Jim Kleefeld: 60 Years of Magic & Mentalism

Adrian Tennant [00:00:00]:

Coming up in this episode of The Magic Book Podcast.

Jim Kleefeld [00:00:04]:

The more I did it, the more I appreciated and liked the concept of mentalism. Because you're using your mind, it's more cerebral, it's a little more intelligent. I like that aspect of it, that it seems more magical, but more real in a way too.

Adrian Tennant [00:00:20]:

You're listening to The Magic Book Podcast, conversations about classic and contemporary books that teach, illuminate and celebrate the art of magic. I'm your host, Adrian Tennant, a lifetime student of magic and mentalism, occasional performer and longtime book collector. Thanks for joining me. Welcome to this episode of The Magic Book Podcast. Today my guest is Jim Kleefeld, a professional magician and children's entertainer who's made remarkable contributions to magic both as a performer and authority. Based near Cleveland, Ohio, Jim has specialized in themed magic shows tailored for schools, libraries, fairs and festivals, creating a new themed show each year for over twenty-five years. His performances focus on educational and engaging topics such as reading, character development, history, and world cultures. As a former kindergarten teacher and child development expert, Jim brings a unique educational perspective to his performances and is known for his professionalism.

Adrian Tennant [00:01:34]:

But Jim is equally well known as an accomplished author and researcher. He's written fourteen books for children's magicians on themed shows, plus two highly acclaimed works on mentalism. His books "Locked" and "The Book Test Book" are considered essential references in mentalism. Jim is also an accomplished illustrator who's contributed artwork to dozens of other magicians books and has been a long running columnist for publications including "M-U-M", "LaughMakers", and "Funny Paper." Jim, welcome to The Magic Book Podcast.

Jim Kleefeld [00:02:13]:

Well, thank you very much, Adrian. I appreciate you having me.

Adrian Tennant [00:02:16]:

You've been performing magic for over sixty years, starting with your first paid show at age sixteen. Jim, what drew you to magic in the first place?

Jim Kleefeld [00:02:28]:

An inferiority complex. I kind of say that jokingly, but I think it's kind of true in a way, and it may be true for a lot of people. And when you see bios of magicians in magazines or you hear podcasts and they tell you how they got started, they always say one of two things. "Well, I got a magic set when I was seven" or "I went to school and there was a magician at school." But those are not the impetus for becoming a magician. Because if you think about it, at that school, there were probably two hundred fifty kids who saw that magician. They did not all become magicians. Only one or two of them maybe did.

Jim Kleefeld [00:03:08]:

So what draws you into magic is not that you saw it or had access to it. Once upon a time, when you were five or seven or eleven, what draws you into magic is something else, and it has to do with your personality. And literally, I think mine was an inferiority complex. I always felt like I was being criticized for getting stuff wrong, doing something stupid. And I think a lot of that was because I was kind of impulsive as a young child. I would just go out and do stuff. And when I did magic, and I got into it through Cub Scouts, I had to do a badge, a merit badge or something for performing.

Jim Kleefeld [00:03:49]:

And when I did magic, everybody stopped and paid attention and appreciated it. And it was that confidence building towards my individual personality that made me go into magic, made me become a magician.

Adrian Tennant [00:04:05]:

This year marks your sixtieth anniversary of performing. How has the world of children's entertainment changed over those six decades?

Jim Kleefeld [00:04:15]:

It's not a lot different, but it has slowly evolved. One of the things I've seen over the last maybe ten years is a much shorter attention span in kids. They come in to a show, and if it doesn't start within five minutes of when they walked in the room, they get antsy. I also see more selfish behaviors in both kids and parents. Kids that don't mind arriving fifteen minutes late and just barge in and go in and sit down like they were the only one in the room. Kids that have to get in the front row, no matter who's there or how late they were. Kids that can just stand up and leave during the middle of a show.

Jim Kleefeld [00:04:58]:

Nothing like that ever used to happen ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. Those things have started happening in the last five or ten years. Kids are coming into a show not having any idea how to be an audience. And that part has changed, I think. But it seems like it's only been in the last ten years. And I don't know, it might be a product of COVID when kids, you know, stayed home and didn't get school teaching or didn't have school assemblies to go to.

Adrian Tennant [00:05:26]:

How did your experience in child development shape the way you create and present your shows?

Jim Kleefeld [00:05:34]:

Well, I know kids. I've studied. I have a master's degree in early childhood development. I taught kindergarten. I taught first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade. I taught teachers in college who were going into elementary school. There's a lot of background there that has to do with how kids react, how they behave, what they say and do. And it's mostly stuff I internalized over thirty years in the classroom.

