or is this outlandish camouflage story so much bull?

Wild West bull fight poster

Despite our enormous dislike of killing animals for sport (so-called game hunting included), we have decided to post a story about camouflage and bull fighting. It is the text of a news article from The Boston Globe (March 24, 1921, p. 13), with the headline BULL HAD ‘EM GUESSING UNTIL HE SAW HIMSELF: How Camouflage Artists Injected Yankee Pep Into Mexico’s National Sport. It reads like this—

NEW YORK—Here’s the story of a bull fight in Mexico City that you can take or leave, according to Miss Hilda Moreno, an 18-year Spanish dancer [actually Cuban-born] who arrived here today from Vera Cruz on the steamship Antonio Lopez. She vouched for the bull story, saying she sat next to three participants in it. Officers of the liner also heard about it at the Mexican seaport. 

The trio she referred to were formerly American sailors, who served in the navy during the war [WWI].

Juan Martinez, famed bull artist, had engaged to slay five bulls for the entertainment of the populace. Miss Moreno had never seen a bull fight; neither had the sailors.

Three bulls were killed with great ease, when the American voiced their disapproval, declaring the animals had no chance. The manager of the show heard their remarks and inquired sarcastically if they could propose anything to add to the excitement. They put their heads together and asked permission to handle a bull. The fifth one was assigned to them, while the fourth went to its death.

In the Navy the sailors had been detailed to the camouflage division and had become proficent in that art. They got paint and went to work on the bull. They painted a face and horns on the wrong end, so that it was difficult to tell which way the animal was heading. When it entered the arena on the run, matadors and toreador were up against it. The bull was all over the place, so far as they could see. The audience howled its approval.

But the bull had a bush of hair as the end of its tail which the sailors had painted red. On one of the turns the animal spied the red and went after it. The result was it spun around until it dropped, to the relief of its antagonists.

Miss Moreno is not going to appear here and has no press agent. She is going to Spain to fill a contract at the Queen’s Theatre in Madrid.

camouflage contributions by Houdini, other magicians

Above Roy R. Behrens, Misdirection (©2021). Digital montage.

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William Kalush and Larry Sloman, The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America’s First Superhero. New York: Atria Books, 2007, p. 338—

[In April 1917, on the day after the US had entered World War I, American magician Harry] Houdini introduced a resolution at the Society of American Magicians’ [SAM] meeting that was unanimously passed that “its members collectively and individually do hereby tender their loyalty to the President of the United States of America and express a desire to render such service to the country as may be within their province.”…

Houdini led the war efforts of magicians by example. On June 2, Houdini was nominated for president of the SAM and elected unanimously without opposition. Taking control of the house organ, M-U-M, Houdini began filling the pages with news of the SAM members' contributions to the war cause, and even reproduced an article from The New York Times that described how the US government was actively seeking magicians and mystifiers to aid in the wartime effort.

Fellow magicians took up Houdini's call. Archie Engel, a Washington DC, magician, became a secret agent for the Treasury Department during the war. Dr. Maximllian Toch, a chemist and New York City SAM member, was put in charge of the military's camouflage division and, working with other magicians, he developed the battleship gray formula used by the US Navy. Toch’s chemical expertise was also used in devising ways to transmit secret messages. Eventually, a camouflage section of the Regular US Army Engineers was formed and the SAM members from all over the country enlisted in it and shared their expertise for the war effort. An amateur magician named Dr. Charles Mendelsohn, who was an expert cryptographer, was put in charge of deciphering German codes for the U.S. Military lntelligence Division. Even before we entered the war, the Department of Justice hired a magician named Wilbur Weber to do counterintelligence on German spies who were operating in the Northwest. He used his magic tour as a cover for his spying activities.

Marcel Breuer / smuggling banknotes out of Germany

Bauhaus, Gestalt and Problem Solving

Bauhaus, Gestalt and Problem Solving: Thinking Outside the Box , a recent online video talk, includes an old familiar joke about a factory worker who left work each day with a wheelbarrow full of packing peanuts. The joke is a prime example of a switch of attention (as in, for example, misdirection in magic acts). The worker was suspected of smuggling factory components, but nothing was found. In the end it was determined that he was stealing wheelbarrows. I was reminded of this when I ran across the story of how Bauhaus furniture designer and architect Marcel Breuer succeeded in smuggling banknotes through customs when he left Germany for London. 

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Jack Pritchard, View from a Long Chair (London : Routledge & Kagan Paul, 1984), p.111—

Carola Giedion [wife of Sigfried Giedion] and Sybil Moholy [wife of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy] were sharing a flat [in London] for a while, and Sybil had received a book from [Marcel] Breuer which , when opened, was found to be [Adolf Hitler’s famous book] Mein Kampf. It was worse than a poor joke, she and Carola were furious and threw it away wtth the rubbish. Breuer arrived soon after, apparently happy at being away from Nazi Germany, only to find two furious dames attacking him wtth no mercy. When he could get a word in he explained that, in order to get some of his money through German Customs, he thought it would be a bright idea to interleave their leader’s great book with banknotes. They would surely not examine it with any great care. There was immediate pandemonium, all rushed down, hoping the rubbish had not yet been taken away. When they found the book, all was forgiven.