I’m a sucker for card tricks. Ricky Jay is some kind of sinister genius. I think I’d rather be a great card manipulator than a concert trombonist, or a seed merchant. Or an alcoholic podiatrist. Plus also, he’s lent his dark presence to some great movies. Do you enjoy a magic trick, readers? Perhaps you might find a YouTube clip of your favourite, or have an anecdote to share (without giving away any Magic Circle tricks – because you would be sawn in half with a real saw). Perhaps the whole business leaves you cold, except for Doug Henning. Or David Nixon. He was an odd cove, wasn’t he?
Can You Do Card Tricks?
by 62 Comments
Here’s David Nixon:
…but behind the curtain lurks the dark presence of Ali Bongo…
Why, is he stuck?
Nixon’s magic consultant…Rasputin to Nixon’s Czar…hand up the back of his jacket, etc…
Both Prince Charles and Stephen Fry are members of The Magic Circle.
To become a member, one must be proposed and sponsored by two current members and either perform a magic trick in front of an audience of circle members, or write a thesis on magic which is then placed in the circle’s archives. After performing or writing your thesis, the circle’s members then hold a vote as to whether you can be elected a member and can attach the letters MMC after your name.
Ali Bongo’s good at contortionism
He’s much better than David Nixon ever was
Re HP Saucecraft
Surely there is a law of grammar somewhere that states that coves should always be described as “rum” rather than the more bog standard “odd”
Yes, but I was using the word in the sense of small inlet, or coastal bay.
Ah, a rum smugglers’ cove…
He was much admired by the smuggling fraternity for paying duty on just that one bottle.
It’s not a patch on Tommy Cooper’s duck (TMFTL)
This is one of the best that I have seen……
Excellent.
Great trick, but the camera angle didn’t do him any favours. There was a LOT of action happening there with his hands.
I searched for that “turn your thumbs down and twist them back” trick. It is simple misdirection and took me 10 minutes to learn. I showed it to Mrs MC three times and she missed it. It really shows how simple it is to con people, and how fallible our perception really is.
Years ago I visited my old place of work an art college for the end of year show.
One young chap on the foundation course had decided that his end of year show would be him showing his deftness with magic and card tricks. That’s how I saw the closeup work of Dynamo.
Wow! That’s fantastic, Hubes! Great story! Uh … who is Dynamo?
You rascal.
Spoon-jar, spoon-jar, spoon-jar, spoon-jar
I can do one card trick really well. It is pretty simple to carry out, but produces gasps of astonishment when I do it. Learnt it from a library book when I was about 13.
I can’t do any tricks, but I can testify to just how astounding being treated to close magic display is.
For years my folks used to stay at a little family hotel on the Keizersgracht, Amsterdam. You were really brought into the fold & dined in their living room & so on. One year I stayed there with a girlfriend & while our room was made up, a pal of the owners called Wim (looked like Holger Czukay & wore a silver pendant of a
hat with bunny ears coming out of it) kept us entertained. He was a master & revered by the UK Magic Circle I later found out. He ran through a bunch of mesmerising card tricks & produced copious coinage out of thin air – which we were invited to keep- but what knocked me sideways was watching him put his lit cigar (which he’d just puffed on to get it good & hot) straight up his nose less than a foot from my face! He then took it out of his ear & proceeded to ‘put it out’ on my mohair jumper, only for there to be no mark at all.
I was genuinely gobsmacked & could only laugh in astonishment, privileged to get such a treat.
I was 2 feet away from Paul Daniels at a sales conference once when he did his trick of tearing a £5 note in half and having a couple of people find the halves in their wallets. It was astounding. He may be detestable (© HPS) but they way he won over a bunch of hard-boiled sales reps who’d seen it all was brilliant.
Agreed: see my reply to HP below.
I’ve seen Jerry Sadowitz do close-up magic a couple of times (ie projected on to a screen, in a middle-sized hall). Very impressively skilful. Also very funny, although he can – deliberately – go too far.
I feel an absolute rotter for thinking Paul Daniels is a bit of a prick, now all you agreeable coves have rushed to his defence. Maybe I’ve misjudged him? Maybe my own bitter resentment at not being a telly magician has clouded my judgement! Let me have a rethink noooo he’s still a bit of a prick. Sorry.
Not denying he’s a prick, don’t know one way or the other, but he has other qualities. If no pricks were allowed to entertain us there would be no Van Morrison threads.
Paul Daniels. Dead but still a prick. Now that’s magic.
Mike, let’s work through this together, because it’s important to me. Big smiley face, okay?