Jim Kleefeld [00:06:04]:

So I know how kids think. I know what they like. I know what they think is funny. And it's just the years of experience with those different age levels that allow me to make my show adjust to the audience. If the age is a little older or a little younger, I can adjust my timing and my vocabulary. I might even drop a trick or add a trick based on that. And there are subtle differences between an audience of five-year-olds and an audience of six-year-olds, or an audience of five- and six-year-olds and an audience of seven- and eight-year-olds. And I can adjust what I do, the vocabulary and timing and things that I use in a show to match who those kids are and what I'm seeing when I'm standing in front of them.

Adrian Tennant [00:06:54]:

Now, you create a new theme and show every year. What's your process for developing these themes? And how do you keep finding fresh inspiration?

Jim Kleefeld [00:07:07]:

Well, I started doing themes back in the 1970s. I decided then I would be going to the same libraries and schools in my area over and over again every year. I wanted to go back every year. So I thought of the idea of changing the show every year. And my idea originally was to make a theme so that the clients would know the show would be different. So I had a red, white, and blue all-American show. And the next year I had a safari jungle animal show. And the next year I did a show that was all about hats, for example.

Jim Kleefeld [00:07:44]:

But after the '70s and '80s kind of went by, a lot of libraries, which are my main focus, started having their own themes. Libraries develop a theme for their summer reading club every year. After twenty years of doing that, there became a large consortium, and the consortium develops a theme that many, many states use every year, and they bring out that theme. All the libraries subscribe to it, and they are all using that theme for their decorations and party theme ideas in their libraries. So now I don't have to think of a theme. I just look and see what the libraries are doing. If they're doing dinosaurs, I'll do a dinosaur magic show. If they're doing exercise or oceans or bugs, I can develop a magic show and find suitable effects that fit with that theme.

Adrian Tennant [00:08:40]:

Your library performances have been a significant part of your career, particularly during these summer reading programs. So I'm curious, Jim, how do you tailor magic to promote literacy and reading?

Jim Kleefeld [00:08:54]:

Well, again, my background helped a lot because I was a kindergarten teacher. I read lots and lots of children's books. I kept up with it through the years, and even when I retired, I still get a joy out of going online and seeing what's new, reading what the latest trends are in books. I still read kids books all the time. I buy them, I read them, I look online about them. And I decided about ten years ago to try to connect books with tricks. So what I do for a show now in order to promote literacy is I'll bring a book, and I'll show the book and do a quick sentence or two about the book, and then I will do a trick that somehow relates to that. For example, there's a series of books about Clifford the Big Red Dog.

Jim Kleefeld [00:09:46]:

Well, I took a Die Box and I painted over the block that was a die so that it was all solid colors and no spots on it. And then I put six different pictures on it, including a Clifford the Big Red Dog picture on one side. So now when I put the block in the box and it slides back and forth, it's not a die, it's a picture of Clifford the Big Red Dog.

Adrian Tennant [00:10:09]:

Makes sense. With just one exception, you've never missed or canceled a show in your entire career. Jim, what drives that level of commitment, and how the heck do you maintain it?

Jim Kleefeld [00:10:23]:

I guess it's a work ethic that my parents kind of built into me. I'm very committed to a job. When I make something, I want to do the best job possible. When I get hired to do something, I want to be the perfect person that does that job. I've always had that sense of "If you're going to do it, do it right." So for me, the audience is number one. You don't get a second chance. You can't come in twenty minutes late and say, "Hi, sorry, there was an accident on the highway."

Jim Kleefeld [00:10:57]:

You have to start on time. You have to be there on time. You have to do the show well. You have to smile and be happy. You have to do everything, and that includes getting to the show first. That's your primary objective. I start early. I buy a new car every few years.

Jim Kleefeld [00:11:13]:

I'm committed to getting there ahead of time, being prepared. And I don't reschedule things for little excuses. I used to get calls from librarians, panicked because a magician or somebody else canceled a show on them, and could I come tomorrow? Because this guy just called and told them, you know, his grandmother died. And I never would have done that. I guess I've never had the sad misfortune of having my grandmother die the day that I was going to give a show. Part of my commitment is making sure I always get to the show. That's the first thing. Number one, you have to be there.

