The summer is upon us. If locked in a little room with no windows or doors I'd still know it because news and letters become so scarce. I try to put something down but it grows wings and flies out of the window. It would be so nice if I could put out only ten issues per annum and get away with it as some do, but I guess the old saying "There's no rest for the wicked or ambitious" is only too true. And if I stalled off for a couple of months, I'd be afraid I couldn't get…
When this Jinx is being read the conventions will be under way and thousands of cards will have been selected and not found again. The seventh annual conference of the S.A.M. will be in Washington, D.C., May 30,31, and June 1, 1935 at the Wardman Park Hotel. The I.B.M. will concede nothing to no one at Lima, Ohio on June 4,5,6. Then on July 22,23,24 the Pacific Coast mob sees red in Hollywood. It will make that talked about Japanese invasion small town stuff. Labor day weekend sees the Piff-Paff-Poofers in a melee at Fort Erie, Canada and all of…
Magicdom has yet to fully recover from the shock it received last month when The Jinx came out on schedule. As copy after copy passed by in review on its way to the local Uncle Sam tabernacle, well- wishers cheered, enemies made noises of a discordant character and competitors looked sour as they hurried back to their belated copy. Rising card windlasses whirred, flash paper was set off without regard to human safety, paper rolls littered the streets as they were produced unsparingly from all manner of hats, thumb tip after thumb tip was crushed under foot, and feather bouquets…
When I first thought about putting out a monthly barrage of tricks, mystical whatnot, et cetera, I didn't have the faintest idea of what such a time clock procedure might portend. I had (and still have) ideas for such a sheet such as have been had by no other purveyor of magical wisdom. Such thoughts gave me great courage though, and I have become somewhat of a martyr (you just can't be a martyr in entirety when you love it the way I do) to a monthly cause. There was a time when a month seemed like a long while…
Little by little I'm picking up ideas and angles to make The Jinx the biggest quarter's worth ever put before a magician. So far the response has been above my expectations to say the least. Two issues have been produced and in both the circulation passed the 600 mark. I promised I'd make no fanfare about it all and that I wouldn't make rash promises either. One person who always seems to follow a month behind with ideas that seem similar to those that have gone before is advertising a monthly concoction that upsets me no whit and causes great…
As of November 18, 1941 - - - I must say that I was thinking the same thing, even if only to bolster up that egoistic complex within all beings. It has to do with what Jinx dealers are passing on to our ears. Subscribers, as well as counter buyers, are getting disgusted with the ne'er-do-well appearances of this sheet, supposedly a weekly, but obviously a weakling. An alibi? Only our blood would suffice. An answer? Only something unsaleable to outrageous fiction magazines would be your reply. A promise? Only something. At the end of our first set of fifty…
As of December 15, 1941 - - - The Clinic, so called, has taken space here before. The magicians who attend the meetings believe that one should help another to be a better prestidigitator. This New York City group started as a clique of the S.A.M. They made a point of asking only members of that society to be present. The Clinic was well founded. It was born of a weak spot in the society's make-believe constitution. You just can't accept members a la recommendations per application blanks without giving those persons (whether they deserve it or not) some sort…
Jim Sherman has been in town (N.Y.C., Ed.). He masterminds the Gift Shop at Chicago's Palmer House, and with Vic Torsberg as manager operates a magic emporium on a higher floor of the same hostelry. We like his attitude towards the "wise guys" who come into the spot and admit they know how everything is done. No matter what is demonstrated, the fellow "knows" and doesn't quibble about telling everyone present of his claimed knowledge. He gets the "silent treatment" which we have suggested for several years as an effective weapon against exposers in the magical ranks. The poor boob…
As of September 5, 1941 - - - Undoubtedly what I now record will be a madman's pecking at his typewriter, to most of you who read these lines. We met an unusual person a few weeks ago, and, among other weird ideas propounded, he told us how he had developed his senses of sight, hearing, and touch, to an extremely sensitive degree. His actions were based on the known fact that a loss of one sense results in making one's remaining senses proportionately more acute. First he stuffed up his ears for a week. His sense of sight gave…
As of October 28, 1941 - - - Orson Welles, the Martian Mystic, did better than The Jinx during past weeks. He made an appearance. However, the Sacramento (California) reporters for the Bee and Union newspapers saw fit to tell their readers that the "boy wonder of stage, screen and radio" might have but evidently didn't send 15,000 people away from the State Fair impressed with his omnipotence. It seems that Mr. Welles was willing to do his magic before reviewers who said that "about the most unexpected thing he could have done last night, as the featured attraction" --…