chickens dancing to the sound off music? By heating and electrocuting the cage floor. The poor chickens have no choice but to jump in pain. `Trained` fish that swim to the direction that they are told are actually guided by is a pin inserted thru their body, while their master holds a magnet.  Small parrots are crushed into eggs, and a lot more as crazy as they can get. For example in the streets off India monkeys on Cocaine amuse passers-by, you buy them for pennies, the cute monkey gets wild every time he needs his dose, runs and bites the audience, and runs back to his owner.

Fortunate enough for most off the pets, stuffed animals were invented. It’s much easier to make a rubber toy disappear, than throw to the garbage a dead bird everyday, and also much cheaper. So next time you get a magician home to make your child happy on his birthday, make sure that he doesn’t bring living creatures, if your child would have known how much suffering is involved in the show, believe you me, he would change his mind.

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Requiem for A Magician

Original: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3379291,00.html

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