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.

[8:51] Death Flight — Tom Sellers A named dead person travels invisibly between two sealed, initialed envelopes — one helper ends up with six blank cards where there were seven, and the other ends up with eight where there were seven, with the written card right there among them. The entire method happens during two brief seemingly casual envelope-handling moments, and by the time the helpers are initialing their envelopes, the outcome is already decided. Jay's verdict: it's a cool effect — just do something other than a dead person.

[10:14] Outro Links and a preview of Issue #19 — featuring Annemann's version of the Al Baker three-billet trick.

Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 16: Issue #16

Issue #16 rings in 1936 with Annemann reporting from a turbulent SAM club night, closing the Burling Hull matter with two words, and delivering a book test built on a pocket index, a magic square from a birthday, a comedy coin-to-candy-cone switch, and a thought-of card transposition that Annemann couldn't crack until Dr. Jacob Daly figured out the core method in about five minutes of conversation.

Effects Covered

[0:58] Editorial — Theodore Annemann Annemann skips the standard SAM club night recap in favor of what other reporters missed — including Cardini spending the final three minutes of a magnificent eleven-minute act doing a deliberate expose of a rubber band trick, which Annemann says ruined everything that came before it. He closes the Burling Hull dispute with a two-word response: "I apologize." He also welcomes Percy Abbott's new monthly publication The Tops with measured skepticism — though Jay notes from the future that it ran for 21 years, relaunched, and ran another 33.

[3:05] A Visible Cigarette Vanisher — Lou Brent A cigarette holder of the kind actual smokers carried in the 1930s is shown openly with the cigarette seated inside — then both vanish. The prop never registered as apparatus because it looked like an ordinary accessory, which Annemann notes is exactly how magic props should look. He adds a practical tip: adhesive tape inside the holder keeps the cigarette firmly seated during the vanish. Jay suggests the principle adapts naturally to vaping, with an obvious presentational angle ready-made.

[4:15] Again, a Prediction — Doc Mifflin A card is freely chosen from a mixed deck, the helper opens a small book of poems to the matching page number, finds the word at that same position, and the prediction already in the cup matches it exactly. The method requires thirteen outs and a pocket index — and Jay points out that if you have a pocket index collecting dust and never knew what to do with it, this is the answer.

[4:59] The Lucky Number Magic Square — Royal V. Heath A helper names their birth date, the performer writes it above a blank 3x3 grid, the helper makes two apparently free choices along the way, and the completed grid is a magic square — every row, column, and diagonal adding up to the same total. That total reduces to the helper's personal lucky number, the whole thing fits on the back of a business card, and Jay notes in the comments at jinxnavigator.com there's a free crash course on numerology readings to pair with it.

[6:10] Burr — Otis Manning A borrowed nickel vanishes under a handkerchief and reappears as a candy ice cream cone, handed to the helper as an even trade. The cone was a one-cent candy counter item in 1936 that passed for the real thing at three feet, and Annemann notes the second laugh when the helper realizes it's candy is just as good as the first. Jay acknowledges his earlier snarkiness about nightclubs and handkerchiefs and admits the effect has genuine promise — and suggests there are plenty of modern substitutes for the candy cone worth exploring.

[7:27] The Acme Thought Card Pass — Dr. Jacob Daly and Theodore Annemann Two people each silently think of a card from a packet held in the audience — both packets are sealed in envelopes, one pocketed by a helper, one kept by the performer. The thought-of cards travel invisibly: the helper's envelope comes up two short, the performer's has two extra, and both named cards are right there. Annemann had been trying to crack this with unprepared cards for a long time; Daly solved the core method almost immediately when the subject came up in conversation, with the preparation built entirely into an ordinary stack of envelopes.

[8:46] Outro Links and a preview of Issue #17 — featuring Otis Manning's Finger Exercise.