Jim Kleefeld [00:11:56]:

And I put that as a priority. I put it over personal things, my son's birthday, or Father's Day, or my wife decided she wanted to have a picnic on that day or something. My calendar for my show comes first, and unless something absolutely disastrous happens ... And it did once, I had a record of fifty-nine years. Last year, my wife took a bad fall, she had a brain bleed, she broke her arm, she was hospitalized, it was very serious, and I canceled a show for that. And then of course, as soon as she was better, in a week or two, I called that library and said, "I will come out and reschedule a show and I will come and do a show for you and it will be free." So I kind of tried to make up for it, but other than that, you know, I just put that commitment first.

Jim Kleefeld [00:12:51]:

Don't skip a show.

Adrian Tennant [00:12:53]:

That's great advice and so professional. Now, despite being known primarily as a children's performer, you've always been interested in mentalism. How did you balance these two aspects of your magical interests?

Jim Kleefeld [00:13:09]:

Well, humans are all eclectic. People who do magic also go to baseball games and like birthdays and maybe read or something else. We're all, I think, eclectic people. And inside of magic, there's a lot of variety of subjects or sub-genres to subscribe to. I'm interested in most of it. I don't know why, but for some reason I've always been drawn to mentalism as well as doing kids shows. They're a little bit mutually exclusive. You can't do either of those types of shows for the other one's venue or audience.

Jim Kleefeld [00:13:53]:

So I started doing mentalism just locally, family gatherings, and my local IBM Ring meetings and things. And the more I did it, the more I appreciated and liked the concept of mentalism because you're using your mind. It's more cerebral, it's a little more intelligent, but involves things that people can't say "You must have hid that in your other hand." So I like that aspect of it, that it seems more magical but more real in a way too. So I read more and more mentalism books and then I started booking mentalism shows and I had a built-in market because libraries book adult programs as well as children's programs. So I just started marketing my mentalism shows to those same clients, those libraries that I'm familiar with and have been going to for a long time.

Adrian Tennant [00:14:51]:

Great marketing idea. If you're enjoying this episode of The Magic Book Podcast, please consider leaving a rating on Spotify or a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also follow The Magic Book Podcast page on Facebook. Thanks. Jim, you've written fourteen books for children's magicians. But when we were preparing for this interview, you mentioned to me that you enjoyed writing your two mentalism books, "Locked" and "The Book Test Book" more.

Adrian Tennant [00:15:24]:

What made those projects so fulfilling for you?

Jim Kleefeld [00:15:27]:

I guess because those were both engaging. There was a lot of deep research in both of those. Despite being a performer, I am also a bit of a private person. I enjoy my own company, my wife's company, my quiet house, my computer. And sitting here digging through facts and finding information in books has always been a little appealing to me, I guess, back to my graduate level education. And I liked the research, getting into the specific topic and finding more and more and more out about a very small subject.

Adrian Tennant [00:16:06]:

Well, you wrote "Locked" as a strategic step to establish credibility as a mentalism authority before writing "The Book Test Book." Can you tell us about this calculated approach to building your reputation?

Jim Kleefeld [00:16:23]:

Well, it was very calculated. I was well aware that I was widely known as a children's magician. I'd written a lot of columns in magazines. I'd lectured at the numerous conventions. I attend Kidabra, which is mostly just for children's magicians, every year. So I knew I had a reputation as a children's magician. And that doesn't always translate well into "Well, if he's a good kid show guy, he must be a good mentalist too." In fact, kind of the opposite.

Jim Kleefeld [00:16:58]:

Children's magicians are sometimes the weak stepchild in the family. You know, they're not thought of as real magicians because they just bought a box and showed the little kids, and anybody can do that for kids. So I did want to establish credibility and I wanted to write an encyclopedic reference on book tests. And I didn't know that if I wrote it, it would be widely accepted or even accepted at all because of that reputation as a kid show guy. So I deliberately picked another subject, which was locks, and decided to write a book on locks and see how well I could have that defined and put out. And I thought what I could do is if I put out a good, very decent hardcover book for mentalists on a specific mentalism subject, then I could write a book on book tests, which is what I wanted to do.

Adrian Tennant [00:17:58]:

What specifically drew you to lock-based effects?

Jim Kleefeld [00:18:03]:

Well, I always liked locks. As I said earlier, we're all a little eclectic and everybody has little peccadillos and habits that not everybody does. I always kind of liked locks, the mechanical business of it. And I had used a few in mentalism shows. I did Renaissance fairs for a while with somebody who had Germain's original Spirit Lock.

Adrian Tennant [00:18:28]:

Wow.

