Secrets of the Magus: Ricky Jay does closeup magic that flouts reality (1993)

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/04/05/secrets-of-the-magus

by gwern • 12 years ago

88 38 12 years ago

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.

His incredible 52 Assistants show is on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jljt5Ml28FU

[1] http://www.rickyjaymovie.com/

Zikes• 12 years ago

Deceptive Practice is currently available for streaming on Netflix.

chrismealy• 12 years ago

http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Deceptive-Practice-The-Mysterie...

rickdale3• 12 years ago

Yikes! if you have javascript disabled his site just says it can't find the pages you click on! But cool stuff, never knew any of this.

diminoten• 12 years ago

Disabling a critical part of a website breaks said website. How about that.

I bet if you disallow images the site renders poorly, too.

Maybe disallow the letter "e" and see what happens.

tom_b• 12 years ago

Deceptive Practice is cool and recommended.

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.

waterfowl• 12 years ago

"Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women" is absolutely worth picking up if you fancy esoterica.

mchanson• 12 years ago

I saw him once in havard sq. about 15 years ago. Great show in a tiny venue. Wish I could remember it better than I do!

devindotcom• 12 years ago

Boy, I had no idea he was a magician. I always just thought he was a stage actor that David Mamet liked to collaborate with. Today I learned!

rickdale3• 12 years ago

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.

http://www.trutv.com/shows/the-carbonaro-effect/index.html

lotsofmangos4• 12 years ago

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.

thret2• 12 years ago

Just assume that everyone 'from the audience' who participates in any kind of magic is a shill. No matter if it is on TV, at a party, in a restaurant, or in the street.

lifeisstillgood• 12 years ago

My favourite Ricky Jay quote:

"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• 12 years ago

I think that's a Penn & Teller quote http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Teller-Reveals-Hi...

mdesq• 12 years ago

I saw Ricky Jay at the Magic Castle several years back doing closeup magic and his was the only show that stuck in my memory.

tokenadult• 12 years ago

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.

[1] http://chronicle.com/article/The-Magical-Mind-of-Persi/12940...

bsaul• 12 years ago

Have i missed something ? Is there any special reason for this to appear on hn ?

lotsofmangos4• 12 years ago

Yes, you have and it is a very special reason. But revealing it would ruin the magic, sorry.

joshvm• 12 years ago

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.

firebones2• 12 years ago

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.

hudibras• 12 years ago

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.

firebones2• 12 years ago

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.

Secrets of the Magus: Ricky Jay does closeup magic that flouts reality (1993)

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