Gibecière, vol. 9, no. 2

CONTENTS Pocket Notes—Stephen Minch 7 Doctor of Imagination—The Incredible Stanley Jaks: a Bibliography— Barry H. Wiley 9 Tracking Slum Magic to Its Lair: Clippo— Max Maven 81 Little Recreations— Enrique Jiménez-Martínez 105 Recreations Arithemetical and Physical-Mathematical Combinations— Donato Josef Medrano 111 Contributors 153 Q

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Courtesy of Mike Caveney’s Egyptian Hall Museum collection

Dr. Stanley Jaks

DOCTOR OF IMAGINATION The Incredible Stanley Jaks A Bibliography BARRY H. WILEY There are men in the world who make people believe they see things which they do not see.

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H. Rider Haggard Heart of the World, 1895

r. Stanley Jaks created a magical art within which he and his audiences, of many or only one, shared a separation from reality, a soaring of shared imagination. “Dr. Stanley Jaks doesn’t do magic, he does miracles. Though he specifically disclaims occult aid, he leaves his spectators gasping, and believing that they have, at last, seen a man possessed of extra-sensory power,” wrote William Larsen, Sr., in 1953,1 after Jaks had been in the United States for seven years. Larsen added later, “As Thurston was to the stage, so Stanley Jaks is to closeup.”

A small man, Jaks was portly, with thinning dark hair, mustache and somber hazel eyes; philosopher’s eyes, someone observed on first meeting him. Though he later assumed the guise of a Swiss psychologist in his presentations of mentalism, his doctorate was given to him by Theodore Annemann, who thought materials from a European Dr. Jaks would look more impressive in the pages of his Jinx. Once in America, at the suggestion of his agent, Jaks retained the title throughout his career: a doctor of imagination.

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D o c t o r o f I m a g i n at i o n that anyone can get for two dollars when a set of Linking Rings costs twelve. Ah—there’s another thing! The mentalist not only ‘gets away with murder’; he does it on the cheap!” Jaks could not understand the undercurrents of animosity between magicians and mentalists, from which neither benefitted.  Siegbert Stanley-Jaks was born in Deutsch Krone, Germany, near Danzig, on July 26, 1903. After graduating from the Berlin Academy of Arts, he became a commercial artist, doing magic as an avocation. In 1933, he performed a comedy magic act called Jax and Jax, with a partner named Jolowitz. He moved to Switzerland in 1934 to live and work. There he performed stage and cabaret magic in Swiss hotels as Jack Stanley,6 whom a Swiss paper described in 1940 as: “A magical artist of style. His tricks are generally quite new and...downright inexplicable.” He eventually found that table magic was the most successful element of his

Jax and Jax: Stanley Jaks is on the right, Jolowitz on the left, 1933 Q

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D o c t o r o f I m a g i n at i o n Stanley Jaks became an American citizen in 1951, an event of which he was very proud. Although his close-up work was very successful, Jaks turned to mentalism full time when he became bored sitting in endless hotels, waiting for the evening dinner hour. He put together an hour-long

Jaks in 1951, around the time he gained U.S. citizenship Q

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B i b l i o g r a p h y o f S ta n l e y J a k s

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M e n ta l i s t s a n d M a g i c i a n s

Appendix A: Mentalists and Magicians In the August 15, 1953, issue of Abracadabra, Stanley Jaks wrote as follows in answer to comments and questions put forth by Goodliffe, the editor of the periodical, about frictions between magicians and mentalists. Over time, not a lot has changed, and Jaks’s response from more than sixty years ago sounds all too familiar today.

ALL right, Goodliffe, why are magicians “unsympathetic” to mentalists?

“Many mentalists,” you say simply, “claim they are psychic, magicians know that isn’t so, and so they are mad at them.” As a professional mentalist I say they are mad too at the mentalists’ success, but that is only one part of the picture.

However little magicians may like to hear it, there is no doubt that today a sophisticated intelligent audience prefers a mentalist to a magician. The reason is clear. When man-made rockets circle the moon, who can be impressed when the magician (if lucky) finds the Ten of Spades he forced on a spectator? But at a time when science probes the mysteries of the mind, Mr. Jones is terribly impressed when a mentalist tells him the nickname he has for his wife is Honeybee. How in heaven’s name could he know that? It was a secret between them.

Dear Brother Magician, I am not unsympathetic. You know that “Honeybee” was written with a nail-writer and there is nothing to it, whereas it is not all that easy to force the Ten of Spades on a spectator.

But do you really think nail-writing is so easy? I don’t think so, and I have used one for thirty years. (My first came from Will Goldston and was very hush-hush.) If you think mentalism easy, try it—just try it! I speak of course of effective and convincing mentalism.

It is unfortunate that magicians who try mentalism bring to it the “magic” approach. They will never learn that there is a tremendous Q

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S ta n l e y J a k s

the magician with the improbable tricks from a briefcase would like to speak with you for a couple of minutes...

The front of Jaks’s 1941 sales brochure, prior to his working from his Book of M ­ ysteries. At this time he instead carried his close-up props in a briefcase, and billed himself as Jack Stanley.

