We slipped last month, it seems, and the result was an extraordinary issue that contained three exceptionally well plaudited tricks out of four. Looking for one well received mystery has been our practice. When two turn up we growl with glee. When three slip through we are astonished but try to be nonchalant. What the result will be when all four click with everyone I can’t say — yet.
The foregoing paragraph is no doubt the result of spring feeling. When this copy gets in the mailbox, we’ll be home in Waverly, N.Y. for the first time in fourteen months, and the thoughts of that vacation (From What ? Ed.) are affecting all that we do or write at the moment.
That Restless Cards effect in Jinx #31 was really mine and not “lifted”. It first appeared in the Seven Circles mag for December, 1931 after I had shown it personally to Walter Gibson who gave me credit. It’s a good trick, and I republished it because I didn’t want it lost. I didn’t know that Walter put it in Blackstone’s book without credit. Few know that Gibson “ghosted” Thurston’s and Blackstone’s writings for many years.
Stewart James’ Tip-See Milk Bottle Trick is one of the cleverest and cutest things in a long time. Abbott is the manufacturer and sells dealers at 40% discount on the $1 retail price, paying Stewart a straight royalty on the idea. A New York bum is making the gimmicks up and selling to dealers for a quarter each. I was in one man’s shop when he flatly turned the fellow down and said he’d play square with the originator even if it did cost him 35 cents more on each sale. This, despite the fact that the bootlegger named practically every other N.Y. dealer as having bought from him ! What price originality ? And fairness to inventors ?
At the Bamberg show, one of those incessant loud mouths was behind me and blabbed explanations of everything to two strangers beside him. He told them how much apparatus he owned, and how everything presented was old stuff to him. Even during the intermission he was showing (with a pack of business cards) how David made the correct card be selected. The paper tearing was “a ten cent trick with larger sheets”, the rope trick was “screw gimmicks to hold the pieces together” and “I use the same talk, too”, the swinging pendulum “the old sawing through a woman”, but the payoff crack was about the substitution trunk “I have one of those. It cost me $250, BUT MINE IS NICKEL PLATED !”
This paragraph is to inform the crackpot that the candid cameraman with me, who was moving around and snapping the whole show, took a perfect shot of him in his seat so I could find out who he was ! I’ll send him an 8×10 print if he’ll write for it, for at present the picture with his name and address on back is being shown to all comers as the first example of a loose-tonsiled exposer in action.
Exclusive ! David Bamberg doesn’t like being tossed around by U.S. bookers and plans leaving country about August. — That Seagram’s Mindreading trick used as a throw-away was figured out by Dai Vernon who split $250 with Sam Margules who sold the idea.
The top picture was in Advertising Age for April 19, 1937. The bottom picture was in Tide for May 1, 1937. All of which reminds one of the A.M. Wilson, M.D. quotation “MAGIC IS AN ART”. The S.A.M. president is to be wildly cheered and salaamed for his originality in discovering a new field for magic publicity.
When Howard Brooks walked off the floor of Cleveland’s Hollenden Hotel nite spot after a few minutes of back and forth heckling, he was paid off on his two week contract. Then, because the agreement also called for his keep, Brooks went on magicdom’s first sit-down strike and lived his time out. When this appears he’ll be on the high seas for London’s Mayfair Club. — See the movie Find The Witness. It’s a murder story with the chief character doing an under water burial when the crime is committed. — Tip to Mrs Bill Larsen, who runs the Genii woman’s page. Serve fist size mounds of cold chow mein or chop suey (any type) when a late snack is in order, and you’re tired. I know it sounds revolutionary, but, like The Jinx Zipper concoction, it has been tested.
