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Show gin. wt: w.us1 1 I ' ' 'v 1 V- ' - WHO'S NEWS THIS WEEK By LEMUEL F. PARTON NEW YORK. This writer, encountering en-countering Frederick Jagel of the Metropolitan Opera at luncheon the other day. quizzed him about his season at Operatic Star Buenos Aires, Suggests New fro which he i- i v recently re-Line re-Line of Export t u r n e d. He thinks cultural penetration of South America might be more effective than our trade and diplomatic missions, mis-sions, in which he is inclined to believe be-lieve we aren't getting anywhere. South America has long had the idea that we were a nation of hard-boiled money-grubbers. Any creditable performance in the arts, he believes, will be our best line of export, ne said he found the Argentines most generous gen-erous and appreciative hosts. Once they find you haven't an extra ace in your cuff and you measure up to their standard of propriety, they wear their hearts on their sleeve. Incidentally, Mr. Jagel's singing makes audiences weep, but no one meeting him ever feels sorry for him. He is a businesslike, compact Brooklynite, formerly an actuary with the Mutual Life Insurance company, com-pany, long before he took his perch in the old red plush aviary, where, on occasion, he still hits high C. As an actuary, young Mr Jagel, charting other careers, began to think of his own career. He tossed his insurance job out of the window, found a backer, sang in movie houses up and down Broadway and proved to all and sundry that he had a voice. He studied with Porta-nova Porta-nova in New York and with Cala-dini Cala-dini in Milan. Making his operatic debut in Milan, in "La Boheme," he hit Rodolfo's high C with a bull's eye that greatly improved Italo-American Italo-American relations. He sang for four seasons in Italy, before making his New York debut as Radames, on November 8, 1927. He knows about 40 roles, and 26 of them he can sing offhand and on the slightest provocation. With the precision and clarity of a man trained in business, he tells you of the superiority of our South American competitors in their specialty of quid-pro-quo trade economics. Hence, his talk of "cultural penetration" penetra-tion" isn't just ivory tower stuff. If Secretary Hull could sing as well as Mr. Jagel can talk in-. in-. tcrnational trade, he, too, would be in the Metropolitan. Mr. Jagel thinks we have the making mak-ing of a grand musical renaissance -in this country, with talent, teachers teach-ers and a fine national appreciation vastly enhanced by the radio. ' I "'HE amiable white magic of John 1 Mulholland once enabled me to deal myself four aces against another's an-other's four kings, which, of course, revived faltering MystifterSays hopes of the ex-Mystag ex-Mystag oguery istence of kindly Just 'Ain't So' vesit?onJ Mr. Mulholland was wired in and whom he could summon in behalf of his friends. But now one of the cleverest magicians magi-cians in the country the cleverest, to this none-too-seeing eye publishes pub-lishes a book, "Beware Familiar Spirits," in which he banishes all trolls and makes all magic just manual dexterity and technique. It isn't exactly a debunking book. He leaves the door open for faith in the occult, if you think you have evidence, but, as to prevailing mys-tagoguery, mys-tagoguery, he reduces it to fraud or to honest self-deception, aided by slow eyesight. He sold school books and was a teacher of dramatics and industrial arts at Columbia university, before he became a full-time magician and vice president of Society of American Amer-ican Magicians. He has performed and lectured in about 40 countries. Nobody, anywhere, ever had more fun. He likes to shepherd four or five friends through a subway turnstile, with one nickel, nick-el, making it reissue from the slot each time and click through the next man. That brings the change dealer roaring from his den. Mr. Mulholland hands him a half-dollar, the wayfarers wayfar-ers take their train, and then the dealer finds he has an aluminum alum-inum disk with a rabbit in a silk hat on it. He usually screams and butts bis head against the wall. But, in each case, the subway already has its full count of sound nickels. As to the above poker hands, it happened at a luncheon table of five or six men. Mr. "Mulholland sent for a new deck of cards and asked me to shuffle them and deal four hands. It couldn't have been a trained deck. It was thoroughly shuffled. Mr. Mulholland never touched the cards, standing with his back turned a few feet away, and never said a word. The hands fell as he ordered, the orders apparently apparent-ly issuing silently from the back of his head. Consolidated News Features WNU Service. |