The Magician's Library

[David Scollnik]

At the link is a short article / essay by a fellow who stumbled upon the library of a dead magician (named in the article) in a used bookstore.

https://walterkirn.substack.com/p/the-magicians-library

[Bill Mullins]

John Goodrum was active in magic during the 1930s, and wrote a couple of books. He spent his adult life here in Huntsville, AL, and was not involved in the local magic community. He died in 2004, and a number of books he had owned ended up in the local "Friends of the Library" bookstore, donated by his widow.

[Bob Farmer]

I wrote a parody of one of Busby's rants. It follows.

Jeff Blusterby Magic Inc.

The Blowhard Building
612 Greedy Street, Bigasabus, Idaho 83873 U.S.A.

Send Us Your Money, Any Way You Can (credit card, fax, telex, Compuserve, MCI Mail) Don’t Ever Call Us Again

AN OPEN LETTER ABOUT PANCHO PEDRO’S RUBBER NOSE

Dear Magician:

In Thaumarcanepoptica #12,387 (Winter Extra For March, 1926, published January, 1995) noted legal beagle, David Smarty talked about his obsession with crossdressing as Dell O’Dell and doing a rhyming patter act with a mongoose and a banana.

In that same issue, we released Pancho Pedro’s Rubber Nose — a new and wonderful item that actually allows you to change your appearance by simply affixing a false rubber nose to your face. I know that I don’t have to explain to the class of customers that read this sheet that the false nose is placed over your real nose and stuck there with a bit of secret adhesive (“Adhero” — usually a $1.50, but we supply it free with the nose).

These two seemingly disparate items, crossdressing as Dell O’Dell and a fake nose, are actually related to what I want to say right here (well, not actually right here, but farther down on the page). Yes, I’m talking about false appearances or what Paul Fox used to call la dolce vita (Fox was out of his head a lot of the time).

Here’s what I mean and let me make this perfectly clear: Jeff Blusterby Magic distributes Pancho Pedro’s Rubber Nose exclusively in Idaho. In fact, we are distributing Pancho Pedro’s Rubber Nose exclusively to the entire universe of people who speak Idahoan (e.g. “Thet shore wuz some scary movie on th’ TV las’ nite, wudnit?”).

Now pay attention because this is very important: Hank Lee’s Magic Factory is advertising something Lee calls, Pedro Pancho’s Rubber Proboscis

Don’t be fooled. I wasn’t.

When I saw the ad, I was immediately suspicious. “Pedro Pancho” sounds to the untrained ear a lot like “Pancho Pedro,” but it didn’t fool me. And the word “proboscis” is simply another word (known as a “synonym”) for the word “nose.”

It had happened again — another magic dealer rip-off of Jeff Blusterby Magic, but this time I wasn’t going to let something as good as Pancho Pedro’s Rubber Nose fall prey to the scavengers.

No--this time if there were customers out there with money they could send me, it would be me keeping it and not filling the orders, not some other guy (apparently Hank Lee actually sends the stuff out after it’s paid for — how do people like this stay in business?).

Anyway, I got David Smarty on it right away and we sent Lee several hundred legal letters that we composed on my Nakamora 34000 typesetter (the same one NASA uses). The letters had words in them like “cease,” “desist” and “banana.” I didn’t want to use the word “banana” so much, but Smarty insisted because of the rhyming patter act he does with the mongoose and the banana I mentioned earlier.

By this time I had the real story behind the Lee rip-off. Lee had called “Magico Flabbergasto,” a dealer in Nairobi and ordered the original version that Pancho Pedro had put out over there.

Pancho Pedro called “Magico Flabbergasto” and told them in Spanish (the only language he speaks), “Attendo! El Dorado fandango gringo el diablo Senor Blusterby hacienda!!” (which means, “Do not ship to Idaho! Jeff Blusterby has exclusive rights to Idaho!”).

But they shipped anyway and Hank Lee immediately ran out and started advertising this in Idaho. Lee was selling a rip-off version with the original instructions Pancho Pedro had written up — let me tell you that Pancho Pedro’s English is very, very bad and his instructions were just what you might expect from someone who doesn’t live in Idaho, has never been to Idaho and doesn’t even speak one word of Idahoan.

And there were no illustrations.

When I got the first Rubber Nose nine months ago (and that’s the correct title, not Rubber Proboscis), I gave one, along with the original instructions to noted attorney David Smarty — and he stuck the nose on his forehead!

I said, “David, you’re a smart guy and a great magician, but a rubber nose should be worn over your real nose so it’s aligned correctly on your face.”

And gentlemen, need I tell you that if the nose isn’t aligned correctly — it just isn’t a fooler. As the Professor used to say, “Confusion is not magic.”
Having two noses is confusing. It’s not magic.

Now I could have sent out Pancho Pedro’s Rubber Nose just the way I received it, but I want you to have stuff that works. So I sat down and spent six months preparing a 400-page book. I posed for over 4,000 illustrations (see below).

It’s up to you who you deal with in magic, of course. But consider this: we at Jeff Blusterby Magic like our customers, don’t mind a little crossdressing if the mongoose isn’t badly treated and we honestly try to take as much time as possible in everything we do (like writing instructions and sending out orders).

Let me make a prediction: Pancho Pedro has another great trick, the X-Ray Wonder Tube. You can actually see the bones in your hand with this. How long will it be before the rip-off dealers put this on the market? Not long.

Yours for better magic and longer waits

Jeff Blusterby

PLACE RUBBER NOSE ONLY AS SHOWN HERE: (illustration of red clown nose on face of moron)

[Leo Garet]

It sounds authentic to me. Was the banana green?