We didn’t have room enough, last week, to explain that we gave up plans for a daily Jinx some time ago because expenses plus labor versus returns appeared to be a draw match. So, to salve our own hurt ambitions, we’ve done the next best thing by offering you a Daley Jinx.
On the air over WOR and Mutual Broadcasting System stations at 8:30 P.M. on Saturday nights, is Who Knows?, the latest effort to dramatize true occult happenings and experiences. Hereward Carrington is furnishing the material for the scripts which leave you dangling for a possible solution. The best, to us, part of the set-up is that Carrington says but a few words at the start and at the finish. For once the program is not using the “psychic investigator” as an integral part of the story. Few magicians and psychics are actors. They generally louse the action up. But there are also very few magicians who think they aren’t capable of playing a part in a legitimate drama. Otherwise the program is just another half hour of play-story.
When Simon and Shuster learned recently that Royal V. Heath’s Mathemagic, published a few seasons ago at $1.75 and out of print for some time, was commanding a price of $5 at rare book store and magic emporiums, they promptly brought out a new edition at the original price.
And Stuart Robson is beating others to the gun with a “Confucious say —” card trick (on the market this month) that isn’t bad at all. The payoff is funny at first and then you sober down when you realize you’re fooled.
The front cover of the March Sphinx was the first one in many moons to appeal to us because of the way it hit your eyes and carried “oomph.”
Inside that issue was a trick, the secret of which we’ve treasured for some years. Elmer Ransom’s torn card trick bewildered us plenty back around 1927. Later we learned the magic words confidentially and tucked it away in our notebook. It’s a masterpiece of fair trickery.
Gossipers are having fun figuring out why Ireland called in all copies of Martin Gardner’s book, to be replaced with “a revised edition.”
Subscribers to the sheet have been complaining because of the bother in sending dollar bills every eight weeks. We’ve tried to make it easier (aren’t we thoughtful?) with week ahead of time blanks, pins, and business reply envelopes but the snarls still are heard. We’ve never advised anyone to subscribe by the year because $6, even for 52 issues, is a lot of money. It has always been, “Take two or three dollar’s worth.” After all, we’re not selling a magazine. You are buying tricks, material and information to be used when you perform.
But, of course, if you DO want a year’s subscription we’ll consider it a compliment. Other exclusive services are copies in tubes for an extra dime on the dollar, and even first class mail service for fifteen cents extra on the dollar. The list shows FOUR, at present, who care that much to get their copies from two to three days earlier.
Magi can whet their desires for excitement in the magic manner by following the five detective-mystics whose exploits are detailed currently in books and on the newsstands. THE GHOST (George Chance) is a ten center written by Fleming Roberts. NORGIL (Mystery Magazine) appears every second month (January-March-May, etc.) and his mentor is Walter Gibson of Shadow omnipotence. Red Star Mystery magazine will introduce DON DIAVOLO in a week or so by Stuart Towne, pen name of one who has asked the secret (the name itself is a clue for those who keep up on magical literature) of his identity be kept for a while longer. John Mulholland introduced PETER KING in his book, The Girl in the Cage. And one just can’t pass up the two books by Clayton Rawson wherein MERLINI uses magical knowledge and the background of a magic shop to thwart crime. Who are those fellows called Tom Dewey and John Edgar Hoover ? Do they know any tricks ?
The Milton Bridge’s library of magic has been sold. Purchaser’s identity and price are shrouded in secrecy for the moment. It’s a private collector, though, of the type that buys up libraries simply because they’re representative of a subject.
A timely tip on the making of your own roughing fluid for cards is to buy spirit gum at the “makeup counter” of almost any drug store. Dilute it – 1 part gum and 2 parts alcohol (wood). Apply with clean cotton swabs in unbroken strokes from end to end.
This issue will reach New Yorkers and commutors just about in time enough to catch A Night of Magic on Wednesday, March 27th. At the Central Branch Y.M.C.A. Auditorium, 55 Hanson Place, Brooklyn, the boys will unfold new angles that might well be witnessed by members of other magical societies. Take the B.M.T. to Pacific St – the I.R.T. to Atlantic Ave – The 8th Ave. to Lafayette Ave – or use your magic carpet. Have your dollar ready. 8:30 P.M. is your curtain time.
“– and a pack of cards,” the Merlin manuscript which Hugard has revised and Holden has printed in book form is a truly great piece of work. It can rank, for my money, a position in the five foot shelf of magical knowledge first listed in Jinx #8. This is only because it gives an angle which to date, no other work has touched. John Northern Hilliard wouldn’t like it, in fact I know he didn’t, for it isn’t true skill by which the tricks are accomplished. Mickey MacDougall does all right for himself by faking a good many card sleights and gambler tricks. This is the bit of printing that covers that phase of mystery-fooling very well.
And speaking of card men and gambling, John Scarne is telling all who listen that he’s through, finished, and entirely out of the magic game. We doubt it.
I like Walter Gibson’s tales of magic men he has known and the assertion that Thurston envied Carter and Raymond because “they licked magic” while “others let magic lick them.” It seems that the later two would “let down” after a performance, forget their business, and really enjoy life. As Walter puts it, they were world travelers and adventurers — and magic was their passports.
