The apparatus employed by the bunkum entertainer and the cost it entails depend largely upon his own ingenuity. Most of the articles I employ are of my own manufacture. My wigs do not hail from a wig-maker’s, but from the lumber room at the top of our house, where Jane and I shred disused rope, fix it by means of gum or stitches on to pieces of stiff book-muslin, shaped so as to fit the head. If other colors, such as black and red, are required, we resort to aniline dyes, and the result is much satisfaction to ourselves.
CHAPTER XIX
VENTRILOQUISM IN A MONTH
A Practical and Comprehensive Guide to the Art of Valentine Vox
There is one form of entertainment which perhaps makes a stronger appeal to the average boy and young man than almost any other. It would not, in a sense, be wrong to say that ventriloquism is, and has been for a great number of years, the most envied of all accomplishments incidental to the art of the amateur and semi-professional entertainer.
True, ventriloquism for many centuries was regarded as an adjunct to wizardry, and the exponents of black magic, but the great success achieved by the writer of “Valentine Vox,” the central character in which was endowed with the most wonderful and extraordinary powers of voice throwing, brought the subject of ventriloquism at once under general notice, and ever since it has steadily won its way into universal favor, with the result that, at the present time, it easily eclipses in popularity most other forms of amusement.
Despite this, however, the misconceptions existing regarding this branch of vocal phonetics are extraordinarily numerous and widespread, due, perhaps, in a measure to the fact that the amount of valuable written instruction on ventriloquism is so small, while the number of people who have swallowed the fascinating and improbable adventures dealt with in the book just referred to are correspondingly large.
To a very considerable extent, then, it is the object of this chapter primarily to dispose of the many existing fallacies concerning ventriloquism, because by so doing alone is it possible to commence a study of the subject with the hope of attaining proficiency and success.
The first idea which the would-be ventriloquist has to dismiss from his mind is that, by following out a stated course of exercises, he will be able to “throw” his voice or, in other words, to upset the equanimity of peaceable old gentlemen snoring quietly in the furthest corner of the railway carriage—or ruffle the temper of some aged lady by producing facetious remarks concerning her appearance—from a long distance away; not that those who approach this subject have any particular desire to be a disturbing influence to other people, but it is safe to say that more take up ventriloquism with the idea of practical joking than for any other purpose.
In point of truth, the real art of Valentine Vox does not lend itself very easily to the production of such illusions; even when the performer is capable of producing ventriloquial sound, he will discover that the “distant” effect depends almost entirely upon his situation at the moment of utterance, and whether or not those around him are prepared to give the credence he desires to his efforts. In other words, a ventriloquist cannot throw his voice wheresoever he will as if it were sound bottled up only to come out and be heard when it is some distance away; the best he can hope for is to make that sound so deceptive to the ears of his audience that, to them, it seems to come from some one other than the actual speaker.