The Genii Forum

Tom Sawyer

And now we have reached December 23, 2019, which (as noted by Philippe above) is the hundredth anniversary of Professor Hoffmann's passing away.

Of course, in much of the world, it's already December 24. But not in the US!

—Tom Sawyer

Tom Sawyer

Yes, Bill, thanks for posting. I just spent a little while looking at some of the Jimmy Nelson material on eBay, some quite interesting, including photos of Danny O’Day dressed in a Texaco uniform. A riot and very heartwarming. I well remember the “clack” of Farfel’s mouth in the Nestle’s commercial...

Tom Sawyer

If David Devant were alive today, and knew what was going on in magic today, I wonder what opinions he would post on this thread. Something tells me that a lot that has been posted here would not be congruent with his views. Some of the guys posting here have been grappling meaningfully with these i...

Tom Sawyer

Professor Hoffmann was born July 23, 1839. If my arithmetic is correct, that would make today the 180th anniversary of his birth. Also worth noting is the fact that later this year will be the 100th anniversary of his passing away.

—Tom Sawyer

Tom Sawyer

I don't think that anyone mentioned here that a couple of years ago, Potter & Potter offered for sale at auction a copy of the first edition of Erdnase with Adams's bookplate.

Tom Sawyer

Hi All, Above there is a bit of discussion from Bill Mullins relating to the chronology of the first appearance of two of Professor Hoffmann’s books, namely Tricks With Cards (as published by Warne) and More Magic . I thought I would toss in a few remarks. The Warne book’s full title is Tricks With ...

Tom Sawyer

Hi All, Last week I published my newest book, Aurora Hellis and the Remarkable Chatelaine . It’s largely a Young Adult novel, but it should be of interest to older people as well. The book is available as an ebook download on Amazon.com at a trifling 99-cents per copy. Here is a link to the ebook on...

Tom Sawyer

(P.S. The main purpose of this post is to show an excerpt from an email I received from David Levy. I see now that I have written a rather long introduction, so feel free to skip the intro and jump to the quotation.) A lot has been written pro and con on the candidacy of R.F. Foster. Some pretty goo...

Tom Sawyer

Apologies for not replying sooner. I will list a copy of the book on eBay today or tomorrow, and then you may purchase if you so desire.

If someone else orders first (HIGHLY unlikely), I will list another copy.

Thanks for your interest,

Tom Sawyer

Tom Sawyer

Hi All,

Today I took down my S.W. Erdnase blog for the time being (for personal reasons).

I expect that this will be a temporary situation. (But I probably won’t put it back for at least six months.)

—Tom Sawyer

Tom Sawyer

Hi All, I have been thinking a little about “confirmation bias” and the S.W. Erdnase case. The term has been mentioned several times on this thread, and in doing a search, I see (though I had no recollection of it) that a post by me was one of nine or so posts to mention that phrase. It strikes me a...

Tom Sawyer

I presume that the gentleman whose name appears on the inside front cover was Jacob Chasnoff.

Tom Sawyer

Hi All, Concerning Steve Burton’s post above, one of the interesting things about the theory was that it appeared in 1989, and no matter how you calculate it, that is more than a year before the appearance of The Man Who Was Erdnase . And it is a rather clever theory. Dick Hatch alluded to this matt...

Tom Sawyer

Hi All, Another game that Erdnase mentions (page 75), namely “Coon Can,” may raise issues similar to those presented by Pinochle. From what Foster says in his 1897 Foster’s Complete Hoyle , that work contains the game’s “first complete description,” though that was under the name “Conquian” (without...

Tom Sawyer

Oh, and by way of supplementing what I just said, I might think, "Hmmm. Maybe the mysteries I am seeing are based on the magician telling me he has done the impossible, rather than him actually doing the impossible." But if he flops the cards down and I see five aces instead of four, I mer...

Tom Sawyer

Speaking theoretically, I would be more disappointed if I heard a magician say, "This hat is empty," if I could see plainly a cannonball residing therein -- than I would be if I simply saw him drop a cannonball into a profonde . If I saw the cannonball in the hat, the disappointment would ...

Tom Sawyer

In case anyone wants to look up the relevant information in TMWWE, I suspect that the main pages are 14 and 384 (note 13). The information there is fragmentary and conflicting.

Tom Sawyer

Hi All, I find the "bookplate in the book" issue and the "price on the title page" issue to be of continuing fascination, because in both instances the facts are rather complex, and it is difficult to discern precisely how those items of proof should be interpreted and applied. T...

Tom Sawyer

I gather that Baum edited a periodical on window decorating, out of that address, for at least a time. ( N.W. Ayer & Son's American Newspaper Annual , 1901, via Google Books, from an example at the University of Michigan [digitized by Google]. ) Not sure whether his time there overlapped with Dr...

Tom Sawyer

Bill, I tend to view the Erdnase problem as I might view a horse race. (I was formerly extremely interested in perimutuel betting. And actually that interest is merely napping; it isn't dead.) Anyway, I can look at the Erdnase candidates as I might horses a race. The bettor (within his skill level) ...