Jim Kleefeld [00:18:29]:

And I talked with him and we kind of went over that lock, and I just thought it was a cool thing to have. And I know it's got a history and it's been around. I just thought it was a neat thing. And I put a couple of locks in my shows for different reasons. And then I think what clinched it really was watching Max Maven's routine where he did a Seven Keys to Baldpate lock in front of a live audience. And he had the absolute most marvelous routine for that lock. The way he handled it, the wording that he used, and the idea behind how that seventh key was going to be revealed was original and very germane to mentalism. It was such a good routine, I thought, "I've got to write the book about locks."

Jim Kleefeld [00:19:29]:

And then after I got it ninety-some percent written, I made another decision. I decided that Max Maven's routine was so good, I couldn't put it in the book. It was just too good to tip. If you know it and you've seen it, you're gonna say, "I can't do that." That is all Max. But it also was a joy to watch. So I did not put his routine in the book. Well, I didn't put that one in the book.

Jim Kleefeld [00:19:58]:

Max actually sent me two or three, I think, other different routines to put in the book.

Adrian Tennant [00:20:05]:

Yeah. You had shared with me that you actually received contributions from luminaries, in addition to Max Maven, that included Richard Osterlind, Paul Daniels, and John Archer, among many others. How did you approach these really well established performers?

Jim Kleefeld [00:20:22]:

I just asked. It is incredible how generous and kind most magicians are. I have met literally hundreds of magicians in person. I have corresponded or emailed with probably dozens, maybe hundreds more, and almost to a single person, everybody I talk to in magic is a nice guy, a nice person, kind, generous. I wrote emails to Richard Osterlind and Max Maven and Paul Daniels and John Archer and Ian Adair, dozens of people. And I just said, "You may not know me, but I'm writing this book on locks. Would you have a routine you can contribute?"

Jim Kleefeld [00:21:11]:

Maybe a dozen, or two dozen I wrote and said, "There is a routine of yours in print. I would like to put this in the book. May I use that?" Literally every single person I contacted said, "Absolutely. Yes, no problem." Nobody asked for money, nobody asked for credit. Nobody asked for anything in return. Everybody said "Yes."

Adrian Tennant [00:21:32]:

Well, "Locked" covers one hundred sixteen lock products, one hundred seven published routines, and sixty-two original routines, which I think by anybody's definition, is comprehensive. Jim, how did you organize and present such a vast amount of material?

Jim Kleefeld [00:21:52]:

Well, I started by studying locks. I wanted to know how locks worked first and how you could use them in various ways of different tricks. So I decided that should be sort of the opening of the book. What is a lock? How does it work? And before you get into the magic part of it, just what happens when you stick a key in a slotted hole? So I put up a lot of the mechanical stuff first, and then after that, I decided I probably ought to put in what are widely advertised as commercial products. Key-R-Rect, which has been around forever, is the most widely known lock trick on the market. But there's, oh, two hundred, maybe additional ones besides that. And some of them are repetitive, some of them are redundant, but for the most part, there's a lot of them out there. So I decided to describe them in the way an ad copy would and say, "This is what's out on the market."

Jim Kleefeld [00:22:54]:

And then I started another section that was what lock tricks did I find that were published in magazines. And I kept those things kind of separate and just made chapters. So there was one on commercial products, another one on published material. And then I ended up with quite a few original lock things that people sent me, many of whom said, "Look, I'd never shared this with anybody, but you can have it for the book." When I talked to Ian Adair, he said, "Gee, I don't think I've ever written a trick with a lock. Let me see what I can do." And a week later, he sent me a great routine that was original that he had invented. After I had mentioned it to him, he not only sent the whole written material, he illustrated it, and sent me drawings for how the whole trick was set up and how it would work. So I put the original things sort of at the end.

Jim Kleefeld [00:23:49]:

So it's got several sections now.

Adrian Tennant [00:23:52]:

You deliberately avoided escape artistry. Can you explain the distinction between the lock effects you covered and those used by escape artists?

Jim Kleefeld [00:24:03]:

Yeah, I did find there was a break there. And that is generally that escape artists do not use gimmick locks. Locks that escape artists use are rarely gimmicked. They want the lock to be the point of inspection. They want the lock to be something that everybody can examine and say, "Hey, this looks legitimate to me." And when you get in a trunk and you put six padlocks around the outside of a trunk, you don't want people to see that those somehow can slip themselves open. So you make the secret to getting out of the trunk, not the lock. It's something else.

Jim Kleefeld [00:24:47]:

And the idea that the lock has to be the inspection point means that most escape artists rarely use any kind of a lock that's gimmicked.

