Ricky Jay is amazing. I went to a screening of the recent documentary about him, Deceptive Practice[1], which he attended and subsequently answered questions---enjoyed it immensely.
The eye-opening and amazing part is the unrelenting practice, preparation, and study time Ricky Jay (and others in the documentary) have committed to the art.
Beautiful and inspiring to see that effort from people.
Reading through this whole article was really interesting. The mention in the article of mathematician and magician Persi Diaconis prompted me to search previous Hacker News threads about him. Quite a while ago, another participant posted a link to an article from 2011 in the Chronicle of Higher Education about Diaconis, titled "The Magical Mind of Persi Diaconis,"[1] which didn't gain much karma or discussion at the time of submission but is also an interesting read. Different conjurers can have very different personal styles and techniques, each to fit their own personalities, and the best conjurers admire the work of other conjurers.
Magic is really cool. I have been getting into the Dynamo show and watched all the David Blaine specials, and after watching a lot of it, I started to get the idea behind a lot of the hand tricks, but there are definitely some tricks that have me completely baffled to this day.
I just came across the show, carbonaro effect, where the magician uses everyday stores to play tricks on unsuspecting people. I like this shows concept because its less about how he did the trick and more about how easy it is too fool people into believing in otherworldly events or products.
Most of the TV stuff is not the same thing though. I know people who have had paid work as 'audience' for those. You put a trained actor in normal clothes and people watching on TV will swear blind that they could not have faked their reaction.
Classic article, and Ricky Jay is the real deal. But the first two tricks mentioned can be explained by the use of confederates: Gregory Mosher for the first and "Mort" in the second.
I thought the Mort bit might have been revealed to be that he planted 52 cards in obscure locations around the room and directed his firing of cards to locations known to have particular cards. (E.g., down the table for hearts, behind him for clubs, etc.) He apparently does have an incredible memory.
That said, the story said he did it the length of the table, which implies a more natural specificity which could either confirm a confederate, or else was retrospectively embellished.
(Imagine a version of the story where he turns and fires the cards into a bookshelf and instructs someone to open a particular book.)
But the confederate is a much simpler explanation. It's just whether the coordination and trust in a confederate to keep the secret to the grave can be greater than the cost of the setup and the potential for early revelation.
The saddest part of that whole story came at the end when the library of magic-related literature and artifacts Ricky Jay helped amass and curate fell into the hands of David Copperfield.
Not sure what the tech world equivalent of that would be--maybe a nouveau riche Tinder founder acquiring all the original artifacts of historic computing in the Computer History Museum, moving them to Branson, Missouri, and putting them backstage of a Yakov Smirnoff dinner theatre show.
I love card and coin magic. Good old purist stuff without gimmicks or trick decks. Sleight of hand is simply pure talent. Even the description of the poker trip had me cracking a smile.
[+] [-] zweiterlinde|11 years ago|reply
His incredible 52 Assistants show is on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jljt5Ml28FU
[1] http://www.rickyjaymovie.com/
[+] [-] Zikes|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tom_b|11 years ago|reply
The eye-opening and amazing part is the unrelenting practice, preparation, and study time Ricky Jay (and others in the documentary) have committed to the art.
Beautiful and inspiring to see that effort from people.
[+] [-] rickdale|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|11 years ago|reply
"magic consists of taking more pains than anyone will possibly consider worth it"
Or sane perhaps. Kind of says it all
Edit: quote from memory of a TV show some years ago - can't find it.
[+] [-] gwern|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] waterfowl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tokenadult|11 years ago|reply
[1] http://chronicle.com/article/The-Magical-Mind-of-Persi/12940...
[+] [-] rickdale|11 years ago|reply
I just came across the show, carbonaro effect, where the magician uses everyday stores to play tricks on unsuspecting people. I like this shows concept because its less about how he did the trick and more about how easy it is too fool people into believing in otherworldly events or products.
http://www.trutv.com/shows/the-carbonaro-effect/index.html
[+] [-] lotsofmangos|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hudibras|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] firebones|11 years ago|reply
That said, the story said he did it the length of the table, which implies a more natural specificity which could either confirm a confederate, or else was retrospectively embellished.
(Imagine a version of the story where he turns and fires the cards into a bookshelf and instructs someone to open a particular book.)
But the confederate is a much simpler explanation. It's just whether the coordination and trust in a confederate to keep the secret to the grave can be greater than the cost of the setup and the potential for early revelation.
[+] [-] firebones|11 years ago|reply
Not sure what the tech world equivalent of that would be--maybe a nouveau riche Tinder founder acquiring all the original artifacts of historic computing in the Computer History Museum, moving them to Branson, Missouri, and putting them backstage of a Yakov Smirnoff dinner theatre show.
[+] [-] joshvm|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devindotcom|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mdesq|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mchanson|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] bsaul|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lotsofmangos|11 years ago|reply