[gyom]

I met James Randi around 2007 when he came to campus at UBC to give a talk. He told the following story about a magic trick that he worked on for years, which concerned guessing the timing of his death. I haven't heard him tell that story elsewhere, so now seems like a good time to share it.

He said that for a good number of years, every time before going to bed, he would write on a little card that he predicted he would die that night during his sleep. In the morning, he got up and happily threw away the little card. Every day. For many years. His concept was that, on the rare chance that this actually happened to be last day, people would think that he pulled the ultimate magic trick. People would not suspect that he wrote this on a little card every day because, well, nobody does that.

[8note]

Harsh, ruining his last trick. He spent how much time setting this one up?

[gyom]

Well, I guess he stopped doing it at some date before 2007. That's why he told an audience of 500 people about it. He sorta "cashed out" by making it a fun story about him being clever, instead of a last magic trick. He must have simply gotten tired of doing this every day and seeing all those cards in the waste basket (or burning them?).

If he had indeed tried to pull that trick in 2020, a lot of people would have remembered that he said he was setting it up.