I expressed an opinion that the personality of the magician was as important as the tricks, maybe more so. I mentioned Daniels because I remember, many years ago, disliking him, or the personality he presented. I don’t know how good a magician he was, but it doesn’t take much to impress me with a card trick. I was in no way saying he wasn’t technically or professionally competent, or even outstanding. I fully understand how he could have impressed you at a sales conference.
Back then, disliking Daniels was a common stance. Everyone I knew disliked him, not because they knew him as a man, but because of his professional persona. It did not make me a bad or unusual person for sharing this opinion.
Yes, I’m sure he had “other qualities”, but I was in no position to judge them, knowing him only through seeing his act on the television. I will take anyone’s word for it that he was a magician to be reckoned with, and a thoroughly agreeable chap; kind to dogs and a loyal friend. But I thought he was a bit of a prick, an opinion shared (it seemed) by everyone my age.
And you are right that pricks should be allowed to entertain us, but I don’t remember ever saying they shouldn’t, did I?
Are we gonna do, Stonehenge?
You can put your sledgehammer down now – my nut is well and truly cracked.
That’s why you fit in.😜
There might be a tendency here on the Flogroom to forgive and forget the “light entertainers” (no bad thing – pointless harbouring a grudge) who dominated the telly back when there was no internet to distract us, and everything gets warm and fuzzy with nostalgia. Brucie, eh? Say what you like, but … Tarby! Say what you like, but … Paul Daniels? Jim Bowen? Bob Monkhouse? Tidybeard? Say what you like, but … but I remember the loathing felt by “my generation” for the lot of them. This was mindless pap for our mums and dads. We were too busy fighting the Acid Wars and getting it together in the country. Man. Although that loathing has entirely disappeared, I can’t say I ever enjoyed their kind of entertainment – it gave me the creeps – and I don’t feel nostalgic for it now.
My dad, who was once was at a dinner with Paul Daniels, confirmed that the wig-wearing wee fella was ‘rather full of himself.’ My dad is incredibly polite, so this level of overt criticism vaults Daniels above The Kray twins in the bounder stakes.
Jerry is astonishingly skilful, and the last magician to fool me.
Interesting – what, specifically, did he do that fooled you? Thanks
To begin with it looked like a standard ‘pick a card’ trick, but he repeated it several times, each becoming more impossible, until he had someone merely think of a card, which he then produced from the pack. It felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.
Ah! I know how he did this – he punched you in the stomach!
Interesting. Thanks. Don’t remember his doing that trick the times I saw him, but that might just be my failing to remember. He was very skilled and entertaining, anyway – and very funny
Very much a lurker here, but I’m a full time professional magician (or at least I am when it’s not literally illegal…), and I’m fascinated and delighted by all your choices. Ricky Jay was a legend, and a superb writer too: you can often pick up his book on sideshow performers ‘Learned Pigs And Fireproof Women’ in 2nd hand shops and it’s well worth a read.
Welcome!
Thanks!
I had a much-treasured copy of that book. I like his weird edge – he’s not trying to be liked, the bane of most magicians. The personality of the trickster is as important as the trick – maybe more so. Paul Daniels is detestable, and I don’t care what rabbits he pulls out of his hat. The other thing is the trick’s effect is in inverse proportion to its scale – David Copperfield “making the Statue of Liberty disappear” is ballsachingly boring. Making a coin appear in an empty hand is hard to beat, especially if it’s not a trick coin.
The piece Jay is performing in the clip you posted is directed by David Mamet, and I wonder if that’s where he got some of his character’s edge. Daniels is a fascinating study: I’m not sure he valued being liked rather than being respected. As I came of age in the 80s he’s my most influential figure in magic, as pivotal to me, in a different way, as Morrissey, Tennant, or Stipe. I totally see how he could be disliked, hated even, but his talent and work rate is astonishing: almost Prince like. I got to do a bit of TV in the early naughts as part of a troupe, and when the channel wanted two extra episodes I was completely out of material and had to buy other people’s to pad out: he did fifteen years, over 140 episodes, and never repeated a trick.
He was certainly capable of rudeness and had a Jeremy Corbyn level distrust of journalists and interviewers. That said, he went from being at the absolute top of his profession (after Eric Morecambe died and Ronnie Barker retired he was the BBC’s biggest light ent name: your Barrymores and Brian Connollys were on ITV) in the mid to late 80s to being a punchline by the dawn of the 90s, and that’s got to do strange things to your psyche. We were not friends, but I had lunch with him, Debbie, and a couple of other magicians at his house the year before he died, and he was far more mellow and contented, and was enjoying the fact that he’d been rehabilitated somewhat by the likes of Dave Gorman and that generation of comedians citing him as an inspiration.
