On May 24th we contacted, by telegrams, six of the Sphinx stockholders, “Please quote price on your interest in Sphinx. Will remit immediately if not out of proportion to value.” We made that offer backed with $4000.00 cash on deposit in the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, Grand Central Branch, N.Y.C. As agent for the purpose of its present owners, and with full control of those funds for that intent, we asked for, and expected replies.
At 9:30 A.M. May 28th, two replies were at hand. Mr. Arnold Belais, by postal, “Thanx for the telegram, but I’m not interested. What’s the gag ?” Mr. Gerald Lynton Kaufman, by first class mail, “Thanks for your telegram. My interest in Sphinx is not for sale at any price whatever. However, in case you’d like to know, I carry it on my books for Income Tax purposes, at $12,437.50, this being the nearest I can figure as to its value at the moment.”
Having in our file a copy of the stockholder’s report for every year back to when the present corporation was paying off the Wilson debt to printer Brown, of Kansas City, gives us occasion to marvel at Mr. Kaufman’s sentimental appraisal. The breakdown of his figures, according to numerology as peddled by Miss Helen Johnston of N.Y., portrays the resultant. 4 as meaning, “Not good under modern conditions. It portends money troubles, mistakes, and grinding labor.” Not to take advantage of his Sphinx money madness, we can also apply Miss Johnston’s study to Mr. Kaufman’s full name as his letterheads divulge – result, 7. “–is very often an influence for misunderstanding. People under this vibration often find that they must stand alone. They may have genius and clever ability hidden in their make-up, but this is rarely appreciated by the world.”
We do not appreciate the ability of one who underestimates our faculty for reading a printed line. Incorporated for $143.55, The Sphinx “good will” is marked up at $2500.00. With the amount we have to toss, plus, of course, assurances that the mag will continue, it didn’t seem like too little. We wonder, though, how those two subscribers, getting their Jinx copies at 341 Ninth Avenue, N.Y.C., are going to rush to the files upon reading out quotes.
Tom Worthington, 3rd, is on a campaign with the Tablets of Osiris to make Post Master General Farley magician conscious. The idea is to bombard that official with requests for an issue of commemorative stamps to Thurston, Houdini, Kellar, and Herrmann the Great. Tom’s (rough) estimate of 250,000 amateur and professional magicians in this country sounds like Kaufman’s Sphinx value. However, the letters that do go to Mr. Farley will make HIM magic conscious, if nobody else.
British magicians are working to death that Davenport trick, Gas-Mask to Gas-Bag, a stunt advertised as “an up-to-the-minute opening.” The magus comes on wearing the mask, removes it, and explains that the difficulty about it all is that if he wears the thing he cannot talk, and if he holds it, then he cannot conjure. He “thrusts his chin forward” and says “Heil Didler.” The mask changes to a bust of Hitler. We like the sale lines, “the bust has a striking resemblance to the genuine article”, and “It’s sure – It’s swift – It’s a blitzkrieg !”
Sonia Zaranoff, she of the modern talking-teakettle at your service, opened last week at N.Y.’s Ben Marden’s Riviera. This act, originally started by Bob Nelson, (she later bought it all to herself) is making plenty newspaper space, but, because of its secret, will soon be torn to shreds by the mags and sheets tired of the headless woman trick.
Time out for a breath — see how some person makes money to buy bones for his own canine.
Servais LeRoy either has a great secret or is being temperamental. With a dozen assistants he’s whipping his Heckscher (June 6) show into shape for the N.Y. audience. Two of the local “big shots” were told to leave the rehearsal hall as a rumored new principled gadget was being put into place. Well, he’s responsible for many an illusion — there’s no reason to disbelieve the presence of a new one.
Among the things to intrigue us during the week was a dictionary page (No! Never! Ed.) on which was “hocus-pocus”, meaning, “trickery, a conjuring formula.” Farther down came “hokey-pokey”. We liked its sound as a slang term for the aforementioned necromancy. But the meaning via Webster was “cheap ice-cream peddled in the street.” — The S.A.M. Parent Assembly voting was calm. Shirley Quimby, methodical and genial prexy took that chair again. Jack Trepel is 1st Vice Pres. which keeps the group very well bulwarked. The office of Archivist was recreated, and Jean Hugard, than whom there is no more avid collector of magicana, walked away with the post.
The Annual Banquet show was stolen by the Crystal Clarkson puppet routines, and the biggest flop on the bill was ungraciously made possible by
