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Cards are like living, breathing human beings.

I suppose, because they give you real pleasure.

You sit in a room with them for 10 or 15 hours a day

and they become your friends,

particularly very lonely people.

If I could go back in history, and I can,

the performer I would most like to see

would be Johann Nepomuk Hofsanger,

the famous Viennese card musician

who called playing cards the poetry of magic.

My favorite of his many experiments, from the 19th century

and experiment called "Everywhere and Nowhere."

The question was to speak about the state

of current magic in America.

I know absolutely nothing about the 20th century.

And, I'm not just talking about magic.

Vade...

jubeo...

celeriter...

The seven of diamonds.

- The seven of diamonds

from the six to the seven of diamonds,

and the gentlemen on the end?

The 10 of spades.

- The 10 of spades.

They're probably more books written about magic

than any other art form.

Literally, thousands and thousands of books

and I've collected thousands of books in my life,

about magic technique.

But, I believe that the real key to learning

is personally.

It's almost like the sensei/master relationship

in the martial arts.

That the way you want to learn

is by someone you respect showing you something.

There's a level of transmission and a level of appreciation

that's never completely attainable

just through the written word.

I've been really, really lucky to be around people

and to feel very much part of this ongoing continuum

of sleight of hand, that can be traced back

many, many years, more than a century.

It's beginners ladies and gentlemen,

beginners please.

Everybody to beginners, thank you.

Here's the man.

- I'll see you on the other side.

- All right.

A man named Canada Bill Jones,

by all accounts, was the greatest Monty hustler

who ever lived.

Canada Bill was, of course, from England.

In his day the game was played with three identical cards,

in this case, queen of hearts.

And, they would take out a marking crayon

and put a big X on one of the queens

and you had to find the marked card,

the queen with the X.

Then, a little later, they thought

it was better to play with black cards.

So, instead they played with three black cards

and they took out a pencil, a red pencil,

and made a big circle, so you could see it

and then they thought, well you know,

if you want to contrast them,

all you have to do is play with a black one

and a pair of queens and you don't need a pencil.

Now, they play with one queen and two black cards,

so, why don't you--

We'll continue.

I remember going to a show

of Ricky Jay and his 52 assistants

and he said, "Boy, there were, like, three or four

really big card cheats in the audience, tonight."

I said, "Wow, so guys you know?"

He said, "Oh, yeah. Big card hustlers."

and I said, "So, these guys gonna come back stage?"

"Probably not" and they didn't.

You know, but, he does inhabit a world

that you imagine that he would inhabit.

He knows characters.

I was around magic all the time.

It's my earliest memory.

It's my earliest family memory.

It's my earliest social memory.

It's my earliest artistic memory, you know,

so, it just was part of my being.

Newark Sunday News, New Jersey,

March 14, 1956.

Two of a kind, Max Katz, past president

of the Society of American Magicians is about to be tricked

by his seven-year-old Grandson,

Ricky Potash of Elizabeth, magician in his own right.

Ricky hasn't given much thought

to what he wants to be when he grows up,

but one thing he doesn't want to be

is a professional magician, which he is now

at the age of seven.

He made his first public appearance

at the age of four, at the New York Magician's Picnic.

I remember doing this dreadful effect

when I was three or four years old,

producing cups from Lundy's,

the seafood restaurant in Sheepshead Bay,

which was terrible, and producing rubber fruit

from a pan, which was awful.

You know, pretending to lick a rubber ice cream cone,

which I had just produced from the pan, which was awful.

So, within a year of that time,

I think I was actually doing shows

where I dressed up in a full-tails suit

and did more bad magical effects.

- Here I have an empty canister.

Keep your eye on it

because strange things are going to happen.

Sir, will you please bring in my magic bunny?

- Well, the bunny jumped out , would this be good?

A little Peruvian guinea pig.

- Oh.

- I'll put it right in.

I want to see this, this is really something.

May I put it in for you Ricky?

- No.

- It's in there now.

- ♫ Rock-a-bye, bunny.

♫ Mm, la-la-la.

Well, my bunny just slept more than enough.

Time to wake him up.

Oh, well, isn't magic wonderful?

