Max Maven, R.I.P.

Max Maven died last night surrounded by friends…and he had many. Max was one of the smartest people I ever had the pleasure of knowing. People called him a "Walking Encyclopedia of Magic" and he was that but he also knew an awful lot about other topics. He performed as a "mentalist," a kind of magic I usually find very phony and demeaning to the audience but Max's act was anything but that. It presupposed that we were smart enough to grasp concepts, not that we were dumb enough to believe someone could read minds. He invented some of the best tricks, including one that was in my repertoire back when I did magic for friends and before I had ever met Max.

He was also one of the few magicians who could pull off those photos of looking mystic and perhaps Satanic without looking silly. That had a lot to do with his commanding presence, his eloquence as a speaker and the fact that deep down, he was just a wonderful human being. Everyone in the magic community knew him and trusted him. From time to time, two magicians would get into a quarrel over whether a given effect was proprietary (the moral property of someone) or public domain. Often, those arguments would be settled by asking Max to play Judge Judy. And everyone would accept his judgement because he was wise and honest and he would probably be embarrassed by what I'm writing here so I'll tone it down.

He'd been ill and in frequent isolation for some time. I called him a few times, most recently about two weeks ago. In years past, a conversation with Max could last an hour — and that would have been one of the shorter ones. But in that last chat, he oh-so-politely got off the phone in five minutes. That's how bad-off he was. If you'd like to actually eavesdrop on a conversation of ours that lasted close to two hours, there's one online.

His website has a much better overview of his life and career than I could possibly assemble for you. I just wanted you to know how much this man was respected and admired and loved. If and when there's a memorial service, it's gonna be jammed. And it won't surprise me if he has left us something that we could believe was a message from beyond.