Adrian Tennant [00:24:57]:

The research process for "Locked" must have been really extensive. And you've talked a little bit about how you documented the history and the methods. I'm interested in your writing process. Can you tell us a little bit about how you organize the information and then maybe write the first draft? What does that look like?

Jim Kleefeld [00:25:16]:

I am very much a computer guy. I bought a Macintosh in 1984 when they premiered that machine, and I have never looked back. I still have a large desktop computer, and I do all of my writing on the computer. And when I decide to write something, the computer is part of my organizational process. I love the office metaphor for idea for the user interface, because I can put a folder up inside the folder. I can put the "Locked" book inside that "Locked" book folder. I can put "These are original tricks."

Jim Kleefeld [00:25:52]:

"These are printed tricks." I can sort the magazine articles by "Jinx" or "MAGICK" or "Phoenix" and then sort of cull them back and put them together. So what I normally do in that process is to organize in my mind first - what am I going after? And then I write little bits at a time and I sort them and I keep them sorted until I'm ready to go back and compile things together. So I guess that's the writing process. Find a lot of stuff, but keep it organized as you find it, and then it's easier to assemble.

Adrian Tennant [00:26:28]:

Do you generally print everything out to do the final proofreading, or does your wife, when she's helping you, does she like to do it on the computer?

Jim Kleefeld [00:26:36]:

Actually, we both like print better. So I print a copy and I read it. Then I go back and change everything I saw, and I print another copy. And then she reads it and says, "How did you miss all of these things?"

Adrian Tennant [00:26:51]:

That's why sometimes you can't proof your own work, right?

Jim Kleefeld [00:26:54]:

Yeah, it is hard, hard to proof your own work.

Adrian Tennant [00:26:56]:

And tell me a little bit about the choice of publisher. Is that something that factors into your process?

Jim Kleefeld [00:27:03]:

It did in a way. I decided to self-publish, and everything I've done has been self-published. The idea behind that was that I had written some other things in the education field a while back, and they were large and fairly extensive texts for teachers. I wrote a text on social skill curriculum for how to teach teachers how to teach social skills, if that makes sense. And I sent that to a publisher and the publisher loved it and they published it. And then they sold lots and lots and lots of those. And then they sent me four percent royalties for that. And I thought, "This is a two hundred dollar text and I'm getting eight dollars out of that $200."

Jim Kleefeld [00:27:54]:

So the idea of self-publishing was kind of, in a way, an economic one. I like the idea that there are good publishers out there. I love the stuff that H&R Magic put out for all those years. And Kaufman's material is just top notch, but that, you know, all comes at a price. And I figured if I didn't know how to proofread, if I didn't know how to illustrate, if I had to have somebody else do all the drawings and somebody else organize it and somebody else knew how to choose fonts correctly, but I know how to do all of that stuff. So I guess I just wasn't willing to farm that all out to let somebody else do it and then sit back and accept a very small percentage of basically my own work.

Adrian Tennant [00:28:44]:

And I believe that both "Locked" and "The Book Test Book" are available not just in standard editions, but also in a deluxe edition. I'm curious, how do you figure out how many of each to produce?

Jim Kleefeld [00:28:57]:

Well, here's the secret: I use an online publisher that has no minimum, so I can order as many as I want of any of those. I take the original "Locked" and the original "The Book Test Book", and I format them into deluxe editions here with labels and signatures and additional materials. The published book itself is the same in both cases, but they're getting ancillary materials and it's signed and labeled and numbered and that. But I can order those books three hundred at a time, or twenty at a time, or two if I thought I needed two more. So that was sort of my concept behind that. And it took me a while, but I think I found a publisher. I've been very happy with both "Locked" and "The Book Test Book" Book. I think it's good paper.

Jim Kleefeld [00:29:53]:

It's heavy, it's good quality, the binding is good. I've never gotten one that fell apart or that I had a problem with. And I have bought quite a few books from self-published or online publishers. I'm particularly not fond of Amazon's material. I've gotten some that I literally threw in the trash can because the publication was so poor on a book that deserved much, much better. And sometimes you just get junk when you have an online publisher. But the one I've got, I think without very nice, high quality product.

Adrian Tennant [00:30:28]:

"Locked" did successfully establish your credibility in the mentalism community. Were there any other benefits or insights from the approach you took?

