M Machts Nichts Meanings: • I'm easy "'Naw, macht nichts, let's walk.' Jack pronounces it 'mox nix,' meaning 'makes no difference' or, in air force parlance, 'I'm easy.'" -- Ann-Marie MacDonald, The Way the Crow Flies (200 ) • Matters not • Never mind • Whatever Origins: This is a German colloquial expression. Variations and Incantations: • Mox Nix • Mocks Nicks In Literature: • "She took a drag and waved both the smoke and the image away, dismissing them with the words she used to take the curse off all vexations, 'Machts nichts.' I repeated the magical words under my breath. Mox nix." -- Sarah Bird, The Yokota Officers Club (2001) Madagascar (see also Constantinople) In [Madagascar] magic is preserved in its full glory. -- Alexis Rochon, A Voyage to Madagascar and the East Indies (1792) Mystique: Called by its natives "the Island of the Moon,"1 "Madagascar is an island filled with magic and many taboos, or fadys as they are called." Facts: Madagascar is a deforested African island, the fourth-largest island in the world. Madagascar is the magic word that crooked hypnotist "Voltan Pol- gar" uses to hypnotize Helen Hunt's character in the film The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001). 1 D.J. Conway, Moon Magick (1995) 2 Gerald Durrell, The Aye-Aye and I (1992)