Who’s your favourite magician, John?
Not telling, eh? I reckon it’s Doug Henning.
It needed a bit of thought! Doug Henning is up there, actually, but there’s lots. David Williamson is probably my favourite. Jerry Sadowitz’s technique and invention is peerless, but my god he’s a divisive performer. Robert Harbin, who invented the Zig Zag lady was a big influence.
I think I worked out a Derren Brown trick I saw on TV. It was a filmed show in a theatre.
I noticed that he picked out distinctive looking people in the audience when he got them to stand up towards the end of the show. A tall bald man in a white suit, a woman with pink hair – that kind of thing. Amazingly, he knew their names and a few personal details.
I think this was quite a simple trick. I think he got people, perhaps dressed as staff, to mingle and loiter with the crowd during the interval near to these distinctive-looking people. They overheard their interval conversations. By noting where they were seated they could look up their names and google them and look on social media. Confirming their identity is easier if they look distinctive.
As he is searching for a “random” person to talk to, someone in his earpiece is directing him to the person and describing their appearance. He is told the name and then, as Derren pauses for effect with closed eyes, he simply relays the information gleaned – that the person in question is planning a trip to Canada or is worried about his cat, whose name is (frown frown concentrate)…Tiddles? Everyone is stunned and amazed.
Saw a magic performance last year and they did something similar, although I seem to recall that they had people put names in a box for some other seemingly unrelated trick. It was a bit obvious as all of the facts they were pulling were the usual sort of social media fluff.
Attended a party in Whitstable. The birthday boy’s wife ordered him up a “proper” magician as a special surprise. (These were seriously well-off people). In walked a ridiculously handsome guy with the most ridiculous cod-French accent you have ever heard.
In a small room with around twenty guests crammed in all around him for the next hour he dazzled us with an array of card tricks, coins out of people’s ears, engagement rings disappearing only to be found in somebody’s wallet etc etc. From only a few feet away I tried as hard as I could to discern how he was fooling us. Apart from the fact that he stared straight into everybody’s eyes whilst his hands were doing whatever his hands were doing (calling Moose) I had no clue.
Turns out he was French after all and rather famous on TV over there. Can’t remember his name of course….
I mentioned Ali Bongo further up the thread – I first saw him on some kids tv programme in the seventies. Great entertainer and always had some simple trick to show the youngsters, plus the whole “end of the pier” image. It came as a surprise to find that he’d been a magic consultant for David Nixon, Paul Daniels and others, along with being a member of the Inner Magic Circle and later president of the Magic Circle. Real name was William Wallace (wha’s like us, etc), died in 2009, I think…
Priceless.
Cool as fuck! ( If I may quote @moose-the-mooche)
Ali Bongo!
That wasn’t me, you were thinking of Inspiral Carpets. And let’s face it, who isn’t?
I love magic and love being delighted by magic. I occasionally learn a trick or two, but my presentation leaves a lot to be desired.
My one public success came after reading “Tricks with your head” by Mac King, which is a collection of small tricks that need little or no prep or talent.
At a large work dinner about 15 years ago I started complaining to the people around me that I had a bit of an inflamed lump on my forehead. I built this up over an hour or so until I had them convinced that I had a boil/abscess that was about to erupt. With a cry of pain I brought my hands to my head and squeezed, which resulted in a stream of yellow pus flying from between my fingers and across the table. It was absolute chaos, with people on the floor and running from the room etc. It was a small foil pat of butter that I had pricked with a fork, hidden in my hand and then squeezed against my head.
Not really a magic trick, but very satisfying!
🤢
Re Podicle
And you wonder why your event catering business failed!
Can I fuck!
At all or well? Or did you miss out a comma?
I think he put an exclamation point where a question mark should go.
With provisos, I’d recommend “Derek DelGaudio’s in & of Itself” if you can find it, a film (and partial deconstruction) of his off-Broadway stage show, which ran for a few years recently. The provisos are that it’s a very talky show, with little actual “magic” in it (though he is clearly an accomplished magician, as he demonstrates.) Reviews tend to be polarised between one star from people who find it tedious hokum, or 5 stars from those who think it’s the most profound thing they’ve ever seen. I err towards the latter (I cried, so sue me) though I can see what others would find annoying about it, but I imagine seeing it live was probably an incredible experience.
Warning – if you’re interested, go in as “blind” as you can, the less you know the better…