Starting a new year of The Jinx seemed to call for a picture of a birthday cake and candle. Tess Holden told me, however, that such a thing was bad luck. How she could figure that would be an ominous sign is beyond me because now I find myself with a sheet named The Jinx; two black cats over my head, and it is issue #13!
Thinking about things that have occurred this summer, I believe that if any black feline crosses my particular path… the cat will have all of the bad luck!
There is one thing I have never seen mentioned in a magical print. Why do magicians invariably locate three cards or make three cards rise? The fascination of ‘three’ is beyond my comprehension because it is psychologically wrong. If you are going to do the rising card trick, do it with two cards only. If you are going to do anything in which the climax is the same, do it twice only. The first time it happens, the audience is surprised and mystified. The second time they are not surprised but they are still mystified (we hope). If you insist upon a third time, you may even nullify that. It’s like seeing a play or picture. The first time it is great and you go away with the desire of seeing it again. The second time, however, is a little disappointing. You don’t go the third time. I know one clever amateur who does a superb rising card effect with a borrowed deck and tumbler. It is done within three feet of anyone, and with a simple hookup he is always ready. But… he only does it once! A selected card is initialed, returned and shuffled. The deck is in the glass and they are told to watch the cards closely. Slowly and beautifully the card comes up. The cards and glass are given to the spectator and all is over. Can you imagine the letdown should he do it the second and third times?
Last month I mentioned the Bird Cage trick and described a method used once by Carl Hertz to convince that the bird couldn’t have been harmed. Since then I’ve learned of a method of procedure that Robert Heller used in the trick. Heller had an empty cage in his hands and called for a bird. An assistant would come on with a canary at his fingertips but as he reached the performer, the bird would vanish. Heller, with the remark that a cage was of no use without a bird, would vanish it instantly. This might be a nice angle for many who do not like doing the trick with a live bird in the cage.
Humdrum The Mystic is not superstitious. He firmly believes that the only lucky horseshoes are those on the winning horse.
Max Holden has found an ideal binder for The Jinx. With a spring back and heavy board covers, it will firmly hold a one-inch file of copies without mutilation. It is being advertised in the current magazines, or you can write him about it.
I saw a clever cigarette vanish several weeks ago by Mr. Calvert Cole, and which fooled me completely. Taking the cigarette from his lips into his closed fist, the hand was squeezed tightly and opened to show the cigarette gone. I suspected everything but the right thing. He tongued it and then swallowed it! To tongue an inch and a half lighted cigarette is simple and has been explained many times. Putting a burning cigarette out on the tongue is another old stunt which only requires nerve as it never burns. Combining the two made a fooler of a trick. The cigarette was tongued as the fingers of his hand closed over it. Bending the head down so as to watch and draw attention to the hand, the cigarette was rolled on, tongued and extinguished, whereupon it was swallowed. I know a good many shudder but if you had seen it the way I did, and been fooled the way I was, you’d admit that it is worth doing by those who put the art of deceiving above a moment of discomfiture.
I want every reader to send me any new clips, printed photos, stationery heads and magical business cards. Each month I’ll reproduce a page of them on the insert, starting next month. As the collection grows, you will have a vast array of magical news items and stories from around the world.
U. F. Grant has published a booklet called Tricks with a One Way Deck. There has been a need for such a collection under one cover, and although I’ve worked a lot with the principle and published many ideas and effects based upon it, I never got around to collectively publishing them. The booklet is worth its price to card lovers who want subtle magic that will deceive magicians as well as laymen. Grant’s Gee Whiz combination is an excellent routine for club and stage workers and can be done with very little preparation and apparatus. It is funny in parts, and has some subterfuges that have been carefully worked out to minimize any needed skill. I like it a lot.
Dollar devaluation has become quite a pastime with magi since the stunt was explained in the Linking Ring and repeated here. Andrew Brennan, of Ardmore, Pa., has written that he would have missed it had it not appeared here and gives me a cute additional wrinkle. After the bill effect is presented, the performer states “The secret of the present 59 cents dollars is that they have bigger cents.” He shoves a penny into his fist and when his hand opens it has become three inches in diameter. The moves are as follows: The large penny is of the souvenir variety obtainable from any city souvenir store. Put it in one half of the bill compartment of your wallet. It fits perfectly. Have a new penny in one of the small pockets of the wallet. Bring out the wallet and hold it at the open side to hide the big penny. Get the small penny, close the wallet, and hold it upside down so that the big penny rests at the base of the fingers. Now lift the wallet off the coin and it will be clipped against your palm by all the fingers. Your hand looks like a fist. The small penny is shoved into your fist between the thumb and the base of the first finger (thumb palmed). Open your fist and show the change, keeping the coin in the same hand to make the thumb palm natural.
Mr. Burling Hull
“The Edison of Magic”
4329 Lowery Street
Long Island City, N. Y.
Dear Burling;
Stage magic was first advertised in The Sphinx for August, 1927. The price was to be 50 cents per issue ‘based on an assured circulation of 6000 copies’. The ads continued for several months and I have no idea how many subscribed or ordered copies. As you know, Stage Magic never appeared. Seven years passed by and in October, 1934, I produced The Jinx. Several weeks later you came out with Stage Magic and your ads were taken in most cases verbatim from the originals. Issue #1 stated that it was to be a ‘perpetual book’ in monthly parts. Issue #2 was boosted 25 cents in price when it appeared several months later. Issue #3 came out of hiding in June of this year and the price went up another quarter. In this issue it was plainly put that Stage Magic was not a monthly and that during the year, ten parts would be published.
Well, Burling, I’ve waited for the year to pass. Three copies are out and the pertinent query is what you are going to do about your subscribers. Are you going to refund their money or give them their ten issues? If you do not do the first, and cannot do the second, do you expect to continue as ‘The Edison of Magic’ and still have the confidence of your patrons? Certainly you could easily do the first, if an avalanche of engagements has prevented publication, for you state in issue #2, to wit; ‘numerous subscriptions which poured in, nearly doubling my expectations.’ With an expectation of 6000, Burling, you haven’t done badly. No doubt a good many of your subscribers, especially those whose subscriptions start with #4, will complain to their local postmaster, who in turn will forward the details to New York via Washington. I feel certain that you will clear up the matter and continue to intrigue the world of magic with your Edisonian complex.
In case you would like Jinx readers to hear from you, this column is open to any reply you care to make. Because of printing limits though, I can only promise you the same amount of space as this letter to you has taken.
Respectfully yours