Mail Box : Same delivery – An anonymous note from Springfield, Mass., “You would have had a lot of subscriptions from here if that article about I.B.M. Ring 10 hadn’t appeared in the Jinx. Get wise.” The other, but signed, “Editrivia column I enjoy very much. It may be painfully frank to some but why hide the truth. We need more and more to put ethics back in the art and you are doing more than anyone else to help it.” If the paragraph in #66 hurt anyone real badly we’re sorry. But we still can’t see why amateurs and magic hobbyists have to fight and make clouds of dust in front of each other’s house. For glory ? Let the professionals do the scrapping. The game is their bread and butter. When they fight it’s for existence. If it weren’t for the hobbyists every magical paper would fold and all magic depots would close. But we know, and they know, that it’s a stimulant to show tricks to friends, the development of an alter ego to perform before an audience, and downright vanity to covet a high office in a local or national body of their brother hobbyists. At the moment I can think only of a dime thriller I once read called The Lure of the Stage, or The Rise and Fall of Flora LaFleur (Josie Daniels).
So — what we wrote was about what we were hearing. We know and respect members of the 10 and 14 Rings both. Ring 14 had something to say, and Ring 10, or anybody else, can have their say in these lines if they wish. And if they are not subscribers (we have only 46 for the state of Mass.) we’ll be only too glad to send them a copy with compliments.
Russell Swann is currently appearing in the Cafe Lounge of N.Y.’s Savoy-Plaza. The table cards print under his name – “Who insists he is a magician.”
— Trend of the Times : In a Times Square subway station, at, allegedly, the cross roads of the world, twenty men were arrested for playing three card monte ! —
Evidently an amateur butcher-magus wanted to make his learning pay. He used a double paper to slip under the meat when on the scale. While people who read creditable magic journals conceal cards between the sheets, he used a pound of sliced bacon. He now has six months in which to get a new act.
Jean Hugard‘s special delivery informs that the so-called Hermann pull described in #76 pre-dates Hermann and was mentioned in Sach’s immortal book. Jean used it 50 years ago “and had to exit crabwise.” But that doesn’t beat the telegram from Vosburgh Lyons, “USED HERMANN PULL HOUR AGO STOP FOLKS JUST BACK FROM SEEING THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME STOP DIDNT NOTICE ANYTHING WRONG STOP THEY HAD GOTTEN USED TO WATCHING CHARLES LAUGHTON.” No comment.
Regarding what we recently said about the British laughing at their difficulties, Gus Davenport‘s Xmas greeting was in verse, the first of which being – BLACK MAGIC, CHUMS.
Oh pity the magician in the black-out
With a pocket torch he has to do his show
Whilst with “vanishes” he’s messing
The poor audience is left guessing
As to what part of the vanish is to go !
Typical of British understatement is a line in the third stanza, to wit; And old “Nasty” even cannot spoil our Cheer.
Aside to Tom Worthington III – That paragraph in #71 said “–unceasing effort for better magic — crusader — and NOT to be mentioned in his paper is a compliment.” We know, Tom, only too well, the principles you fight for. Everyone gets due respect from the Tablets of Osiris as you see it. But when you keep pounding for years and years on a subject or people, it signifies something wrong from your viewpoint and that was what we meant, but didn’t quite make clear enough. — Bill Larsen may snort when we say that after much thought tossing, the conclusion is that it could have been advertised and sold as Albenice’s Arabian Bead Trick, with apologies (or thanks) to Mr. Ramsey.” It would not have hurt the sales to thus credit the one who originally conceived a variation of the needle trick to use beads in the form of a necklace, even though it would have eliminated the subsequent publicity giving discussions and arguments. We believe that there is too much of this “It’s mine” stuff on the printed pages, and that credit and use should be allowed those who ferret out “oldies” and make them popular. This is especially so when it is a professional who introduces a trick lost for years. It holds good as long as the professional does it in his act. When it’s marketed, however, the kick-back credit for the effect itself isn’t beneath either the little fellows or the big ones. To wind the matter up here, Le Prestidigitateur of Feb. 1932 reported The Great Carmo‘s show and detailed his presenting the effect exactly as done today.
Stop press : Letter from Cedric. (10 days from London- “–am stationed at a training center — magic is proving a wonderful boon to me in the army — those decks of cards bring lots of privileges and pleasures to me — I’ve got pockets and gimmicks all over my uniform — when sitting at a table to do tricks I have my gas mask container slung to the front of me opened. It makes a fine servante — like the old time magi who had bags in front of them to hold tricks and use as a catch all.” Best of luck, chappy. Get that job over and then come back and see us again. I’ll make chili con carne.
Charles Larson, the demon collector, is writing foreign friends, “I wish you’d stop quarreling so I could come over and buy some tricks.”
Tip Sheet Dept. Some of the horses now running on American tracks could serve magi quite well, if they are “hunch” believers. We’ve culled a few with our impressions.
Smart Trick — Russel Swann
Witch Lad — Glen Pope
Tricky Miss — Lucille
War Magic — Cedric
Supernatural — The Trepels
Straight Jacket — Elmer Eckam
Handcuff — Houdini
Red Magic — Houdini
Mr. Marvel — Al Baker
Little Miracle — Bill Hanna
Magicienne — Dell O’Dell
Legerdemain — Paul Fleming
Lady Genie — Gerry Larsen
Genie Jr. — William Larsen, Jr.
Jinx — ?
Hypnotist — C.A. Geo. Newman
Fair Volta — Burling Hull
Fake — Paul Rosini
Dark Wizard — Pablo
Sweet Mystery — Hoffman
Forceful — Dunninger
All Deuces — Dunninger
Cold Deck — John Scarne
Blond Spook — Joan Brandon
Bag O’Tricks — Gali-Gali
Blindfold — Tarbell
Memories : When Barkaan Rosinoff (Now Roger Barkaan) used to call himself The Poetic Prestidigitator, writing scads of rhyme and rhythm for all the tricks he presented. When Baffles Brush wrote for The Sphinx himself and didn’t add postscripts regarding his sometimes less than noetic opinions. And when “Gen” Grant first talked to a person he thought was a Tarbell student not yet through the course. He didn’t appear, at the moment, like the course said that a magician should. It was Tarbell.
On top of all the publicity regarding the magical principles to be given the government for vanishing battleships and armies comes a clip from Australia dated last June 14. Nikola offered “invisible troop plans” to that country’s Defence Department, calling it “the art of camouflage as I nightly demonstrate it on the stage.” He finished his proposal to the Minister for Defence with “After I have made people disappear from the audience’s sight they could still be standing there with, say machine-guns in hand to mow down the audience.”
Charley McCarthy can do that last without a gun, and besides, we’ve seen some shows where the tables might very well have been turned.
But, as our friend Arnold Belais once wrote in The Sphinx under the heading of To The Point – “Tricks ! are what we want, – Tricks; and not lectures or news. So here goes.” GABBATHA!