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 would be perfect EDC material if anyone still carried handkerchiefs.

Effects Covered [1:00] Editorial — Theodore Annemann Annemann opens with a practical case for learning fortune telling — nothing takes over a party faster, he says, and card layouts do most of the work once you know the meanings. He also addresses magic exposés in Popeye cartoons, touches briefly on the ongoing Burling Hull dispute, and closes with an elaborate fantasy publicity campaign involving a coffin, a jailbreak, a department store climb, a bullet catch, and a live burial — described in gleeful detail. Jay endorses the fortune telling advice and points to his own numerology site as a companion resource.

[3:20] The Burling Hull Letter Battle — Burling Hull / Theodore Annemann A departure from the usual format: Annemann prints a full letter from Burling Hull responding to criticism directed at Hull's publication Stage Magic. Hull defends his publication history point by point, cites over 1,200 testimonials, and closes with a pointed shot at Annemann's own book — noting it nearly didn't appear at all and only made it to print through a dealer's intervention. Annemann prints it in full, as promised, which says something about how he ran the Jinx.

[4:43] Images of Business Cards — Theodore Annemann A full page of magicians' business cards from the era — not something that translates to audio, but worth a look at jinxnavigator.com.

[4:51] A Card in Flight — Bobby Hummer A helper notes a card, the deck goes into a borrowed hat, and the performer appears to remove the spots one by one — flicking them away. The card vanishes from the deck entirely, and when a window curtain is raised, the card is on the outside of the glass looking in. The vanish uses small pieces of black paper and a move inside the hat that happens in plain sight without anyone registering it. The card on the window is a duplicate, planted during an earlier visit that same day.

[5:55] Coins En Route — Otakar Fischer Ten coins on a helper's palm under a handkerchief, ten more in a second helper's cupped hands — the first helper shakes the handkerchief a chosen number of times, and that many coins travel invisibly between them. Fischer's contribution is a quiet steal built into the initial counting action, looking purely functional. Diachylon plaster is called for in the original; Jay recommends magician's wax and notes this may be the first coin version of a traveling-coins effect he's encountered.

[7:05] A Cute and Quick Location — Theodore Annemann Four cards dealt face down, the helper touches one, and its value tells the performer exactly how far down in the deck to count for the selected card. Four specific cards in a particular order near the top of the deck — that's the entire setup. Annemann discovered it while noodling around rather than setting out to invent anything, which gives it the feel of something that slots naturally into a casual impromptu session.

[7:52] Metal vs. Fabric — Fred Demuth A dime and a penny are placed on a handkerchief, the cloth is twisted tight around them, and the dime is pulled slowly through the fabric — leaving only the penny behind. The method uses a classic coin set that many performers already own, with Demuth offering a new application that makes the penetration visible and direct. Jay notes that pennies are still around even if handkerchiefs aren't, and recommends giving it a shot.

[8:53] Thoughts in the Air — Theodore Annemann A two-person mentalism piece that Annemann has been using and finds genuinely practical. A helper hides a personal object somewhere in the room while the performer is present — then the performer leaves, the assistant returns, finds a chosen card in the deck, and locates the hidden object without asking anyone anything. The card selection is pure misdirection; what the audience remembers afterward is the object being found and returned. The location system divides the room into a coordinate grid, learnable with a partner in about five minutes. Jay plans to try it at an upcoming magic club meeting.

[10:28] Outro Links and a preview of Issue #15 — featuring Annemann's original faked envelope with a publicity angle.

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 should be performed as one unbroken sequence.

Effects Covered

[0:56] Editorial — Theodore Annemann Annemann opens with a genuine pet theory: magicians do too many things in threes, and the third repetition risks nullifying the mystery entirely. Jay pushes back slightly — he's fine with threes, but argues that if you repeat something, at least vary what the audience perceives. The editorial also covers a bird cage update tracing Robert Heller's version, a recommendation for U.F. Grant's one-way deck booklet, a cigarette vanish by Calvert Cole that fooled Annemann completely, and Andrew Brennan's follow-up to last issue's shrinking dollar — which ends with a large souvenir penny and the punchline that the secret of 59 cents is that they have bigger cents.

