This poster was in London’s Variety bearing the date August 10, 1932 which was a week before Clark sailed first to the U.S.A. Keith did the picture himself while playing on the continent.
This photograph of a display board was taken in the lobby of New York’s Hollywood Restaurant on July 22nd, 1937. The originality undoubtedly is in the fact that a cigarette has been omitted.
Quite a lack of essential notes and news is evident this month, but people of our clan just didn’t seem to do things worthy of being recorded for posterity. Jacob Daley sailed off to Haiti and thereabouts and N.Y. appears cardless. Frank Lane took his pocket full of tricks and several trunks of gags and is entertaining his way across the Atlantic and back. Burling Hull entrained to Minneapolis, and I’m sitting around painting that new pip liquid (It’s a Pip) of Caryl Fleming’s and Judge Chas. Fricke’s on all the gadgets in the house. They’ve got something there.
Speaking of Judge Fricke, he’s got a very very funny (practical, too) production of a magician’s wand from a match box, no less. — It seems as if we made a grievous error last issue when we reported that Julian Proskauer had turned copies of the August Genii over to his attorney. Mr Proskauer calls it “ridiculous”, regretfully refuses my offer of a full page for any statement, says he will pay no attention now to these matters because he believes that harmony is essential in any fraternal organization, and hopes that the Jinx will refrain from publicizing this matter further. In reply we can only apologize for the error, and sincerely try to make no such mistakes in the future.
I hope that classic remark of Al Baker’s never is lost. It came up the other day at a luncheon. When an advertiser wrote Al and told him he should have such-and-such a great effect because 500 other magicians had bought it, Baker replied “That’s why I don’t want it. Because 500 other magicians have it !”
I wish those who want a couple more of those Phantom Artist (Summer Extra 1937) cut outs would let me know, and if a fair amount come through, I’ll run them. A number have mentioned this to me personally as they are using the effect to good results. — New Yorkers who want to complete bookshelves can pick up Mulholland’s Story of Magic now for forty-nine cents at Gimbel’s. They fill mail orders too. — Glen Pope is making use of Keating’s catch line “The Aristocrat of Magic”, which I suppose is all right as long as Fred has tossed his magic aspirations aside. I wonder who’ll pick up his other line, “The Mayfair Mountebank” ? — I wonder why Lloyd Jones recommends so highly (Tops, Sept.) the Signal Oil Co. of San Francisco second expose booklet which is tossed out free, and was written, as well as the first, by Carl Zamloch, one of the west coast “boys”. A friend ? — The Midwest Magical Society recently had a full page spread of their annual outing pictures in the Sunday World-Herald of Omaha, Neb. No exposures, just pictures of tricks and illusions in action. The payoff remark is that the 3 year old organization “kicked out” a world famous magician when he demonstrated secrets of his tricks to a newspaper syndicate. Too bad more groups can’t see the light, and also the publicity value of doing the same thing. The bigger the fellow is, the quicker the AP and UP wire services will carry a story about the Great Whosis being booted out because of pediculous practise. The society becomes greater than one magician in the public eye, and a rep could eventually be built up so that the public would think a magician had to belong to the organization or not be worth a broken pull. By getting such news items across first, any subsequent exposures by the person would paint him as a sorehead par excellence. Some society’s press agent is either asleep or decomposing.
Jack Handy, Box 737, Lynchburg, Va., secured a large supply of cellulose tape for the Card Angler in Jinx #36, direct from the manufacturer. Those who possibly can’t obtain this very useful item for many effects, can get a supply from Mr Handy by sending him a business or personal card for his collection. — The Piff-Paff-Poofers held their annual Fort Erie, Ont., convention over Labor Day weekend. I understand that Joe Ovette did a 100 foot rope escape while hanging by his neck from a building. Later, when he didn’t show up at the swapping session, one of the boys found him in a corner of his room nearly choked to death by a recalcitrant necktie ! — Practical Idea Dept. : Over in Turkey an itinerant wonder worder hypnotized a localite and buried him for 8 hours. When the subject was dug up he was dead, so the incensed crowd put the corpse back and buried the magician with it !
Jean Hugard is to be well thanked for his new terms invented for cigarette manipulation in the Keith Clark opus. He noticed the the practise of French writers to give an appropriate name to every sleight so the reader does not have to wade through detailed descriptions. Jean devised new names for the various sleights, the American all-embracing term “palm” being especially erroneous in the case of cigarettes, since the palm is not used as it is for coins and other small objects. “Thumb Grips” takes the place of thumb palm. “Pinch, Back and Front, Upper, Middle and Lower” in the place of finger palm; cigarette held pinched between two adjoining fingers by its edge. “Finger Hold, Back and Front”, cigarette held between two alternate fingers, the finger between being pushed forward or back, covering the cigarette. “Finger Grip”, cigarette being held by one end against the first joint of a finger, the other end against the palm or the base of the thumb. “Tip Tilt” : for all moves where the cigarette is tipped upwards from one hand to the other by pressure on the upper end. “French Drop” : cigarette apparently seized by one hand, really allowed to drop secretly into the other. “Back and Front” : for showing both sides of the hand. — It was Voltaire who said “Define your terms, gentlemen” and if such terms and definitions as the above are adopted, it will make for clarity to both readers and writers, with a great saving in printer’s ink. Perhaps Mr Hugard is starting a new trend in magical writing, and the next generation will have a much more practical basis from which to work than we who will have gone before.