Minch, Stephen: KORT
©1999 Hermatic Press
Hardcover, 366 pages
ISBN-13: 9780945296287
ISBN-10: 0945296282

CONTENTS
vii Introduction—Ron Bauer
x Thoughts on Milt Kort's Eightieth Birthday—John Luka

1 Chapter 1: KORT KARDS
3 Kort's Cardinal Rules of Magic
5 Kort 's Center Steal
9 How It All Began
11 Diminishing Monte
17 Roulines
19 Heir to the Throne
29 Magic as a Hobby
31 Quintimodo
41 Foiling the Speech Teacher
43 Vernon's Variant Variant
47 My Short Career as Master of the Locks
49 The Off-color Twenty-one-card Trick
53 Meeting with the President
55 Second Banana
63 The Quinine Caper
65 Kort's Color-changing Deck +
71 My Sensational Poison Swallowing Act
73 Security Express
77 My Shortest Professional Engagement
79 Matcho
85 Citizen Kort
87 The Courtright Connection
93 What Would You Do?
95 That Darned Ace
101 Maintaining a Reputation
103 Card to Shoes
107 More Kort Luck in the Service
109 Travelers Without Palms
113 Putting on the Gloves
115 Svengali of the Phone Lines

119 CHAPTER 2: KORT'S KOINS
121 To Paraphrase Sam Spade
123 Kort's Copper and Silver Transposition (The Director's Cut)
129 The Sterling Shelf Force
131 51 cent Metamorphosis
135 A Free Ring with Every Purchase
137 Korting Rylander's Silver and Copper
145 How I Lost the Break
147 The Invisible Toss
149 The Night Bobo Missed
151 Going, Going, Going, gnioG, Gone
157 What Sleeve?
159 First Out of the Gate
163 A Daley Occurrence
165 Cuckoo's Coin
169 A Great Magician Arrives at Sterling's
171 Delayed Arrival
175 The Other Leipzig
179 The Downs Palm Switch
181 My Lesson from Paul Rosini
183 The Nomad Coins
189 Private Advice from Senor Mardo
191 The Rumsey Vanish
195 Zinc's Mystery Box
197 Nomads in the Dunes
201 We Developed This Polity During My Days al Sterling's
203 Two From Four Equals...?
207 The Plum
209 The Okorto Box Routine
229 Sometimes Luck isn't Enough
231 CoBoxGo
235 Meeting Marlo
237 CoBoxGo 2
241 A Central Compliment
243 The Invisiblr Okito Box

249 CHAPTER 3: Kort's ASSORTED
251 Milt's Major Principle of Magic
253 Kort's Dice Switch
257 An Invitation Declined
259 Cups & Dice
267 The Ammonia Scam
269 Traveling by Boxcar
271 Kort's Drugs
273 No Caboose
275 Magic: Practical Application
277 Changing Trains
279 Kortchanged
281 Quick-change Crap
283 The Cash Register Caper
287 My Bright Idea
289 Wanna Try?
297 The Literature
299 Kortospheres
313 Cardini's Wish
315 Pen-etraition
323 Bob Lund's Shameful Expose'
325 Contrary Currency
333 My Shameful Expose'
335 Precognitive Cups & Balls
339 Potter's Bar
341 The Eggand mIlt
355 The Tel-twelve Mystics
357 Umgowa! 357
363 Aboard the Schooner

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--from the sellers website:

This is a book that you may not have heard of, or heard much about. Yet it’s a thoroughly entertaining book filled with magic from a true underground legend.

Milt Kort rubbed elbows with all the best magicians of his day, and developed some beautiful, classical material worthy of close study. This book is a treasure trove of clever, fun magic.

But the book is also beautiful. Sandra Kort is one of our favorite illustrators, and Stephen Minch’s writing is unparalleled in our industry.

The book is also peppered with short essays by Kort about funny things that happened while performing, tidbits of wisdom, and other musings. These essays help break up the tricks and make this a fabulous book to get lost in!

More info on Kort:

Milton Kort is a legend of sorts: a magician who has seldom traveled outside the Detroit area, who rarely performs at magicians' conventions or lectures, yet a man whom the professionals and greats in magic came to see; men like Paul Rosini, Stewart James, Dr. Daley, J. B. Bobo, Charlie Miller, Cardini, Dai Vernon and many more sought out Milt Kort and shared secrets with him.

But why? It was his great love of magic that drew magic's greats to him. Well, there was one other reason. Milt often fooled them with devilishly clever tricks of his own invention. These tricks are in great part what Kort is about. They all fall within the realm of close-up magic, Milt's main love, and they use such mundane items as playing cards, coins, dice, balls, razor blades, eggs, handkerchiefs, pens and toy elephants. What happens with those items, though, is anything but mundane.

Using skills and techniques mainly in the range of the average close-up enthusiast, Milt Kort offers 46 of his most baffling and entertaining tricks and routines to his fellow magicians, all based on one simple rule, Kort's First Principle: Have Fun!