Tom Sawyer

Hi All, I have not read everything in this thread. However, I do at least see an “issue” here — as, I gather, Mark Lewis and maybe others do as well. In support of the view that is opposite to the view that seems generally expressed on this thread, I quote the following, from the enlarged version of...

Tom Sawyer

Hi All, I am not sure exactly where this thread is going, but I think there are genuine "issues" that exist, and that it is axiomatic that not everyone is going to agree. In a mind-reading act, for example, I am not sure what the present-day thinking is regarding this subject. If I recall ...

Tom Sawyer

Hi All, Concerning Bill Mullins’s post of 19:11 yesterday . . . Personally, I like the fact that Gallaway owned a copy of the book. That fact makes his candidacy a little more exciting than it otherwise would be. But since knowledge of Gallaway’s ownership of the book preceded Gallaway’s candidacy, ...

Tom Sawyer

Hi All, All right, since the Erdnase lull continues, here are a few words about Cab No. 44 , a 1910 novel by R.F. Foster. It appears that this was first mentioned in the Erdnase world by Dick Hatch on a different thread in 2003, then on this thread in 2005, first by Bill Mullins, and then by Dick ag...

Tom Sawyer

Hi All, During a lull like the present one, it might be interesting for people to think about what kinds of features make a candidate a “leader,” or for that matter, about the kinds of things that make a person a candidate at all. Such features often have little to do with the strength of a candidat...

Tom Sawyer

Dick, those are all good points (at least, as of now!), and I think I had most of that in mind, even though I only focused on two or three things.

--Tom S.

Tom Sawyer

Speaking of "candidate viability" . . . Richard Hatch recently mentioned a candidate suggested by Peter Zenner, namely E.D. Benedict. Benedict has not been discussed much (so far!) on this thread, but it is interesting to me that he has been catapulted into being one of the leading candida...

Tom Sawyer

Just a reminder that Professor Hoffmann also described the "Thee Card Trick" in Modern Magic , which of course preceded the description in More Magic . Without getting into details, the Modern Magic version (pages 76-77) is simpler, but it does go into the "bent corner" addition,...

Tom Sawyer

Setting aside Gallaway's copy of The Expert at the Card Table, I am led to wonder exactly (a) what gambling books, if any, and (b) what magic books, if any, are known to exist with Gallaway's bookplate in them.

Tom Sawyer

Bill, thanks for the clarification on that! --Tom

Tom Sawyer

Bill, in connection with a hypothetical above, you said: The probability that Gallaway would use it 3 times if he wrote like Erdnase is 0.014. The probability that Erdnase would use it 5 times if he wrote like Gallaway is 0.175. If you are saying "3 times in 30,000 words ," and "5 tim...

Tom Sawyer

Ha ha. Of course, in case anyone is wondering, until today I actually had no clue that one of our Vice Presidents had that name.

Tom Sawyer

Pretty sure that's supposed to repesent Levi P. Morton, who (as everybody knows) was Vice President of the United States at the time of the cartoon.

Tom Sawyer

Hi All, I'm sure that this post will scroll-away quickly, and maybe that is for the best. I did discuss Teale on my Erdnase blog, but I am not sure what my "argumentation" was that was referred to by Chris. It's plain to me that Chris approached the problem from the opposite direction from...

Tom Sawyer

Leo, that (in my opinion) is an excellent point on the Dalrymple situation. I had forgotten that argument (that Sanders could well have thought the picture depicted his dad, whether it did or not), but if I had remembered it, I would have mentioned it in my post above on this issue. But when you get...

Tom Sawyer

Bill: That is a difficult question. I actually think there is a decent chance that it is supposed to represent W.F. Sanders. But see below. In Rethinking S.W. Erdnase , I said: Personally, I think it is supposed to be Wilbur Fisk Sanders, for various reasons. To me, it looks pretty much like him. An...

Tom Sawyer

Hi All, This post has to do with the s-for-r substitution. Chris above indicates that it is clear that the s-for-r "was an accidental substitution." The reason stated was that if it were NOT accidental, there would be other examples within the book. That might be so, but if it is, it appea...

Tom Sawyer

Hi All, Concerning the “P.S.” in the previous post, I quote the following from my 2015 book Rethinking S.W. Erdnase . I have placed in boldface some of the more relevant portions: One of the topics I have long found of interest is that of the role of printers (of a century or more ago) in seeing to ...

Tom Sawyer

In looking at the above comments (regarding proofreading) by Clay, Richard, Brad, and Chris, I think all of the remarks make sense, even though in part some statements may seem to contradict others. It’s fairly well-known (at least, it’s not a secret) that someone in New York (that is, not Professor...

Tom Sawyer

I think there are several lists of mistakes in The Expert at the Card Table , and I suspect that the best one is in Marty Demarest’s edition (or editions) of the book. Clay makes a particularly good point about mistakes being more easily spotted by the author than by anyone else. But it occurs to me...

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