Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 18: Issue #18

Issue #18 finds Annemann fresh off nine weeks touring 117 nightclubs, mid-argument with a Boston magician who called him a cock-eyed liar, and with enough opinions about magic publishing ethics to fill half an editorial. The issue also delivers the Jinx's first collected improvements column, a pantomime cigarette production, a card spelling effect built around the performer's own name, and a press piece involving a named dead person that Jay is pretty sure would still get into a newspaper.

Effects Covered

[0:49] Editorial — Theodore Annemann Annemann opens in the middle of a dispute with Frank Lane over the origin of a billet card effect — Lane called him a cock-eyed liar, Annemann offers him a dozen life subscriptions if he can prove he's wrong, and notices Lane is now wearing a question mark ring just like the one he admired on Annemann's hand. The bulk of the editorial covers nine weeks on the road with the Green River Review, including a week at Grand Central Palace where the show was recorded with applause gaps that audiences declined to fill on cue. He closes with a sharp statement on publishing ethics: any magazine that takes advertising money from dealers known to copy, fail to deliver, or ship shoddy merchandise is doing its readers a disservice. He uses the word "pediculous" and helpfully defines it: lousy.

[3:14] The Miracle Speller — Vincent Dalban A helper silently spells their own name, dealing one card per letter, and notes the card that falls on the last letter. The performer — without knowing the helper's name or the card — spells out his own name and turns over the last card: it's the chosen one. The method uses a single gimmicked card and a name chosen in advance that's one letter shorter than the performer's own, and that relationship locks everything in place regardless of how long the helper's name turns out to be.

[4:20] The Phantom Cigarette — Lou Brent Pure pantomime: the performer mimes taking out a cigarette case, removing a cigarette, tapping it, tucking it between the lips, then reaching for a match — and when both hands come away from the lighting action, there's a lit cigarette actually in his mouth. The cigarette has been hidden and pre-lit in a small holder under the coat, with the steal covered by the match-lighting move. Annemann adds his own note on the retrieval sequence, describing a slightly different handling he's found more reliable in practice.

[5:32] Improvements — Theodore Annemann The Jinx's first collected improvements column — reader-submitted refinements to effects going back to Issue #1, tested and selected by Annemann. Highlights include: the Supreme East Indian needle trick gets a cleaner load with no faked spool needed; the lemon and the dollar gets upgraded to three different fruits so the performer can identify at a glance which bill is out; the divination with matches gets loosened so a mostly-full borrowed matchbook works; and 20th Century Cards gets a full apparatus upgrade with a small display stand and nickeled rod so the ribbon production plays to the whole room.

[6:56] Thoughts in General — Theodore Annemann Annemann's notebook column returns with practical ideas rather than polished routines, owing to four shows a night on tour. The card-on-ceiling effect gets a thorough treatment — wool co-paste from Woolworth's in a small tin, last-minute dovetail shuffle, and the specific rotary spin when throwing the deck that makes the effect reliable rather than hit or miss. Other items: make tube apparatus from square cardboard so it folds flat for a suitcase, learn lip reading for close-up work, and perform card tricks with three specific cards removed from the deck so that if a helper names any of those three, it can be produced from the pocket.