[HN Gopher] Cards as Weapons (1977)
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       Cards as Weapons (1977)
        
       Author : jansan
       Score  : 95 points
       Date   : 2023-07-31 13:28 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (archive.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (archive.org)
        
       | TylerE wrote:
       | My favorite magician of all time, and it's not even close. Was
       | really said to hear he passed a few years ago.
       | 
       | He could REALLY do this, too.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F93VCA_TCQ
       | 
       | Actual card throwing starts at about 4:30.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       |  _"Cards as Weapons" by Ricky Jay (1977)_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26106453 - Feb 2021 (2
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _Cards as Weapons by Ricky Jay (1977)_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26048850 - Feb 2021 (1
       | comment)
        
       | onychomys wrote:
       | I am not 100% convinced that this isn't just actual magic. The
       | manipulations are pretty amazing and then at the end it's
       | mindblowing.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWvRorX0KhQ
        
         | TylerE wrote:
         | Many of the methods Jay used he learned from Dai Vernon.
         | 
         | This vid explains Vernon's signature trick.
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/PQpQwLBDQKwP
         | 
         | One key to Jays magic (and really any good mahician) is that
         | NOTHING is coincidence. Every hitch, stumble, and stutter is
         | there for a reason.
        
         | lisper wrote:
         | The card throwing is just a skill, there is no trickery
         | involved. But what is shown in this video is magic facilitated
         | by extreme skill (as opposed to, say, a gimmicked deck).
        
           | TylerE wrote:
           | He did use gimmicks sometimes, albeit it usually a set deck
           | that he then pretends to false shuffle.
        
             | lisper wrote:
             | That's not a gimmick. False shuffles are a skill.
        
               | TylerE wrote:
               | He used marked cards and other speciality decks like
               | stripper decks on occasion.
        
               | lisper wrote:
               | Sure, every magician does that at one time or another.
               | But that's not what he's doing in this video.
        
         | jansan wrote:
         | When I was into card magic a few years ago this move by Lennard
         | Green was the one that impressed me most:
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/KnSGHHeFxa0?t=33
         | 
         | Also, at the end of the video his laser routine is really nice.
        
       | ctrlp wrote:
       | Saw Ricky Jay 3 times in the 52 Assistants era in very intimate
       | theaters and he was just amazing.
        
       | bragr wrote:
       | I was not expecting a fully nude woman on pages 40-43. Perhaps
       | could use a NSFW flag.
        
         | ASalazarMX wrote:
         | That very pleasant woman, both topless and fully naked later,
         | also took me by surprise. No mention if her nakedness is part
         | of the flick/attack position. I just browsed the book, but
         | there's also a foot-card-flicking picture, and some ladies
         | operating a man with a card.
         | 
         | I don't have time to read it right now, but surely will later,
         | seems like a fun weekend book.
        
       | nutate wrote:
       | As a kid I had access to that book and I got to be a pretty
       | wicked card thrower. Haven't tried it in a while.
        
         | ASalazarMX wrote:
         | Did your parents know about the pretty topless/naked lady in
         | some of the pictures?
        
         | NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
         | If you still have a copy, a coworker from a previous job said
         | that it's worth quite a bit (hundreds, apparently).
        
           | TylerE wrote:
           | Only the hard cover. Paperback is also valuable, but only
           | about 15% of the hardcover.
        
       | jansan wrote:
       | Please forgive me for digging this up every other year, but I
       | think this is such a wonderful tongue in cheek resource for a
       | wonderfully weird topic.
       | 
       | Also, be warned that book pages 33 and 34 may be NSFW in some
       | regions on this planet ;)
        
         | klyrs wrote:
         | Page 56 is where it gets really steamy
        
         | cdchn wrote:
         | I was just skimming through before even reading the comments
         | and I hit what you were talking about on page 42 and thought
         | "Wait hold up.."
        
           | ASalazarMX wrote:
           | The clothes obscured the careful position of the arms, they
           | were removed for pedagogic reasons.
        
         | progre wrote:
         | Thank you for the, uh... Warning.
        
       | supportengineer wrote:
       | Lots of references to famous contemporaries. Very silly book! It
       | certainly keeps you turning the pages.
        
       | agumonkey wrote:
       | I don't know about you guys, but I often think magician are great
       | computer scientists.. pre-planning order and configurations to
       | obtain a known result..
        
       | GoofballJones wrote:
       | The late, great Ricky Jay was one of the very best card magicians
       | who ever lived...plus a fantastic magic historian.
        
       | gumby wrote:
       | If you don't know who Ricky Jay was, this is a nice introduction.
        
       | readingnews wrote:
       | I note that on the books title, it says he is the author of this
       | book:
       | 
       | https://archive.org/details/learnedpigsfirep0000unse
       | 
       | Which has an amazing title.
        
         | 0x0203 wrote:
         | It's also an amazing book. In addition to being an incredible
         | magician and entertainer, Ricky Jay was also a wealth of
         | knowledge on the history of magic and all things related. The
         | referenced "Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women" is just
         | scratching the surface of the subject.
        
       | empath-nirvana wrote:
       | For such an obscurantist profession, the quality of technical
       | writing in books by magicians is so incredibly consistent.
       | 
       | I'm going to recommend another really excellent, long out of
       | print book by a famous magician:
       | 
       | https://avalonlibrary.net/ebooks/Derren%20Brown%20-%20Pure%2...
       | 
       | It's an absolute gold mine of tips on performance and full of
       | detailed technical explanations of how he did some of his most
       | famous illusions. (and the answer is not NLP or subliminal
       | suggestion or anything he talks about in his patter, most of the
       | time).
        
         | jdietrich wrote:
         | I'd like to recommend two of Darwin Ortiz's books, _Strong
         | Magic_ and _Designing Miracles_. They 're high-level
         | theoretical texts on the perceptual and cognitive basis of
         | illusion and I've found them to have a great deal of
         | applicability to UI/UX design.
        
       | m3kw9 wrote:
       | Well don't bring a deck of cards to a fist fight
        
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       (page generated 2023-07-31 23:01 UTC)