Jinx Navigator

Issue #24 is a strong one — Stuart James contributes two effects including Jay's personal favorite, Annemann's Think It Over column returns with a long run of practical performance advice, and the issue closes with a two-person card match that hinges on a fan the helper thinks they can see through but can't. Effects Covered [1:05] Editorial — Theodore Annemann Blackstone has wrapped seven weeks of...

Issue #23 delivers calendar math, a complete pocket act built around a pencil, a 25-minute mentalism program assembled from earlier Jinx effects, an odd-backed card that keeps switching decks without anyone claiming to do a trick, and a touch-based divination that's been sitting in Annemann's notebook since 1928 with no author attached. Effects Covered [1:13] Editorial — Theodore Annemann Annemann...

Issue #22 opens fresh from the IBM convention, where a Toledo burglar declined the key to the city on professional grounds and proceeded to pick everyone's locks anyway. Annemann makes a career-defining argument about signature effects, surfaces a federal model for stopping piracy, and delivers a number total that spells the helper's name, a joker that keeps returning, and a coin routine where the...

Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 21: Issue #21 Issue #21 opens with an obituary for a coin legend, scatters into a long stream of trivia and dispatches including a notable visitor list that ends with Mike the Educated Rooster, and then delivers a two-phase ace routine, a triple prediction, a clamp-coded denomination divination, and a name that appears to sew itself onto a handkerchief in colored t...

Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 20: Issue #20 Issue #20 arrives with a dedication: no card tricks whatsoever. Annemann is busy going after plagiarists, weighing in on the SAM's long-awaited exposure charges against Harlan Tarbell, and delivering a column of performance advice that holds up just as well today as it did in 1936. The effects include a dollar-and-five transposition that works itself,...

Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 19: Issue #19 Issue #19 finds Annemann 14 weeks into his nightclub tour, mid-dispute with Frank Lane, and with strong opinions about dealers writing in the margins of subscribers' copies. The effects this issue include a rapid calculation piece that fools people who already know the original, a thought-of card found without a single question asked, a behind-the-bac...

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 bui...

Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 17: Issue #17 Issue #17 opens with a sharp warning about cameras and sleight of hand, delivers a blindfolded cigarette identification built on a coat dropper, a deceptively clean two-card prediction with a Magician's Choice structure, and closes with a historical essay on the torn deck from the SAM's national president. The Burling Hull situation also resurfaces —...

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 co...

Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 15: Issue #15 Issue #15 is a compact but well-stocked issue — a three-way out envelope used for real election-night publicity, a self-working spelling effect updated for American audiences, a coat-mounted ball retriever that takes Jay on a nostalgic tour of his heavily rigged performing jackets, and a parlor effect that Annemann calls the best drawing-room concepti...

Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 14: Issue #14 Issue #14 is a busy one — Annemann makes the case for learning fortune telling, prints a point-by-point rebuttal from a critic in full, and delivers a card on a window, a coin transposition for platform use, and the two-person mentalism piece he's been using in real-world conditions. There's also a dime passing through a handkerchief, which Jay notes...

Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 13: Issue #13 Issue #13 arrives with two black cats overhead and Annemann unbothered — he notes the cat should be the worried one. The issue delivers practical stagecraft from a Viennese theater veteran, a publicity stunt involving a postage stamp and a ceiling, a newspaper prediction with mentalism flair, and a self-working eight-ace routine that Manning insists s...

Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 12: Issue #12 Issue #12 is an all-Annemann affair — editorial, notebook column, a stacked-deck solitaire hustle, and a stage four-aces routine built for maximum fairness. He's also bottle-feeding a puppy, which explains a few things about the issue's more notebook-jottings character. Effects Covered [0:48] Editorial — Theodore Annemann  Annemann blames August...

Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 11: Issue #11 Issue #11 is a card-heavy issue with a few pleasant surprises — a clever cigarette gag, a matchbook divination that requires nothing more than a book of matches and one quick calculation, and a borrowed business card that survives being cut in half. Annemann's editorial is in a reflective mood, anchored by a story about a fireman with an excellent mem...

Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 10: Issue #10 Issue #10 of  The Jinx  opens with Annemann on his soapbox about impromptu magic — and Jay gets on one of his own — before delivering a signed card on a ribbon, a startling deck production, a masterclass in cigarette vanish presentation, and a one-person picture-duplication effect that Annemann vouches for with characteristic honesty. A stro...

Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 9: Issue #9 Issue #9 of  The Jinx  features one of the most widely used envelope techniques in mentalism, a mathematically driven counting effect dressed up in Depression-era politics, and the effect Annemann himself called one of the greatest one-man psychic pieces available — and it's hard to argue with him. The editorial is lively too, with convention...

Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 8: Issue #8 Issue #8 of  The Jinx  is a varied one — a mathematically clever card effect, two contributions from Dr. Duncanson, a borrowed bill in nested envelopes, and Annemann's own opinionated reading list for magicians. The editorial is packed: a victory lap, a moving tribute, and Annemann publicly setting the record straight on not one but two separa...

Jinx Navigator Podcast — Episode 7: Issue #7 Issue #7 of  The Jinx  is a strong one — a clean card transposition, a clever two-person code system, a prediction that disappears from the deck, and a classic bill-in-lemon with some real teeth to it. Annemann also pays tribute to a giant of the magic world and goes on a rant that's just as relevant today as it was in 1935. Effects Covered [0...

In this episode, Jay browses Issue #6 of  The Jinx  (1934–1941), the legendary newsletter for magicians and mentalists. This issue is heavy on Theodore Annemann, with contributions from Russell T. Wise and a peek at the editorial page. Effects Covered [0:00] Intro  Jay introduces the show and the episode's focus: Issue #6 of  The Jinx . [0:45] Impromptu Frame Ups — Theodore Ann...

In this issue Jay talks about Annemann’s “Red and Blue Back Color Change,” a two-card back-swap, discusses L. E. Duncanson’s “With Sight Unseen,” a hands-tied, blindfolded identification routine requiring a homemade gimmick that Jay doubts can accomplish all claimed feats. He covers two solutions to a prior issue’s “lie calling” challenge: Charles Nyquist’s stacked-deck approach dependent on a cle...

In this issue we review Annemann’s “The Master of the Message,” an impromptu thought-reading effect. We summarize Martin Sunshine’s “Cigarette Perception,” where a blindfolded performer identifies cigarette brands, and suggests the method could be repurposed beyond smoking. Jay discusses Orville Wayne Meyer’s “Card Box Sympathy,” which uses a P&L Metal Card Box, but says the written handling seems...

Jinx Navigator Podcast: Jay Jennings reviews issue number three of The Jinx, a roughly 90-year-old newsletter for magicians and mentalists, to see which ideas still hold up and how they might be tweaked for modern use. Aside from the editorial, Jay covers four items from the issue: Les Gilbert’s “A Card in Transit,” where a spectator-initialed card vanishes from the deck and appears in the perform...

Join Jay as he dives into the second issue of The Jinx (1934-1941), the legendary magic newsletter that shaped modern mystery performance. This episode breaks down five effects from Issue #2, exploring which tricks still work today. In This Episode: We explore five effects from The Jinx #2, including Ted Annemann's "The Devil's Four Aces" (a visual four-ace assembly), Orville Wayne Meyer's "The Fi...

In this episode of the Jinx Navigator Podcast, Jay takes listeners through the significant highlights of the first issue of The Jinx, a historic magic newsletter by Theodore Annemann. He discusses the first magic effect, 'Hallucination' by Eddie Clever, the 'Supreme East Indian Needle feat' by Ted Annemann, 'Two Papers and a Spectator' by Ted Annemann, and 'The Mystery of the Blackboard' by Paul R...