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M ag ic ia n s’ Gu i l d L e c t u r e Not e s

Appendix C Dr. Jaks Lecture at the Magician’s Guild, October 17, 1951 The original typescript lecture notes reproduced below were later sold folded into an envelope on which were printed Jaks’s blindfolded face and the caption: “Who Is This Dr. Jaks?” Typographic errors have been corrected.  A lecture given before the Magicians’ Guild on Wednesday evening, October 17th, 1951 by DR. STANLEY JAKS •••• •• • Ladies and Gentlemen, When I was asked to deliver a lecture on close-up magic — I was really afraid to accept the offer, since I realized that this kind of magic, designed for presentation on a tabletop for a small group using very small objects, would not be spectacular enough for a large audience. However, I shall begin by discussing, first, effects, staging and presentation of close-up magic while I demonstrate these subjects as visibly as possible.

You have read and heard about my Book of Tricks. This is the second time that I am showing it with some of my routines before magicians. The first time was at the Chicago Convention. It may interest you to learn how the book idea was developed. Close-up magic has always been a favorite of mine, but I never dreamed of doing Q

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M ag ic ia n s’ Gu i l d L e c t u r e Not e s THE FOUR BLACKS by DR. STANLEY JAKS Performer shows both sides of four black plastic cards (playing-card size). They are completely blank.

A spectator selects a playing card and shuffles it into the deck. Performer asks spectator to point to any two of the four black cards. These two cards are placed together and handed to the spectator to hold.

The Performer announces that the selected playing card will disappear from the deck on the table and appear between the two black cards held by the spectator.

Performer riffles the deck and then shows the selected card has disappeared. The spectator now separates the two black cards in his hands and finds an image of the selected card between them!

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Kanter’s ad for Clippo in The Linking Ring, November 1937

TRACKING SLUM MAGIC TO ITS LAIR CLIPPO

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MAX MAVEN

o fit the definition of “slum magic,” a trick must meet several criteria. Chief among these is that it must be relatively inexpensive to produce (to maximize profit) and technically undemanding to perform (to enable broad distribution). As such, “Clippo” is a virtually perfect example.

The effect, as known today, is straightforward: A single column of newsprint is displayed. It is folded in half, and a pair of scissors is used to snip away the center. Yet, when the strip is allowed to unfurl, it is uncut. This is repeated. In some renditions, the paper strip is cut at an angle, and yet still restores. Often, the performer uses patter based on humorous quotes, ostensibly from the newspaper. This is abetted when the column in play comes from the “Want Ad” section.

As with most slum magic, attribution is rarely supplied. In the case of Clippo, when an inventor is cited, it’s usually Will De Seive, an English magician (né William H. Wilson) who relocated to Sewickley, Pennsylvania, in 1913. And indeed, he did release Clippo in 1937. The problem is that by then the trick was over ten years old, with different parentage.

The correct credit belongs to Joseph J. Kolar, an American from the Chicago area who split his professional life between work as a publicist and the performance of magic and escapes (his catchphrase was “Give my regards to the Chief of Police”). This was not the only time that Kolar would be separated from his innovative progeny. He also created Q

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Courtesy of Mike Caveney’s Egyptian Hall Museum collection

Tr a c k i n g S l u m M a g i c t o I t s L a i r

De Seive’s orginal Clippo instructions, 1937 Q

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M a x M av e n

The sincerest form of flattery: George Miles’s “Clipp-it” (1945), Dale W ­ atson’s “Snippo” (1960), Abbott’s “Snip-itt” (1938), Kanter’s “Clip-ho” (1950)

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M a x M av e n experiments so ­unwittingly started by the cleverness of that pre-eminent Celestial, Ching Ling Foo.” (At the time, the term “Celestial” was used as a synonym for “Chinese,” most often with ironic intent or worse.)

It seems clear that the Ching Ling Foo trick being “outdone” in the claims of the Thayer ad for Kolar’s Magic Shears was not the Cutand-Restored Tape, but rather the Torn-and-Restored Paper Strip.

Nevertheless, Tarbell furthered his questionable history. In John Northern Hilliard’s Greater Magic, published in 1938, Hilliard (or perhaps Jean Hugard, who ghosted some of the text) writes:

August Roterberg included a torn-and-restored paper strip in his 1915 catalog, promising to explain Ching Ling Foo’s method. Note the telling position of the strip on the thumb.

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R e c r e at i o n s A r i t h m e t i c a l . . .

R E C R E AT I O N S Arithmetical and Physical-Mathematical Combinations, founded on licit Card Games for the amusement, curiosity and entertainment of youth, with an explanation so clear that any enthusiast can learn them easily just by reading them.

ITS AUTHOR Donato Josef Medrano de la Bañsdiniy.

WITH LICENSE: IN LEÓN:

Santos Rivero Printing Press.

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R e c r e at i o n s A r i t h m e t i c a l . . .

And once they have seen it, you will again give [them] the deck, so that they can shuffle it with the rest; and taking it for a second time, you will go on to another person, so that he can take another card, and you will arrange it [so that] it is the same guide card, and you will say, “It will be a good trick if that card that you have taken is the same one the gentleman took previously.” And you will order it to be shown and you will see how it is true.

TRICK of bringing out the card they took at the number they want.

You will spread out the deck in the figure of a fan, so that they

can take a card, and you will arrange it so that it is the guide card; and giving the cards [to them] so that they can shuffle it into them, you will say that they are to hand them to you again, so that when you cut at it [i.e., the guide card], [it] will come to the bottom for you; and moistening the middle finger of your right hand a little, you will draw back the said guide card, so that no one sees it [that is, do the Glide], and asking at how many cards they want it, you will go on doing this [i.e., drawing cards from the bottom] until you complete the number they have told you, which will be at the same guide card.

TRICK of knowing by weight the cards that there are in two or three piles.

You will arrange a deck with two guide cards, and you will

place, for example, ten cards on the bottom, and on top of

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