
Secrets of the Magus: Ricky Jay does closeup magic that flouts reality (1993) - gwern
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/04/05/secrets-of-the-magus
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zweiterlinde
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jljt5Ml28FU)

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

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Zikes
Deceptive Practice is currently available for streaming on Netflix.

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chrismealy
[http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Deceptive-Practice-The-
Mysterie...](http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Deceptive-Practice-The-Mysteries-
and-Mentors-of-Ricky-Jay/70270768)

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lifeisstillgood
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.

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gwern
I think that's a Penn & Teller quote [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-
culture/Teller-Reveals-Hi...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-
culture/Teller-Reveals-His-Secrets.html)

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

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tokenadult
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...](http://chronicle.com/article/The-Magical-Mind-of-
Persi/129404/)

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rickdale
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](http://www.trutv.com/shows/the-carbonaro-effect/index.html)

~~~
lotsofmangos
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.

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thret
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.

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lotsofmangos
Not always. I got invited from the audience when I was a kid for a stage magic
show.

The guy was doing a trick where he wrote on a ping pong ball, gave it to me to
look at, destroyed it and then made it reappear.

While I was looking at it I marked it with my thumbnail.

When it reappeared he asked me to verify that it was the same, but it didn't
have the nail-mark on it, so I told him that it definitely wasn't, and how I
knew.

I was 12 and my parents were furious with me about it.

For some reason they never ever took me to a magic show again.

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thret
Furious? They should have been proud!

I want to believe that a better magician would have noticed and reproduced the
mark.

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lotsofmangos
_" Furious? They should have been proud!"_

Heh, I could probably talk to a shrink for several days solid about that.

In their view at the time I ruined it for everyone and wasted the money of the
entire audience and possibly ruined the career of the poor magician too and if
I had any kind of feeling for others I would have played along and just lied.
It was socially unacceptable behaviour, apparently. I found the whole thing
completely bewildering.

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hudibras
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.

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firebones
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.

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firebones
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.

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joshvm
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.

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devindotcom
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!

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mdesq
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.

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mchanson
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!

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

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

