::scr hacking in life

[Piers Cawley]

Chris Devers <cdevers@tsunami.cis.usouthal.edu> writes:

> On Wed, 6 Feb 2002, Piers Cawley wrote:
>
>> It's also, at some level, how magic works. The barefaced lie (with
>> supporting 'cues') is a remarkably powerful tool.
>
> I'm pretty sure that Penn & Teller see themselves as professional liars
> first, professional magicians second :). Watch them perform, or read one
> of their books, and they give it all away & still make it fun. Basically
> there seem to be two kinds of magic tricks, for cards anyway, but I think
> more generally too: one where the trick is set up for you ("pick a card,
> any card") and the magician, by great mental & physical effort, figures
> out what you picked. The other type -- the one P&T specialize in, and most
> of you probably do too in one way or another -- is to have it all be a
> setup in advance ("pick a card, any card [as long as it's the three of
> clubs]"). After that, it's all just theatre... :)

Um... there's more than just pick a card any card. There's
transposition effects, mentalist effects, all sorts of stuff. The
'Twisting the Aces' thing I mentioned for instance is *not* a pick a
card trick. Nor is 'Out of this World', and those two are possibly the
two most influential card tricks of the last century.

And for a lot of tricks that P&T do, you pick the 3 of clubs because
it's funnier that way, not because they *have* to force the card. The
tricks that they *show* you how to do often depend on the force
admittedly.

If you want to know more about card tricks and sleight of hand
technique, I cannot reccommend 'Card College' by Roberto Giobbi highly
enough. It's a very fine set of four books (not cheap) that cover the
waterfront on card technique, explaining with fantastic clarity, good
illustrations and high quality typography. Small Press books can be
*so* good...

-- 
Piers

   "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in
    possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite."
         -- Jane Austen?