Jim Kleefeld [00:30:39]:

Well, there were, and they're been long-lasting and ongoing, and that is friendship and correspondence and sharing with other performers. Because I wrote "Locked" and because I've asked people for contributions and because people have read it and found things they liked, I have had a lot of correspondence from people I've become friends with, a lot of people I've met people I probably wouldn't have met if I had just been doing Ohio Library kids show magic shows.

Adrian Tennant [00:31:15]:

Just a reminder that you can be notified when new episodes of this podcast are published by subscribing to the email alerts. You'll find all the details on the podcast website at TheMagicBookPodcast.com which is where you can also find transcripts plus accompanying blog posts with summaries, timestamps, and links to resources mentioned in each episode. Jim, "Locked" was the setup for your real passion project, "The Book Test Book". Now, after establishing your mentalism credentials, what was it like to finally tackle the encyclopedia you'd always wanted to write?

Jim Kleefeld [00:31:57]:

Well, I got into it easily because I had wanted it had been kind of a passion. I love book tests. I collect book tests. I just love books. I mean, I've always collected books. I have a library built onto my house that houses the books that I have. I read all kinds of books: fiction, mystery novels, as well as magic books. So it was easy to get into "The Book Test Book".

Jim Kleefeld [00:32:24]:

And then it became tedious because there are so many book tests. Every magazine, every journal that came out, everybody's mentalism book has a book test in it. And I started getting through those and thinking, "Oh my God, I don't think I'll be able to finish this!" There are just thousands of them. So it kind of, as I said, became a little tedious, but then it started to flow and I guess it was because of the passion I had at that point from the incentive. And the incentive came about in an odd way. I was friends with Dick Christian, who was a book test expert, and he spent many years collecting book tests, researching book tests, finding out about book tests, and he finally decided he would write the encyclopedia of book tests. And he worked and worked and wrote and wrote, and he spent about six years looking at research and another year writing "The Book Test Book: The Encyclopedia of Book Tests.'

Jim Kleefeld [00:33:31]:

And he was literally ninety-five percent finished with his project when he passed away, everything stagnated. All his material and everything just sat there. It was finally all auctioned off or sold off. And it took me forever to track down what happened to his material. I knew he had a book that was ninety-five percent done and I knew it would be wonderful: an encyclopedic reference to book tests. And I finally found out who got ahold of that.

Jim Kleefeld [00:34:01]:

And it was a well known magic book collector. And I called him and said, "Let's publish this. You have it. I'll do the editing, I'll do the writing, I'll find the publisher, I'll do all the work. We can give all of the money to Dick's widow. I don't want to make any money off of it." And he said to me, "Why would I give it to you? It's mine. I paid for it."

Jim Kleefeld [00:34:28]:

And I was just floored that he was going to be that selfish about keeping what in fact was not his. It was Dick Christian's intellectual property. And it made me angry. And that's why I became passionate about putting out this book test book.

Adrian Tennant [00:34:48]:

Well, the scope of your book test book is staggering. I believe you found six or seven hundred different book tests spanning from 1584 to 2020.

Jim Kleefeld [00:35:00]:

Right.

Adrian Tennant [00:35:01]:

What was your research process like for tracking down all these methods and commercial tests?

Jim Kleefeld [00:35:08]:

Well, I read. I continue to read magic and mentalism all the time. I have probably almost every magazine in magic that has been republished as a hardbound, you know, "The Jinx", "The Phoenix", Bascom Jones' "Magick." I have all of those. Every time something like that came out, I bought it. I literally sat down at the table and thumbed through all of those, one page at a time, looking for book tests. In a case like this, online research doesn't do you much good because you're going to do a search for the word "book" in a book about books. It's just not very helpful.

Jim Kleefeld [00:35:55]:

It's like going in a grocery store and saying, "Okay, now where is the food?" You know? So I spent years of reading this material, but I finally sat down and just went over, page by page, every magazine that I could find. And then of course, I used Ask Alexander, and Conjuring Archives, Dennis Denis Behr's great research facility, and weekly searches on eBay. Sometimes I would just go there and do searches on book tests. And I found quite a few of them that I'd never seen anywhere else as a commercial product somebody had bought and now was selling.

Adrian Tennant [00:36:35]:

Jim, how many book tests did you end up acquiring?

Jim Kleefeld [00:36:39]:

About six hundred or so. I actually had to buy two bookshelves to put in another room in the house because my library's full. I found a few on auction sites, some on eBay. I did pass on one I really wanted. Karl Germain had custom-made versions of "Hamlet" printed which he used. And he had six different versions of "Hamlet" which used repeating pages and the page was different in each one so that he could switch his revelations in different shows. And I did see it, but it was on an auction and I just didn't want to go as high as two or three other people wanted to go.

