Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 22: Issue #22
Issue #22 opens fresh from the IBM convention, where a Toledo burglar declined the key to the city on professional grounds and proceeded to pick everyone’s locks anyway. Annemann makes a career-defining argument about signature effects, surfaces a practical model for stopping piracy through federal channels, and delivers a number total that spells the helper’s own name, a joker that keeps returning, a spelling effect that fools people who think they’ve spotted the method, and a coin routine where the half dollar quietly turns into loose change.
Effects Covered
[1:12] Editorial — Theodore Annemann
Annemann returns from the IBM convention puzzled that more Eastern magicians don’t attend, then makes a case that reads like a recurring Jinx theme: one good trick can make a career, and it’s almost never a new one. He runs through a list of working performers each identified with a single signature effect — every one of them found something in older literature nobody was doing and built a reputation on it. A legal item follows: attorney Jacob Steisel’s account of stopping unauthorized copying of the Callostro Mind Reading Act by going directly to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which Annemann presents as a practical model for the field. Convention dispatches close with Bob Geisel of Toledo, who declined the key to the city, noting he didn’t need one — then spent the convention’s late hours picking other attendees’ locked and bolted room doors. Max Holden hadn’t been seen to laugh that hard in ten years.
[3:59] Numero — Al Baker
A helper writes a row of figures on a slate, the performer adds rows, they alternate, and the helper adds up the total — which matches a prediction written before anything began. Then the second surprise: the back of the slate shows an alphabet-to-number chart, and matching the digits of that total to the chart spells out the helper’s own name from the numbers they helped assemble. The preparation involves knowing the name in advance and using a variant of the classic nine principle to control the total while leaving room for apparently free contributions.
[5:19] Business Cards and Notes of the Notables — Theodore Annemann
Period business cards and newspaper clippings from the era — both at jinxnavigator.com under Issue #22.
[5:32] A Question of Power — Dr. L. Vosberg Lyons
Three helpers each select a card and return it to the deck. A joker is shown at the top, turned back — someone names their card, the deck is snapped, and the top card is now that chosen card, the joker gone. This happens three times in succession. At the end the performer notes that if no one had named a card, the original card would still be there — and turns the top card over one last time to prove it: the joker is back. Lyons acknowledges he usually argues one repetition is enough, but here three times is exactly right.
[6:46] The Card Phenomenon — Oddly Walsh
A helper secretly counts off any number of cards up to about a dozen, pockets them, notes the bottom card of a second packet, and replaces it on the deck — all while the performer’s back is turned. The performer demonstrates a spelling procedure, the helper adds their pocketed cards to the top, names their card for the first time, spells it out, and the next card is the one they noted. The mathematical relationship between the helper’s count, the demonstration spelling, and the final position locks everything into place regardless of the variables — and Walsh notes that the performer never knows the card or the number, which tends to confuse people who think they’ve spotted the method.
[8:06] Here’s Your Change? — Lou Brent
A borrowed half dollar apparently travels from hand to hand — but on the last transfer, the left hand opens to reveal three nickels and a quarter. Something went astray. The performer reaches behind the right knee and produces the missing dime. The half dollar has quietly made its way into a pocket during the moment of surprise when the change appears, and Brent’s observation is that the misdirection at that moment is about as clean as it gets. His closing note: a casual coin sequence presented as byplay before the main routine often impresses more than the main trick itself — it gives the impression the performer can do something at any moment with any object.
[9:22] Outro
Links and a preview of Issue #23 — featuring Dr. Jacob Daley’s Death Divination.