Before spoiling this page with venom, I want to bask for a moment in the memory of Frederick Eugene Powell, who passed away February 28th. I certainly didn’t make much of an impression when, at 15, I greeted him with a masterful attitude near the home town. His memory is one of graciousness and unaffected kindness, for then, as well as during later years, he never was too busy or occupied to talk, give sound advice, and leave one with a sunny feeling. Frederick Eugene Powell was making friends and influencing people before Dale Carnegie had stopped throwing stones and kicking things on his way to school.
What is the matter with the Parent Assembly of the S.A.M. ? I write, not as a member, but as a reader of the magical magazines and also the books on magic which are sold to the public at large. I have been told in no uncertain terms that, should I reveal the happenings of closed meetings, I would be cast adrift unceremoniously.
However, scribbling as an outsider for the moment, it is very apparent that Gerald Lynton Kaufman (S.A.M. 1558) is being groomed for president if his latest literary effort How’sTricks ? is considered. No sooner was the present president tossed around on the high sea of anathema and given a rising vote of toweling to dry away his sins, than the Chairman of the Ethics Committee itself, blatantly dropped a tome on the open market, and not alone overstepped all sense of exposing, but dictator like showed his care about the opinion of the committee as a whole.
How’s Tricks ? definitely crosses any line of expose demarcation that may be drawn. Sandwiched between match puzzles and what-not table games of little importance are basic principles which no conjuror of any time hasn’t used. Who hasn’t used a slit envelope for the disappearing of a bill or paper ? It’s one of the first methods that comes to mind when one is doing the Cigarette and Dollar, or any other vanish of its type where the envelope is burned. We find under A Set Up Pack the 8-K arrangement with accompanying tricks; an effect of Charles Jordan’s with a Ladson Butler title in which the one ahead principle with cards is enjoyed; the two side principle of a felt hat for forcing; the torn cigarette paper with the mouth getaway (Malini’s pet); the ring on string; the bracelet on string from arm; a series of hank knots; the broken pencil with a dollar (it’s in catalogues); the cut ribbon with concealed loop at fingertips; a living and dead effect with the hard and soft pencil principle; edge marking of cards (the author admits that people will suspect markings but can’t find them in such a spot); under the name of Three Predictions appears Stewart James’ Miraskill which, to date, has been one of the best liked Jinx card items; the glass of smoke principle with a pipe finish; the match heads in hand; the monte match boxes with rattle in sleeve; part of an original Hang Ping Chien coin routine; and a vanishing quarter effect making use of a pull and trouser cuff.
One can’t go through the book without sensing immediately that the material is of worthwhile calibre, and throughout, it has been written in magical style and parlance. Exposers far from being Chairman of the Ethics Committee, which judges (?) what is and what is not exposure, have been condemned for less. Did John Mulholland read the manuscript before he wrote the introduction ? He states “Tricks have been invented about which it may be said truthfully that all is needed is the secret, but such tricks are not used by professional magicians because of this simplicity.” Does John believe that ? Would he care to have his pet torn deck location broadcast to the public ? Isn’t the best magic simple and with unprepared objects that can be picked up anywhere ? Should a real magician need boxes, barrels, tables and an hour to get everything just exactly right ?
Mr Kaufman forewords that the book is not for professional magicians, nor an exposure of the secrets of conjuring and sleight-of-hand. And then he rubs it in by saying that although necessary to exclude professional secrets barred from exposure by a code of ethics (?), MANY EFFECTS ARE DESCRIBED WHICH WILL BAFFLE THE MOST ADVANCED AMATEUR. (caps are mine.) After saying it is not an exposure of sleight-of-hand, some of the tricks begin with “This is pure sleight-of-hand”, “The secret is the use of a little sleight-of-hand”, and “The secret combines sleight-of-hand —!” From the Mulholland Intro, “These tricks will not only be found easy to do” and from the start of a trick, “There’s no use pretending this is easy.”
If the book was intended for the general public, why include one which starts out “The secret is old, but the effect entirely new to the magical fraternity” ? Shouldn’t such a “New” effect be published for magicians only ? Even if it was first published ten years ago and a number of methods contributed to the Sphinx? And do books of simple tricks include “The above cut shows the simplest sleight-of-hand ‘force’ to make someone take the bottom card which you have already seen” ? Or weren’t those books and exposures written by the mogul of the ethics committee himself ?
Of interest, no doubt, to the other S.A.M. assemblies, is why of whom, and for what such a committee exists. Does this committee represent the society as a whole, or just the Parent Assembly ? Made up only of Parent Assembly members, has it a right to judge and pass upon the questions of exposure without opinion from the outlying members ? Certainly it would seem so. The Jinx takes this opportunity to request, for the good of all magic, that the present committee be discharged and a new one appointed to consist, not of just those who are magi by hobby, but a group of six, three of whom shall be amateurs, and three of whom shall be magicians who make their living in its entirety by magic. And, very important, this committee shall act as a whole, and not by the two or three who may “be present” as the case may be.
I have no hope that Mr Kaufman will be expelled from the S.A.M. for exposure. Tradition seems to make that angle a forlorn outlook. But agitation at the moment visualizes the possibility of some “carpet walking” on the grounds of conduct unbecoming a member, more specifically a chairman of the ethics committee. For, if the rumor be true, those of the group who checked the manuscript ordered parts deleted, whereupon, with a Hitlerite attitude unbecoming a Kaufman, the chairman proceeded to go ahead with what he individually deemed proper. That Foreword line, “When you spend both time and money on the secrets in a book, keep them to yourself, don’t give them away”, should be answered “Don’t sell the birthright of someone else for a mess of your own publicity.”