Adrian Tennant [00:37:21]:

Got it. We've all been there. Well, after you'd written the entire book, your wife made a suggestion to you that turned out to be a really interesting one. Can you share that story?

Jim Kleefeld [00:37:34]:

I can. Bless her heart, especially today, because it is our fifty-fourth anniversary today.

Adrian Tennant [00:37:41]:

Congratulations!

Jim Kleefeld [00:37:42]:

I will give her credit for this suggestion. She proofread the entire book, which she has done with most of my material. She's always been able to add suggestions and she did all the proofreading. She got all done with this three hundred sixty-page book and she handed it back to me and had all the corrections in it. And then she said, "Why didn't you make this book a book test?" And I did that smack-yourself-in-the-head-with-your-palm business and said, "Yeah, I should have done that!"

Adrian Tennant [00:38:14]:

So you actually went back and edited the entire book to incorporate, I believe, four different book test methods. Can you describe what that editing process was like?

Jim Kleefeld [00:38:28]:

It was daunting, it was tedious, it was meticulous, it was cerebral. I figured that I couldn't decide which book test method I should use to make my book's book test. So I put four different ones in. Every fourteenth word is the same on every page. The word book is on every page tied to the page number. There's a Flashback principle which matches an odd page with the even page before it. And there's a long word principle embedded in essays. And in order to do that, I had to go back and rewrite the first two or three lines of every single page.

Adrian Tennant [00:39:15]:

Wow.

Jim Kleefeld [00:39:16]:

And change the wording so that I could fit what I wanted to. Like I said, every fourteenth word was the same. The word "book" was tied in. And you can do that. It just that you have to start on page one and do it because it might change the wording and if the wording changes, it might change the number of lines and if the number of line changes, then page two begins with a different line than it used to. So yeah, it was tedious, but also enjoyable.

Adrian Tennant [00:39:48]:

The built-in book test is an Easter egg that you reveal on the last page, but I'm guessing some people probably never discover it. Why did you choose to hide this feature rather than promote it up front?

Jim Kleefeld [00:40:02]:

I've always liked the Easter egg concept. A lot of films do that. Disney films and Pixar films are well noted for hiding little things inside. I worked for a electronic lighting company for several years part-time, doing technical illustrations for their manuals on their information. And those illustrations I put a little Easter egg in. I hid my initials "JWK" in lots of their illustrations somewhere. I just liked that idea. Nobody at ran the technical company ever noticed it, but I knew it was there.

Jim Kleefeld [00:40:43]:

And I like the idea that readers who do discover this feature in the book desk book are going to find it and be very pleased they came across it. And if everybody doesn't, that's okay. We can't all know everything.

Adrian Tennant [00:40:58]:

Both "Locked" and "The Book Test Book" have been very well received. And despite being involved in magic for sixty years, it's obvious that you're still really excited about it. Jim, what continues to fascinate you about magic and mentalism?

Jim Kleefeld [00:41:14]:

It's so integral to my life. I've been so immersed in it. I don't have a lot of outside interests. I am eclectic, as I mentioned earlier, but there are no end of subtopics to explore in magic. Lots of little things that you can go off and spend a month reading about. If you just want information on biographies and want to find out about people you know, you can spend the rest of your life just doing that. If you just want to explore methods, you could go do that. If you want to take a particular venue like mentalism or kids shows or something, there's so many little subtopics in it.

Jim Kleefeld [00:41:54]:

I just find it a huge and fascinating area.

Adrian Tennant [00:41:58]:

What's next for you, Jim? Are you working on any new book projects?

Jim Kleefeld [00:42:02]:

I've got one that I had worked on for quite a while and then got stalled when some other things came up. I'm working on a book on geometric vanishes. The things like The Vanishing Leprechaun where you count there's fourteen objects and if you move parts A and B around now there's only thirteen objects. What Martin Gardner called the principle of concealed distribution. There are literally dozens and dozens of those out there. Mac King had one designed for him as a promo material. So did Copperfield, so did Steinmeyer. And lots of local magicians I have found, made a one off that promotes them as a giveaway.

Jim Kleefeld [00:42:44]:

They've been in puzzle books, they've been in magic books, I just find it fascinating. So I'm collecting all of them I can. Mark Setteducati sent me a couple and some information. Mac King gave me permission to use his. So if anybody out there has any vanishing leprechaun style of artworks that wasn't published in a book and nobody else knows about, let me know. Maybe I can stick it in my book.

