On the market this month has been placed a cute effect with a stick of
wood and piece of string called You Try It by Cliff West. It is an amusing
puzzler and after playing with it for a time I wondered why one couldn’t
make up a neat routine with a pencil. It would be practically an impromptu
pocket act and nice for publicity close-up work. One could start by
t a k i n g the pencil from the pocket and making it apparently bend like rubber
(Swizzle Stick – Jinx #3). This could be followed by the old gag of making the
pencil write any color called for. A color being named, you merely write it out.
Adding the small peg to the pencil you now do the You Try It effect with the
string. After the onlooker attempts it once or twice you continue with the Brema
Nut trick and remove it while the ends of the pencil are being held. Then the old
rising pencil on the hand trick can be presented and finally the effect of breaking
a pencil with a dollar bill is done. If desired, one can use pencils imprinted with
their name and ad and dispense with the breaking business. These are mostly well
known tricks and there are many more which can be added at will. A pencil is
such a common article that such a routine would be novel and very easily carried.
The whole of the above could be done for about a dollar and a quarter at the most.
Goldin is using a bit in his act now that is quite away from the ordinary.
Two members of the audience are asked up and seated at each side of a table.
Goldin stands in back of the table between them and works a number of puzzles
that all can see. The two spectators try to do them and from reports at hand, the bit
is very amusing and different. I’ll try to get more information about the routine.
A second Encyclopedia has appeared from the den of that prolific copyist Gravatt.
It’s not as large as the first but is more up to date with its plagiarism, having tricks
published in books during the last two months. Very ridiculously Mr Gravatt
takes to task the “Edison” of magic for attempting to copy his monumental
“steal”. He even calls him a forger and the old saying about the “pot and kettle”
comes true again, Mr Gravatt being the pot. For some unknown reason he hasn’t
“lifted” material from The Jinx. Perhaps he figures that when I meet him his nose
will be twisted quite artistically and pushed flat into an archaic design.
A nice effect can be had by using the very beautiful silks Davenport has
put out with playing cards illustrated on them. Have a blank silk to match and
a color change ball or tube for the color change through the hand. Have a card
selected but force the correct one. Now do the through the fist change and the
chosen card appears on the silk.
Mr Margolies filled a page of the July Sphinx regarding the future of magic and
suggested a fund for the production of a full evening’s show carrying a number
of magicians for all types of magic. The meritorious idea could only hit a snag
with the selection of such magi. A half dozen contributing performers would not
only clash in temperament and ego but everyone who contributed a dime towards
the production would want to have a word in the running. From a money making
angle for those who contributed and for furtherance of the Art, there should be
a recognized actor in the part of the magus and the book written around this
character. Can you imagine six magicians with equally important parts trying to
decide on the billing ? Vivian Cosby, who co-authored Trick for Trick, had an
idea once to start such a melange with a modern speakeasy set. A fair lady, quite
under the weather, would imagine a rug to be a flying carpet. Planting herself
on this, she would ‘pass out’ and the scene would fade into sets of the various
countries with their native conjurors at work. Miss Cosby never told me what the
finish was to be, but I could visualise a last minute return to the original set where
the lady was being carried out and someone remarking “We’d better get her home
before she comes out of it and starts telling us where she’s been”. However, in my
opinion, even that show would snag on the exaltation of more than one principal
doing the magic. I thought that John Halliday in The Spider proved that an actor
must play the magician in order to be a success with the first class play going
public. Magicians are notoriously poor actors and my opinion is that it’s because
they are used to playing TO the audience rather than FOR it.
When the Fort Worth Fair was postponed, Hardeen, Martin Sunshine and
Jim Collins came back for a breathing spell. Now the first and last have gone
back with Gordon Alexander. Sunshine figures that local work will be more
remunerative. — Dai Vernon’s sojourn in Colorado has ruined The Jinx
Bowling Club. — Bill Hewitt, who used to run the Psychic Department in The
Sphinx, is giving table readings at the Dewitt-Clinton in Albany under the name
of Kardec. — Gamage’s Magician Monthly through one of its agents is sold at
Railway Bookstalls. — Billy Holden away to Camp Brooklyn for a summer
outing and writes he gave a magic show. Wonder where he gets his apparatus? —
Fred Rothenberg, whose Acidopholus graces many a program, is grand-pappy
to a boy. His daughter, Maxine, is the only girl who does the birdcage vanish
in the approved fashion. — Thayer’s new catalogue is a valuable item for the
bookshelf and Russell Swann, from London’s Dorchester, sends those new
Davenport card handkerchiefs to U.S. agents as novelty silks to remember him
by. — Holden opens a Boston branch September 1st with Herman Hanson at
the helm. Now you can have apparatus built in the Thurston manner by the late
master’s chief mechanic. — Burling Hull leaves for the west any day. I expect
that soon the state’s name will be changed to Voltafornia. — I can’t get over
wondering why Frank Lane wasn’t at the Batavia convention. I had three good
gags ready for him in an attempt to make up. — Jud Cole has all routine, patter
and rights to Fred Keatings vaudeville and nightclub act. That sort of proves
that Fred is cold on magic as a business anymore. — Incidentally, Jud Cole has
just had his nose operated on. He says it is because of an explosion of some sort
when young, but I think it’s because he wants to do that trick, a spoke up the nose.
I’d mention the specialist’s name too, but Dr Jacob Daley would say it wasn’t
ethical and wouldn’t give me any more of his card ideas to pass on to you, you,
and you. — Those who do the swinging bottle on a rope can use Japanese Saki
bottles which rest in a little holder and are just right.
Use a chopstick for the levitation. — On the west coast, chumps were caught
winning prizes on Bank Nites at theatres by using the idea on page 24 of 202
Methods of Forcing. — The comedy match business described in edito’s 5th
paragraph of Jinx #21 was used over 35 years ago by Lewis Davenport but
never published. —Max Holden has in preparation a book of modern magician’s
programmes. This hasn’t been done since back in the early 1900’s and should
prove of plenty value for the active magi of today.
