Every other day, it seems, someone proceeds to lecture me on the Jinx being late. After four years I’m going to be bombastic enough to tell the real reason why. Since #50 was released and the Index published, I’ve received a lot of back patting on the contents of the first half hundred and been emphatically told that the practicability and useful percentage of Jinx tricks is very very high. Then these same people ask me why I don’t get out on time. Well, that’s always been the reason why. I try my best to get good tricks that work. Tricks to do, instead of tricks to read. I’ve been a week late a number of times because I was waiting for something to fill up one column or page. In one instance I telephoned over 200 miles one night to get permission for a stunt from a magician, and have him tell me a couple of important details I didn’t know. I haven’t so many pages that I can just toss in everything I get. I’ve only a few, and I try to make them count. From now on consider the publication date of the Jinx as the 10th of the month. Then if I get out on the third or fourth, I wonder how many will say “gee, you’re early”.
At this writing (Dec. 7) there are only 86 Index copies left. It cannot be reprinted.
From the Daily News, N.Y. Nov 21 – Park Experts Teach Magic in Corona. Queens children with aspirations to be magicians can find out how it is done by applying at the playground at 102nd St., Corona, where instructions are being given each Saturday afternoon by Department of Parks experts. Frank Dodd, who sent the above clip in from a hospital bed, is well on the road back to health and now at home. Will winter it in the city from where he easily can make all magic meetings and shows. Louis Rudin of Rochester saw Dr Jacob Daley at the Piff-Paff-Poof convention. He suggests calling the super cardologist an “Eye, Eardnase and Throat Specialist”. That west coast mimeo magus who intrigued trick hungry magi didn’t faze the authorities a bit when he tried his “magic” on civil service records. Sugar coated pill: George Abbott had honorably to discharge (with a $150 bonus) the magician, Paul Duke, from Boys From Syracuse, because his nimble hocus-pocus was distracting the cast from their work. In his place they put an actor. Click for December exposed Thayer’s Spirit paintings as a mediumistic television trick.
Subconscious Mystery by Dr Bates, in the Summer 1938 Extra has made quite a bit of comment. Dr Bates gave it to us exactly as printed on May 22, 1929, nine and a half years ago. I didn’t know it was in Cecil’s Magic That Perks, but am glad that my copy had all the patter scheme. Incidentally, if you like good candy, Harry Cecil is selling pound boxes of his best for $2 from his Detroit factory, and will throw in a copy of Magic That Perks. Chapman’s Scrapbook seems to be taking hold. He’s going to accept contributions and pay cash for them. We tried that once and could give him some practical tips why it won’t work.
Like the Thayer Trick of the Month Club, Chapman sends along a gimmick with each issue. There is no better way to ruin a party than to start doing the three shell game. It holds everybody, from the dumbest to the smartest. Tom Osborne’s new book is the most complete I’ve ever seen, and fully illustrated, it makes the three shell game but a matter of a few hours practice.
Al Baker met a fellow who read Percy Abbott’s ad for bricks at $2 each. He asked Al if he thought Abbott would pay the postage! Baker also has suggested that Percy announce a fire sale on Hot Balls! And before he left, Al asked a puzzler. Why do magicians generally kick about their wives getting useless things and insisting they send them back, when he himself always has a drawer or so full of bum magic? Warren Simms, for about 4 years has had a Simplex Card in Balloon effect on the market. In the Winter 1935 Extra we printed an effect with the same title by Lu-Brent. We’d like to make very clear that this has no relation to the Simms’ trick which is a quite perfectly built piece of apparatus. Bill (Genii) Larsen has forsaken Law and henceforth will trod the trail of thaumaturgy. He wrote that now more than ever before can he realize a professional’s viewpoint on many matters, and agrees wholeheartedly with our balloting suggestions in the last issue of the Jinx.
On Nov, 19th, Newton Hall took charge of Holden’s Philadelphia store. We think it a good move. Newton is a good demonstrator and has a keen mind for tricks as Jinx readers know. Clippings on the bullet catching trick have been coming in since our request. Several from London and Liverpool and now one from Sweden. Keep them coming. An issue of the Jinx for each one. In the mail: I wanted to write for I’ve had so much fun with the best card trick I have known in many years. I’m speaking of the Card From Hell from Jinx #46. Have just finished working in the Copper Room of the Hotel Elton and have done the stunt about 20 times. It always leaves such an impression on the victim at the table that I want to thank you for publishing it. Vinn Boyar.
Abril Lamarque, than whom the position of art director for 24 nationally circulated magazines couldn’t make for a better contact man between magic and the press gave a real chin punch when he brought before the S.A.M. in N.Y. a recording of the DuBois expose broadcast. The members, who had been lukewarm before, most of them not having heard the airing, bristled to the point of voting immediately 48 to 13 for impeachment. One ballot, not signed, of course, said “boil him in oil”. Mr DuBois was not at the re-broadcast. And a high officer did his best to prevent the recording from being used that night. This news, naturally, has not been put into the official minutes as per the Sphinx, even though that publication is the official organ and supposed to contain the essential news of meetings for those unable to be present. Our views per Jinx #50 still hold good. The voting, under such rulings, would make for greater peace and harmony than the S.A.M. has ever known.
In Jinx #8 for May 1935, I published a Five Foot Shelf of what we consider the “must” books of magic. Under The Art of Magic was a line — Hilliard, (Sequel to above now being published ?) Nearly four years have passed. In that time John Northern Hilliard has left us, looking back now, it seems like sheer fate that his uncompleted work was left in the hands of a magic lover and enthusiast like Carl Waring Jones. Greater Magic is not so much a sequel to The Art of Magic as a continuation of the Professor Hoffman books, of which Modern Magic still stands as a bulwark against magical mediocrity. Greater Magic was a dream of Hilliard’s and is a galaxy of dreams for the modern magician. Knowing Hilliard well, we had the wish several years ago to write the book. Now, in the cold light of day, looking at the 1030 pages and reading the 715 tricks so carefully written, we realize that our perversities and temperament would never have allowed us to even closely approach what Jean Hugard has accomplished. I truly believe that Angelo Lewis and John Hilliard are together in some temperate clime and sagely saying “Only we could have done better”. Harlan Tarbell’s 1120 illustrations are perfect for technicians. My lowest bow to you Mr Jones, for making John’s dream a reality. My heartfelt regrets to you, dear reader, if you don’t possess Greater Magic.