Adrian Tennant [00:43:11]:

Very good. I'm sure they will. And do you have an estimated publication date for your next book?

Jim Kleefeld [00:43:18]:

I don't. I've got a big lecture coming up in August. I'm writing a big book to go with that lecture and that's got to get finished fairly soon. And in between doing that, I have a full schedule, a summer run of summer library shows in and around Ohio. So the geometric vanishes book is going to come to fruition, but I don't have a timeline. I imagine I'll get to it more heavily in the fall. It may be ready by Christmas, but who knows?

Adrian Tennant [00:43:51]:

Well, this is The Magic Book Podcast. So, Jim, you know what my next question is: What magic book or books do you most cherish in your own collection, and why?

Jim Kleefeld [00:44:03]:

No question, "The Magic of Robert Harbin." And there's the story behind came out in the early '70s, 1972, I think. And I saw that I was very young, I had two little kids and that book cost $75. And I just knew I could not afford to spend $75 on a magic book. But I really, really wanted it. It had the description and blueprints for the Zig-Zag. And how marvelous was that in the '70s? But I didn't buy it because it was too expensive. And about five years later, I saw one on a used auction site and it was $250.

Jim Kleefeld [00:44:48]:

And I thought, "Oh my God, I've got to get that." But I couldn't. "It's too expensive at $250 - it's just too much to pay for a magic book." And I think that was the '80s. And then the '90s came along and I saw another one that was used and for sale and it was $450. I'm like, "Oh gosh, I really want that 'Magic of Robert Harbin', but it's too expensive. I can't afford that." And meantime, about once every three months I would mention it to my wife who got tired of hearing about it.

Jim Kleefeld [00:45:24]:

And lo and behold, another ten years went by and one showed up and it was $950. And my wife said, "Just get it. Don't even." So I paid a lot for a book that I could have bought for $75. But I still love that book and everything that Harbin invented and put into that book and the idea behind it of being so exclusive. So that's, I guess, of anything and everything. I've paid more for other books, of course, since then, but that's my story for my most cherished one.

Adrian Tennant [00:46:00]:

Love that. Jim, if our listeners would like to learn more about your work, your shows, or purchase your books, or your effects, where should they look?

Jim Kleefeld [00:46:13]:

Let's see. Okay, there's this thing called the Internet. My website has my email on it. It has my products on it, has the information about all the books. And my website is my name: It is JimKleefeld.com, so that's easy way to get in touch with me.

Adrian Tennant [00:46:34]:

And I want to just say congratulations on a very nice email that Steven's Magic put out that really showcased your effects and books and your contribution in a really nice way.

Jim Kleefeld [00:46:45]:

That was nice of them. They've been great, great people for many years. Loved working with Joe and Mark has kind of taken over the helm and just done a great job. That's a wonderful shop. So it's a great place.

Adrian Tennant [00:47:00]:

Finally, Jim, what advice would you give to other performers who might be interested in transitioning from performing to writing and sharing their knowledge with the magic community?

Jim Kleefeld [00:47:13]:

Well, writers write. If you don't have a need to share, then don't do that. Your book will suffer. If you think, "Gee, I should put out a book because everybody else did" it probably won't be in your heart, in your soul, and might not be a very good book. If you feel like you have a need to share stuff with other people, you're probably already either outlining or planning something in terms of writing. You don't sit down and force yourself to write. If you have something that you know other people would like and you want to write it, you probably will just sit down, start writing it.

Adrian Tennant [00:47:55]:

Jim, thank you so much for being my guest on The Magic Book Podcast.

Jim Kleefeld [00:48:00]:

You are very welcome, Adrian. Thank you for having me.

Adrian Tennant [00:48:05]:

You've been listening to The Magic Book Podcast. In this episode, Jim Kleefeld shared his remarkable 60-year journey in magic, from his working as a children's performer to becoming one of the most respected authors and creators in magic and mentalism. We explored his strategic approach to building credibility as a writer, his research methods, and the brilliant Easter egg hidden within "The Book Test Book". Jim's story demonstrates how a systematic approach to both performing and writing can lead to lasting contributions to the art of magic. You'll find the transcript accompanying this episode on the website at TheMagicBookPodcast.com plus a blog post with a summary, timestamps and links to the books Jim mentioned. If you have a question or would like to suggest a topic for a future episode, please contact me: adrian@themagicbookpodcast.com. Thanks for listening to The Magic Book Podcast. I've been your host.

Adrian Tennant [00:49:12]:

Adrian Tennant. Until next time, goodbye.