The couple will perform two shows at the 10,000 seat Sun Arena as stars of the Master of Illusion Live tour.
Jinger is a favorite daughter of Bridgeport, Connecticut and her parents still reside in the Nutmeg State.
The lithe and talented performer told the local media, “It's great to perform in front of people you know. It makes it special.”
"Special" is the perfect adjective for Kalin & Jinger's act and career. We had the distinct honor of sitting next to Jinger as a committee person for their Spirit Cabinet performance. As you loyal and disloyal readers of Inside Magic are aware, we will never expose the secrets of any magic effect unless it somehow makes us look good, smart or could serve up more internet hits to boost our ad revenue.
We can say that while being immediately next to Jinger was thrilling and magical in its own right, we were unable to learn their secret. We assisted in tying charming and beautiful better half of the Kalin & Jinger show and then sat as close as possible to her whilst the curtains closed around us.
Perhaps we were still unnaturally giddy being so close to someone of such renown and talent, intoxicated by her incredible beauty or startled by the rapid-fire succession of events, but we remain clueless as to how she was able to manifest the loud, chaotic spirit that literally filled the ad hoc cabinet, put a bucket on our disproportionately large skull and pulled up our pant legs all within no more than five to ten seconds.
Jinger began as a dancer at the age of four and by 15, she was in demand around the United States. She worked with Disney, Fuji Television and Southern California dinner theaters and bestowed with the a scholarship to the “Young Americans' College of Performing Arts.”
Mark and Jinger became a couple when she filled in as his assistant while performing in Guam.
If you have not seen the couple perform — and that seems unlikely given their exposure through nationalize televised shows like NBC's “Word's Greatest Magicians”, “Hidden Secrets of Magic,” Fox Family's “Magic on the Edge,” Fox TV's “World Magic Awards” and “Entertainment Tonight”, CBS and ABC — you need to make the trip to the Sun Arena this weekend or one of their upcoming performances.
His latest escape attempt defies both belief and the naturally imprinted sense of self-preservation. Mr. Gunnarson's had him miles high in the frigid mountains of Xining, China. (Think Superman's crystal home or Wolverine's den).
He intended to be locked and chained by the Chinese military inside a tomb of ice on a frozen lake high in the mountains. His goal: to escape within 100 seconds before a bus explodes and drops on him.
From the press release:
Locked and chained by the Chinese military inside of a tomb of ice on a frozen lake high in the mountains in China. A ten ton bus loaded with explosives will be raised above him by a crane and then, Gunnarson will have exactly 100 seconds (an important number in China) before the bus will explode and drop on him from a timer, crushing the ice tomb and him if he is inside. Dean will attempt this escape on a frozen lake that is the largest in all of China. It is located about 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) west of the provincial capital of Xining at 3,205 m (10,515 feet) above sea level in a depression of the Tibetan Plateau in the traditional Tibetan province of Amdo, located between Tibet and Mongolia. This escape is extremely dangerous because of the cold but even more so from the high evaluation and lack of oxygen this high up.
Mr. Gunnarson told Inside Magic that he has been training in the thin air but it brought on altitude sickness. “The lack of air and trying to do even small things just leaves me grasping for breath. This is like nothing I have ever encountered before.”
If he lives, the Chinese government will award him the title "World's Greatest Escape Artist." If he fails, he will likely not be given the title of World's Greatest Escape Artist. We're just guessing about this. The Chinese press did not discuss what happens if the bus explodes and lands on him whilst still chained.
As loyal readers of Inside Magic know, Mr. Gunnarson is a very scary man. He seems so nice and gentlemanly but there's a crazy side to him. He does stunts that are anything but sure-fire or fixed. Check out his mistiming while trying to escape from a roller coaster track. That escape (sort of) was in China as well. We hope he has correctly converted the 100 seconds into the metric equivalent and escapes unharmed. The roller coaster collision shattered his ankle and fibia.
We know Broadway like the back of our prosthetic hand.
We still have our two real ones but like having the third for status. We are so cool when we go to the manicurist shop and all the gals with their lousy one or two soak dish set-ups have to stare with envy.
We used to have a little (and we mean little) shop right in front of one of the big-time theaters. This was a while ago and the theater went by a different name and we cannot print the name or our website will be thrown out of public libraries, again.
Our shop was designed to look like a card table with a Navajo blanket covering the top. We sold us some Cups and Balls, Ball in Vase, Multiplying Billiard Balls, Magic 8-Balls, Bounce/No-Bounce Balls and our knock-off version of the spring and fake fur puppet, Rocky Raccoon. At the time, the real ones were selling for $17.00 over at Tannens. We cut out the middle-man, the man who enforced the child labor laws and the “you don’t need to go through Customs” man; but we could not eliminate the “It would be a shame if something were to happen to your cute little store or cute little wife” man.
Broadway was a tough place where guys like us would walk the mean streets with our pants weighed down by coins in our pockets. All the sales people on the Great White Way jingled. There was almost no paper money on Broadway then. The Automat served meals and hot coffee but only if you had exact change. The restrooms in the nicer establishments cost a dime or a quarter. Showers were half a dollar and all of the better movie theaters charged per three minutes per $1.00 in coins. You could always tell a fellow salesperson by the tension on his or her belt, the bumpy, dimpled bulges projecting like a topographical map over their pants legs, and the bar of Ivory Soap in their back pocket.
Ivory Soap was started right on Broadway and they never forgot their roots. They went from selling cheap turquoise or silver plated jewelry to becoming one of the largest companies in the world. If you were from the Broadway Sidewalk Sales Society, you could walk into any store – it didn’t have to be on Broadway – and pick-up one bar of Ivory Soap per month. Most of the times no one even noticed or cared. They likely knew about Mr. Ivory’s promise to his fellow merchants and were happy to see his wishes fulfilled. Sometimes you’d get a new clerk or cashier and we’d have to go through the whole story. They usually gave in about an hour into our spiel and we’d walk out cleaner.
