Re: Houdini

[gallaher@MOLLYBLOOM.msfc.nasa.gov (Mike Gallaher)]

Aaron says:

> It seems quite romantic... until you realize that she hated him. And (I
> don't think) she was all that sad when they pulled him out of the water
> dead.

> Is this the impression everyone else has?

No, I don't think so, Aaron.  Houdini, despite the myths, did not die
during one of his acts.  Kate's song is a fairly straightforward 
account of Mrs. Houdini's attempts to contact his spirit after his
death.  For several decades, on the anniversary of Houdini's death,
she would get a prominent "psychic" to attempt to contact Houdini.
Houdini had vowed to attempt to return, and had a code phrase arranged
with his wife prior to his death.  If the psychic could relay this code,
it would "prove" the existance of the afterlife, and the ability of
deceased spirits to communicate past it.
After many years, with psychics failing universally to "receive" the
code phrase, Mrs. Houdini declared that she was satisfied that noone
could communicate from beyond the grave.  She at last revealed the code
phrase that none of the "psychics" could divine:

"Rosabelle, believe."

Hence, the final line of Kate's song.  Rosabelle Houdini's efforts don't
seem consistent with a hateful wife now, do they?