Printing the Cup and Ball lessons has stirred up not a little comment. When finished, it will be most thoroughly covered as only Ellis Stanyon could do it. And the side issues, too, such as Thimble Rigging and the Shell Game, will be completely covered. If you’re at all interested in this oldest, yet most popular of magic classics (especially for close-up and table workers of the present era), learn it month by month as you would music lessons, and you’ll master it from the ground up much easier and much better than if you bought it complete in a book and just ran through it, trying to get the more difficult parts first, and always putting off the day when you would “really start to learn it well.”
Perhaps I’m a bit too thick to figure it correctly, but that Lane-Kahler argument over the bridge cheating method gets beyond me. In Jinx #30 for March 1937, I printed Lane’s card to me, saying “I wonder how Kahler would feel if I took his letter out of the file and showed where he said for me to be sure and send the book I just wrote, the one with the bridge exposure in it. These guys forget easily.” Now, in the July Linking Ring, writes Lane in answer to Frank Travers “And if Mr Annemann will tell you the truth, when you asked him for the real lowdown about this bridge business, he’ll tell you that I mentioned this to him when he stayed in Boston and I answered all his questions concerning it, and finally, after he couldn’t figure it out, he paid me for it and at the same time, only Jerry Kahler and myself had the information. That’s gospel.” I purchased the trick from Lane in Boston in 1932. It was THREE YEARS later that Lane wrote the book. So, if Kahler knew it in 1932, how in the name or relativity can Kahler’s asking for the book three years later be used by Lane as proof that Kahler got it from Lane ? However, none of the claimants (Lane-Kahler-McDougall) has yet beaten Robert Houdin’s Tricks of the Greeks, published in 1861 !
Compliment Dept : “Your idea of putting slivers of paper in the folds of the picture made by the Phantom Artist (Summer Extra 1937) rates a medal. It is Verisimilitude with a capital V. I was so taken with it that, the first time I did the trick, what came from it looked like a stage snow storm. Gratefully yours, Charlton Andrews.”
Super Colossal Press Dept : According to one N.Y. columnist, Russell Swann, currently at the Savoy-Plaza, befuddled Thurston’s attorney, and as a result will buy the whole show and road tour it. — The last three years have been good to Dorny, who seems to be reaching the pinnacles where he should have been for many years. Under his picture from the Grand Hotel, on Mackinac Island, is the caption “Bill Dornfield is easy on the eye.” If you simply change the “eye” to “I” it still holds good, for Dorny has spent the last 20 years trying to help others and talk his competitors UP, rather than push himself.
Julian Proskauer turned over copies of The Genii for August to his attorney. However, I can’t see Bill (Square Deal) Larsen, a lawyer man himself, making any slips he can’t beat. I think it was Mark Twain who wrote “Never sue a fellow for libel. He may prove it !” And then there was a story about a fellow who was called a something-or-other and went to court. On the stand the defendant said “Sure I said it, and I can PROVE it !” SO HE DID ! Later, the judge asked the plaintiff why he started suit in the face of certain loss, and received the answer “Well, even if I am a so-and-so, I’ve got a right to be sensitive about it.”
Jinx issues 2, 3, 4 and 5 are out of print. Issue 2 is very scarce, and I’ll give a current subscription of 5 numbers for each #2 sent to me in reasonably good condition.
Here’s a brain-wave for those who taught their pups to locate the right card as per Winter Extra 1936. At home, teach the canine that in the next room, in a certain spot, when you throw something into the room, will be found a card for him (or her) to retrieve. You can follow the general methods given for this in the article. Put a card in that spot and force the duplicate from the deck.Then toss the deck through the door into the next room. The dog follows through and comes back with the selected (?) card !
The C.T. column of the Genii much to my liking although often the scalpel glances off the malefactor and slices into the reader’s sensibilities. Also Genii’s lowered advertising rates will undoubtedly cause enlarging after its first year’s very successful run. — Glenn Gravatt’s new book is a rehash and reprint of the various Jap Hank Box routines which have been sold over a period of many years, and which many might like to buy again in compact form. A typographical error is to be found on the front piece where, under the name of Gravatt, it says “Author of Encyclopedia of Card Tricks”. Otherwise, the compiling is authentic, and the book nicely printed and well bound. — It makes one dizzy to hear the conflicting reports about the Clark Cigarette opus. However, when it does appear, it will be a prize book.
I regret having to contradict my Introduction, but I’ve learned since that it was almost entirely written by Jean Hugard who worked from Clark’s notes and draft, translating the french and originating new terms for cig manipulation. It was done under some kind of “don’t tell” arrangement which I wouldn’t air now except that Jean should get credit (if little else) for his part in a great book. I’m going out now and fire a couple of my keyhole men for letting me stumble into bowing low to one man when it should have been two.
