Drop a line to The de Laurence Co., 179 North Michigan Ave., Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. and ask for their latest catalogue of occult books and supplies. There are 576 pages of material and information that will confound the most erudite. No one interested in magic and mystery should miss having this free compendium on their bookshelf. Screwy but intriguing. Charles Driscoll recently columned in the spot where O. O. McIntyre used to beam "Joseph Dunninger, mindreader, has all the mannerisms of the old gaslight miracle man who sold Indian herb remedies with magic tricks thrown in. But he has 'em…
Bob Gysel of Toledo died on January 5th. If any man could be a genius of weird ideas (that worked) Gysel was the one. He was certainly the most erratic and unfathomable piece of human flesh and blood, and the mere sight of him was a call for the militia, but he was one of the best read men on spirit work and lock intricacies I've had the good fortune to know. My correspondence dates back to 1924, and my file of over 200 letters in those 13 years contains some of the screwiest (it's the only possible word for…
A stack of mail came in this month, but a letter that impressed me muchly said, in part, "I want to save the Cups and Balls lessons by themselves, but find important matter on the backs of the pages, all of which ruins the rest of the issue. Couldn't you put something else, like Editrivia, on the other side of the series ?" That, my readers, accounts for the displacement of this page, starting with this issue. Does anyone wish me to break off my arms and legs just so they can bind the torso ? Even cartoonists take an…
Regardless of how many say that magic is being killed by this and that, the fact remains that night clubs and hotels are still providing most lucrative spots for magi ever. Marlowe, the Mystic, recently closed nine months of table work at Philadelphia's Arcadia, and opened at New York's Hollywood Restaurant, a spot which no one else to date has had. He gave me permission to state that his ENTIRE routine of table mysteries have come from The Jinx. Who says the sheet isn't practical ? And who are we to pass up such a good ad ? And for…
New Year's Eve in Havana. I guess I saw more magicians than I would have in New York. At the Tropical Beer Gardens I was tapped on the shoulder by Francis Finneran, who told me he was cruising incognito on the Manhattan as The Great Carlysle. Arthur Lloyd, the Human Card Index man, was aboard the Rotterdam in the same port. I couldn't find out the name of the magus on the ship Prince David, as the passenger with whom I talked remembered only an egg trick that went wrong. Then I spent the day with Fu Manchu, who, with…
Ye editor fell in the water during the past month so is now learning to swim. Frank Dodd, that genial secretary of the New York Metropolitan Opera House, gave a day's outing and free-for- all picnic on his Millfield estate in Babylon, N.Y., for the local magi, over 70 of whom made their appearance. Other journals have described the perfect time had by all and the nice program that was given in the early evening on the spacious verandah. This scribbler couldn't resist a 10:00 P.M. invitation of Carey Dodd's to participate in a sail of his thirty footer but…