A pair of locked handcuffs, a bell...

A pair of locked handcuffs, a bell and a lit candle sat on a small round table covered with a red cloth in the Parlour of Prestidigitation at the Magic Castle on Tuesday.

It was Halloween, the traditional time for attempting to summon forth the spirit of magician Harry Houdini, who died Oct. 31, 1926.

The locked handcuffs--formerly Houdini’s--would open and the bell would ring if he made his presence felt in the castle, an 81-year-old Victorian haunt for sleight-of-hand artists in Hollywood.

Spiritualist Leo Kostka, flanked by magician Bill Larsen and Houdini historian Sidney Radner, stared at the candle in the darkened room and raised his arms.

With Houdini’s favorite music, “Pomp and Circumstance,” playing softly in the background, Kostka intoned:

“Cross the veil, Houdini. Be with us.”

The handcuffs did not open; the bell remained mute.

After a few moments of silence, Radner concluded: “You didn’t bring him back.”

“You can’t have everything,” Kostka replied.

One person who would not have been surprised was Houdini, himself.

As Radner confided before the seance:

“Houdini didn’t believe in mediums.”

A few months ago, the Long Beach Unified School District sent out a notice advising that students avoid wearing Natas clothing, because the name “spelled backward is Satan.”

A spokesman for the company then phoned The Times and angrily said that Natas has nothing to do with Satan, adding: “He’s Lithuanian! That’s his name!”

Natas Kaupas is a 21-year-old professional skateboarder who has appeared in commercials and videos and is part owner of a company that sells clothes and skateboards.

The company scoffed at the district’s assertion in the advisory that “many children involved in Satanic gangs wear Natas attire.”

“ What Satanic gangs?” the spokesman asked.

After hearing protests from the company, the district has reversed its stand.

“The person who used to be in my position put Natas on the list,” said Joe Pistoia, a district administrative assistant. “He apparently thought he had come up with information from police in San Diego. We checked and found we didn’t have any examples (of Satanic gangs) here.”

School dress codes were also called into question last week during Red Ribbon Week, a national drug awareness program for students. Ironically, some schools with the worst drug problems were nervous about participating, because of fears that students who wore red ribbons would be accused of sporting gang colors.

The Los Angeles Unified School District sent out a notice recommending that an alternative “neutral color be used if warranted.”

The district also made available red-white-and-blue ribbons.

That problem aside, Johanna Goldberg, coordinator of the district’s Drug Free Schools Program, termed Red Ribbon Week a “tremendous success.”

In honor of Halloween, KNX radio’s Bill Keene gave weather reports for spots ranging from Bell Goblins and Woodland Chills to such distant precincts as Rancho Spookamonga and West Munster.

Somehow, he omitted Hacienda Frights, Hellflower, Aghoula, Ghosta Mesa, Elvira Monte and, of course, South Elvira Monte.