[4:21] An Original Tie for Loads — Otakar Fischer A practical stagecraft solution from a man who spent 12 consecutive years performing two-hour shows at a magical theater in Vienna. The device is a simple endless loop of cord with a ring and a dress hook — a load secured diagonally releases instantly with a single upward motion of the hook, and the heavier the load, the more securely it holds until needed. Twelve years of professional use is about as good a recommendation as it gets.

[5:17] Higher Magic — Theodore Annemann A wet postage stamp pressed to a half dollar and thrown at the ceiling with a particular motion — the coin comes back down, the stamp stays up. Annemann's best version involves a card name written in ink on the back of the stamp, placed on a hotel ceiling during one visit and confirmed by forcing that card on a return visit. Practical notes: use ink not pencil, small stamps work best, and for a walking advertisement, have gummed stickers printed with your name instead.

[6:35] The Super Slates — Anonymous A two-slate effect where both slates are openly numbered on all four sides before anything happens — and when opened, there's chalk writing on the inside of each one. The method involves a precisely timed sequence of flap handling woven around the numbering procedure. Jay's honest take: lay audiences probably aren't going home wondering why only one slate had writing on it, but if you want to fool the folks at the next magic club meeting, this will do it.

[7:51] Cards and a Newspaper — Arthur Johnson A helper shuffles and cuts a deck into four piles, cards are moved between them, and the top card of each pile turns up a page number, column, line, and word — which matches a prediction written before anything began. The underlying card principle is one magicians will recognize from the classic four-aces location, but Johnson's repurposing of it as a newspaper prediction shifts the feel entirely toward mentalism. Jay notes it would work just as cleanly as a book test with a small adjustment to the presentation.

[8:58] Aces of Eight — Otis Manning Eight aces — two from each suit — are mixed and cut by a helper, and the performer produces them from behind his back in a sequence of escalating phases: matching suits, then matching colors, then a spelling sequence, then finally both hands emerge with reds in one and blacks in the other. No conventional sleight of hand — the work happens behind the back through arrangement and one simple repeated move. Manning's instruction is to learn it smoothly and perform the whole thing as one continuous unbroken effect.

[10:04] Outro Links and a preview of Issue #14 — featuring Annemann's Thoughts in the Air, an almost-impromptu two-person mentalism effect.

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 heat and an eight-day-old bird dog for a lighter-than-usual issue, then pivots to a genuinely frustrated observation about magicians who ignore published effects until someone else does something brilliant with them — at which point the whole community suddenly discovers it's great. He closes with a word about the late dealer Sam Bailey and goes to feed his puppy.

[2:22] Thoughts in General — Theodore Annemann Annemann's occasional miscellany column covers a card puzzle involving 25 cards and five poker hands, a betting proposition hidden in a fanned shuffled deck, an improved handling of the Seven Keys to Baldpate built with Robert Thrasher, a shrinking dollar bill stunt with Roosevelt-era patter, a canary-in-a-lightbulb variation using water, and a pointed note to anyone still using cop-and-robber patter in 1935. He also digs into the history of the vanishing bird cage and cards from the pockets, and closes with a practical angle for secretly loading an object into a helper's pocket using a card trick as cover. Jay notes that put-pocketing, it turns out, is not a new idea.

[5:03] The Solitaire King — Theodore Annemann Annemann discovered that the Eight Kings stack, applied to the solitaire game Canfield, produces a win nearly every time — and built a presentation around it for card parties. After a few card tricks, you offer to demonstrate how you can always win at solitaire, false shuffle the stacked deck, lay out the game, and it plays itself to a win with one decision point in the middle. Annemann is modest about it: he didn't invent either piece, he just noticed they fit together.

[6:06] Four Aces on the Stage — Theodore Annemann A classic close-up effect gets a full platform treatment. Four volunteers each find an ace themselves, cover it with three cards, and one packet is chosen at random — the rest go back into the deck, which gets shuffled, rubber-banded, and tossed into the audience for someone to search. No aces anywhere. The chosen volunteer spreads their cards: all four aces. The method uses a short-card deck and three extra aces, with the key moves happening precisely when every eye in the room is on the volunteers or the audience member searching the deck. Jay — confirmed non-card-guy — says this one sounds genuinely fun to both perform and watch.

[7:37] Outro Links and a preview of Issue #13 — featuring Arthur Lloyd Johnson's Cards and Newspaper.