One wonders at times about the current fad of exposing and asks where will it end. Certainly at no time in the history of magic (and exposing has always been with us) has world wide revealing of secrets been so steady and thorough. It is our humble belief that it’s mainly due to the greater production of picture and photo magazines. Like the radio, such publications are desperately hungry for material, and magical trickery lends itself very well for the purpose.
Television, when it becomes a practical bit of household furniture like the radio, will be a boon to the novelty acts put out of work (and life) by the demise of vaudeville. We wonder where such acrobatic, bicycle, skating, clown, juggling, and other of the old time variety turns will be when that boon comes into being ? All starved to death ? And will there be a new generation to take their place, or will the arts have died with the last of the vaudeville troupers ? Magic will be an important and popular program item when that day comes. The back and front palm, coin manipulation, cigarette and ball work, in fact, almost any illusion and trick will be considered good material. So, in the meantime, if principles and tricks are exposed right and left, just because a disgruntled and out of work professional can’t get publicity any other way, what will be left ?
When that era comes tripping along, and it won’t be long hence, the smallest of table tricks will be of value to any magician. Millions will be able to watch the most despised of tricks, that is, despised today by those who expose and write books for the public with the alibi that the material is too little for professional club or stage use. However, one group of mystery workers, no, two groups, will be out of luck as far as television goes. One is the escape artist who depends upon his audience for assistance, and the other is the mindreader and mentalist who needs help from his audience also. At any rate, magicians who do get work won’t be able to humbug with audience stooges and plants.
We’ve gradually learned that the only way to stop or impede exposing is to do it through the publishers and editors. After talking to a few of late, we’ve found them wholeheartedly in favor of the magician, and morally against the lice who turn their secrets over to the public for a few dollars or their name and picture in print. Most of the editors who use such material are convinced by the magus himself that it is interesting stuff and material of no value. Few head men know where exposing begins and a magician, especially when a professional, is taken at face value.
The editor just doesn’t believe that a performer would expose anything of great importance to his own trade from which he makes a living. When a group approaches such a person and shows where it is hurting, ninety-nine times out of a hundred the stuff is stopped. The boys on the West coast, with the leadership or Caryl Fleming, recently stopped a series of twenty daily exposures after the fifth one. And Paramount Pictures cut an enormous amount of footage from a current film because it was giving away valuable illusion secrets. The approach is from the top down. Get the picture companies, the papers, and the magazines on the right side and exposing will be effectively curtailed. It just can’t be stopped at the bottom where the exposing magician stands. The Society of American Magicians, looked upon as the most powerful and influential, has never expelled anyone for exposing, although, in our opinion, there has been a great percentage of the secret divulging in the last twenty years which emanated from the pens (and ghost writers) of members. So, why not forget ethical codes and whatnot? Why not try to contact by questionnaire every newspaper and magazine editor in the country ? Why not put the problem up to them ? Admit there are bums among us who know only a few tricks so expose the ones they can’t do. Admit that there is nothing we can do about it legally, and respectfully request an opinion as to whether or not the editor thinks magic can be given publicity without the giving away of secrets. And whether or not he will assist in stamping out a pernicious practice through cooperation.
Odds and ends : Jean Hugard has dug up a reference to that popular “double talk” in a book once written by Robert Houdin entitled Les Secrets. Found in the chapter on patter, it is described as an integral part of Comte’s presentations. Houdin called it “amphigouri”, but Wallace Lee, who has lately put out the first manuscript of complete instructions for learning and developing this very, very funny piece of business, calls it X-Jargon.
Looking for publicity and trouble department : Sedrick Hoyt (Earl G. Heyl) of Baltimore wrote the liquor commissioner of N.J. and asked about the law when it came to a magician producing drinks. Burnett was reported surprised to learn that alcoholic ingredients were needed for the trick, and proceeded to lay down the rules : “No legerdemain in summoning up and dispensing alcoholic drinks is permissible upon unlicensed premises. If the feat is accomplished on licensed premises you must take out a special permit for yourself to charm the spirits, and for your bewitching assistant to dispense them. Both of you must be of age and good citizens.” — Harry Opel, of Toledo, writes and publishes The Voice From the Attic, a non punch pulling monthly for magicians with a circulation of ONE copy. It is finishing its NINTH year, and is sent by him each month to a different magician. I’ll give a year’s subscription to The Jinx for every copy sent me by those who may have one, regardless of the condition.
For those who liked Before Your Eyes in Jinx #32, here’s a New Year’s tip from Charles Nyquist. Use your own business cards instead of slates. Write the regular wording on back of a card with black wax crayon. Switch for a card prepared according to original trick with Fricke and Fleming’s It’s a Pip liquid. Have spectator mark card for identification. After card has been chosen from deck, and writing rubbed off to show name of it in black crayon, spectator keeps the business card as a souvenir and ad.