Rumor had it that there were folks on the south side of Broadway that worked with their version of the Ivory Soap man. He was the person who invented orange juice and they could go into any store that sold orange juice (fresh-squeezed only – we guess he didn’t invent the concentrated version) and take one gallon a month.
So the north side merchants smelled good and the south side guys smelled bad but didn’t have scurvy. Life is all about trade-offs, though.
Our point was that we cannot wait until Hugh Jackman takes on the role of our hero. In fact we named other people’s children “Harry” and “Houdini” and “Bess” when we were employed for a week as a temp at the Mystic Hospital for Women and Childrens. (Yes, we know the “s” is grammatically incorrect and there is not even a word with that spelling but the benefactor of the MHWC was a self-taught Polaroid Land Camera repairman. He knew everything about every version of that famous camera from the 1960s, 70s and 80s. He could fix your camera as good as new in no time but he was otherwise unintelligent. He couldn’t count (except to 60 – the number of seconds to wait before exposing pictures taken with the first film stock) he chewed with his mouth open, he sewed his own clothes – while they were on – and they remained in place for years as a consequence. Jimmy knew those dang cameras though. He would lose all the money he made on one repair job when the next customer would get him confused about the amount of change he was owed. Poor guy.
Even though he was destitute for most of his life, he loved what he did and folks in town loved to have him roam the streets looking for Polaroid Land Cameras in need of repair. People wonder how he could afford to fund Mystic Hollow Michigan’s largest building and most important medical service when he rarely had a dollar in his usually securely sewed pocket. Apparently, one of the big celebrities heard of Jimmy’s abilities and brought his camera for repair while he was performing in Chicago. He couldn’t stay for the hour or so it would take to repair so he asked Jimmy to send it to the Schubert Theater in Chicago when it was ready.
Jimmy was surprised to find two photos stuck in the mechanism. He wasn’t sure if he should look at the pictures to make sure they weren’t ruined from their cramped position inside the camera for years. He decided he wouldn’t look because he thought that would invade the celebrity’s personal life. Instead, he caught a series of trains to the Schubert Theater and tried to drop the pictures off at the box office. They wouldn’t take them and they directed him to the stage door outside and down the alley. It was raining pretty heavy and Jimmy put the pictures in his tattered but well-sewn pants. His pockets were completely sealed from years of stitching practice and probably of the natural glue we all produce through our skin pores if we don’t change clothes or bathe properly.
In a very interesting new program, the premiere library for the English-speaking world (appropriately located in England) asks ordinary people like you to help preserve the great original books in their vast collection.
Among the 40 or so offerings is Houdini's classic from 1921.
In this practical guide with illustrations, Houdini explains how to perform ties "of two distinct types, namely, those adapted to use in spiritualistic work, and those intended for the escape artist." A perfect adoption for fans of the most famous magician in the world.
The cost to adopt this book or one of the other classics of non-magic literature, is a mere £30.00 which prices out at about €36.00 or $47.50 in U.S. Dollars.
Your name will be on the certificate and in the records of the British Library.
Not to be outdone, our hometown Mystic Hollow Library has a similar adopt a book program. For $2.50, you can adopt the entire 2009 collection of TV Guide in hardback. Not quite a classic, but it does contain some very interesting information about what you could have seen during that crucial year in television.
In the United States, analog television signals were replaced by their digital equivalent and millions of homes were stripped of their ability to see Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy. The nation was rocked and congressional efforts to supply conversion boxes to those affected by this horrific crisis fell short. You can read about the congress and the president's efforts to delay or fix the great social upheaval here.
[Questions for Don Timoteo - Magic Expert - can be about any aspect of magic including escapes, big stage illusion shows, little tiny close-up magic, and even so-called psychic magic. Send your question to DT@insidemagic.com and we will pass them along to the Master].
AS YOU KNOW BECAUSE OF MY FAME, I have worked around the world performing for standing room audiences as well as many theaters where there were chairs for everyone — but just enough.
My expertise in magic is second to none, as you know. And yet I offer this help to you, the questioning mob of pubic magicians.
Why? Does Don Timoteo make money doing this?
A little, but not enough to put up with some of the questions I receive or the ridicule thrusted on me like a Watchtower Magazine through the slightly opened door to my inner-most soul.
The other professionals, like that reindeer with the glowing nose, do not like me to be different. “Oh, Don Timoteo, you should be like us. You should never reveal the secrets to our art to the common magician. That is like throwing the baby pig out with its pearl-wearing babysitter!”
Don Timoteo does not care. He does not hear much of it and that which he hears he does not understand.
So bring your questions to Don Timoteo. I promise on my honor that so long as you show reverence for my incredible talent, and historic place in history, you will be fine.
You will not be faced with the wrath like someone who sticks his face in a pie-throwing booth at the Wrath Festival.
I know many men would like me to tell all of my secrets of love or the conquests my secrets have earned. But I am first a gentleman and would never reveal the what has been secreted by me and my many lovers.
So, instead, I answer questions about magic. Love’s magic is a secret I will not reveal.
Senior Timoteo:
What is fanning powder and where can I buy it other than at the magic store?
They rip me off there. Everything is more expensive because they say, “you’re not really buying the props, you’re buying the secret.”
Jinger of Inside Magic Favorite Kalin & Jinger is celebrated in her hometown newspaper today in advance of the duo's shows this weekend at the beautiful Mohegan Sun Casino. 
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