Before you is the third issue of The Jinx Extra to appear. We say this
very blatantly because we are of the opinion that never before has
there been published a service for magicians so particular about the
concocted effects it dishes up. We may not always score a bullseye
and we may not be able to please all of the readers all of the time, but from the
response our efforts have received, we know at least that we are pleasing all of
the readers some of the time, and some of the readers all of the time. That’s two-
thirds of the revamped quotation anyway, and about as far as it is possible to go.
Go back over all of the issues to date and ask yourself if they aren’t worth the
small amount invested, and invested is the correct word. If you don’t think so,
and if you are of the opinion that the same amount of outlay in other directions
would have brought you as much or more value, then we’re not only a total loss
to you but to ourselves as well.

Producing The Jinx is no easy matter. If we print a joke, readers say we are silly, if
we don’t they say we are too serious. If we publish a trick, they say we shouldn’t
expose magic, if we don’t, they say it isn’t a magical paper without a trick. If we
make our articles short, they say we are not explicit, and if they are explicit, they
say they are too long. If we publish original matter, they say we lack variety, and
if we publish things from other sources, we are too lazy to write. Some magus
probably will say we swiped this from some other paper. ————————— SO WE DID.

Kidding aside, however, it isn’t the easiest job in the world to get good material.
I try to be a bit particular and it’s because of that that I am getting quite a list of
knockers when I keep sending back material. Everything works out fairly well
though in the long run. The list of boosters and subscribers grows faster than that
of the knockers because more people than not rather have a few good tricks than
wade through a lot of good and bad mixed. Nine out of ten tricks I use are ones
I see performed publicly or privately and get permission for their use when I can
see that they work. That’s my idea of publishing magical effects.

I wish I had the space to reproduce the full show program of Mr Amos Rohn of
Canton, O., mainly because it is too refreshing for words to find someone who
actually gives program credit for the effects used. No magician has ever nor will
ever live who will do a complete program entirely of his own origination. And
although it doesn’t make a lot of difference to the audience, it is a gesture of
greatness and an admission of confidence in one’s entertaining ability to credit
the originators and inventors.

Almost seven years ago there started in Baltimore a monthly publication called
The Tablets of Osiris. Eighty-three copies of this Society of Osiris organ have
steadily appeared, and I prize my complete file very highly because of the
sentiments they express about all things magical. I always get a kick out of my
copy and wonder about what sarcastic comment about some current malefactor
will appear next to a sentimental paragraph with photographic attachment.
These actual pasted in photos, appearing quite often, are a very nice touch, and
make one feel as though special effort has been put into his own copy. Trick
material is scarce in this publication, but its aims and beliefs together with its
fearlessness and longevity make it worth recommending in a paragraph like this.

India is a strange country and the mother lode of strange tales.
From there, during the past five years, has come a little monthly
paper of the name The Indian Magician. It is the only such
publication in the land and, written in English, gives a thrill to
me with its true views of Indian magic and magicians as they are
today. An evening with my file makes me feel as though I’m right
among the gentry with their weird ideas of trickery, and Dr Lele is hereby publicly
thanked for giving occidental magi the opportunity of knowing the conditions of
Indian magic as it is in the present age.

It has been my opinion always that were a magician to subscribe to ALL of the
published magazines and periodicals pertaining to the Art, at the same time
securing as many as possible from the past, he would have a constant inflow
of knowledge as well as a complete history regarding all things magical. The
changing tempo and modes of presentation, the rise and fall of the greats and
near greats, and the evolution of every known principle would pass before such a
reader’s eyes. In comparison, the cost of such an array of information is not close
at all to the amounts expended yearly for manuscripts, brochures, books of the
present day and other whatnot, many of which are good reading, but of which
many more are not, being only thrown together rehashes of what has gone before.

Dr Irving Calkins dropped in from Springfield, Mass., and the conversation
veered into the age old question of what constitutes exposure. The Jinx therefore
respectfully offers the following suggestion. An exposure consists of giving or
selling for publication for the general public, any effect or piece of apparatus
described and sold in any catalogue distributed among magicians by any dealer
in such wares. It would be pretty difficult to name an effect not carried in a
magical catalogue of the past or present. The effects have thus been advertised
and sold to magicians for magical purposes and an exposure of such secrets is
a plain case of depriving one of his purchased stock in trade. It is my opinion
that this interpretation of an exposure could be placed in the By-Laws of all
honest magical societies and prove the perfect yardstick. I fear, however, that
even though it were adopted, the first dark night would see some sneaking critter
tying a whitewash brush to the end of the yardstick so as to be ready for the first
exposing member affected by the ruling.

Groans issue from me whenever I read catch lines of magicians that aren’t original.
If ever a magus should be original, it’s when he makes up his stationery, business
cards and theatrical billing. Keating had a really clever one – “The Mayfair
Mountebank”, and for years upon years Gene Laurant has been identified with
“The Man of Many Mysteries”. My own first letterhead (printed in red and green
because it was near Christmas and the printer slipped my job through between
holiday orders) proudly carried the line “The Mysterious Visitor”, and Max
Malini’s very cute concoction was “Honest to goodness, I only cheat a little”.
All of this came to mind lately when I saw one of the cleverest and most talked
about fellows of today using the line “A Young Man To Be Watched”. Going back
to slightly yellowed pages (my copies aren’t bound) of The Sphinx for March
1923, I find the paragraph “Nate Leipsig, the famous card manipulator, was one
of the headliners at B.F. Keith’s Royal Theatre, Bronx, New York, during the
week of February 19th. He was billed as “A Young Man To Be Watched”.