- I was a very comfortable performer from the beginning,

my guess is it's because I started at such a young age.

My grandfather, Max Katz, was an amateur magician

on a pretty serious level.

He came over from Austria, Hungary,

as a small boy.

He lived in Brooklyn, as did we.

He had a Wall Street firm.

He was a CPA through an Act of Congress,

he never went to college,

and he had this interest

in all sorts of fairly arcane things.

As I think about it now, an enormous number of things

that eventually wound up interesting me.

But his path to these things was to take lessons

from the best people he could find.

So, he actually learned to play billiards

from taking lessons from Willy Hoppy.

And he took checker lessons from William Ryan

and then he wrote the introduction

to his book on checkers.

He was a cryptographer.

He wound up becoming the cryptography editor

of G-Man magazine,

used the code name of M.K. Dirigo,

that was his moniker.

You know, he just found these people

to teach him the things he was interested in.

And at the point that I came around

I guess he was most interested in magic.

Abracadabra, March, 1949.

Slydini opens instruction studio.

A steady demand on his time and his skill at teaching

has caused him to open a studio

for the instruction of local businessmen magicians.

So, my grandfather, actually took formal lessons

from a bunch of magicians, who were sensational.

And then, these people became his friends

and then became my early mentors.

Slydini, Frances Carlyle, Guy Vernon, Al Flosso.

These people I got to see who were sensational.

So, I mean, this was part of the great gift

from my grandfather, that I got at a very early age.

I remember, as a five or six-year-old,

my grandfather would bring me over to Cardini's house,

which was truly amazing,

because Cardini was known not to associate

with very many magicians, you know.

And he was just an extraordinary act.

I only went to Cardini's twice.

I was largely schmoozing, with my grandfather,

but kind enough to show me some.

I mean, I still remember vividly,

him showing me a reverse fan that he made,

you know, in this enormous circle of space,

you know the way he made this fan in his hand.

Cardini was probably the greatest act

I ever saw in my life.

As a treat, my grandfather brought me to a magic convention

in Chicago, when I was very young.

Cardini did the act.

I think it was the last time he ever did his act,

and it just was this extraordinary combination

of elements blending together.

The characterization's of him as the tipsy Englishman

and his wife, Swan, as the page-boy assistant.

And, the idea that these miracles,

just, sort of, happened to him.

He didn't produce cards, cards appeared in his hand.

He was desperate to get them out of his hand

and the second they got out of his hand

there were more cards in his hand.

It, just, really transcended anyone else

doing similar effects.

It's also something from an era

that no longer exists, the end of Vaudeville,

in which you could make a living,

doing an act for a few minutes.

You would just go from town to town,

from, you know, house to house,

and do your act.

And, it just was wonderful, it was breathtaking.

There's a thing about holding cards

in one's hand that's amazing.

It becomes like a meditative tool,

just sitting there and shuffling cards for hours

and thinking about them.

It's almost infinite, what one can do with them.

My grandfather would have very specific commentaries

on the performance of various magicians.

For example, watching Slydini, he would say,

"Look how wonderfully he misdirects attention.

"Watch his incredible ability to direct the attention

"of a spectator specifically where he wants to direct it."

- I'ma gonna take a the ball

and I'ma gonna put inside the hand this way,

and I'm closing it, squeeze, when I open the hand

you see the ball completely disappear.

Come here, up close, watch really close,

Come here, watch.

I'll do it really slow, okay?

Watch here, really slow.

And disappear, nothing here, nothing here.

Is it in your pocket?

- No.

- No. Let me see.

Oh, you didn't see it, right?

You know why?

I did too fast, this time I do it slow, really slow.

Now, I'll tell you why you didn't see it.

I explain it to you, see, before I put in the ball,

this way you couldn't see the ball, right?

- You're hiding it.

- You're clever.

You're clever, I hide it with the hand, right?

But this time I'ma not gonna put it this way,

I'm gonna put it this way.

Come here, watch, really slow.

Come here, watch, really slow.

Where'd it go?

The famous story about misdirection

is that, there was a man named Abril Lemarque

who was the art editor of the New York Times

and a very well known amateur magician

and another friend of my grandfather's.

He was a really flamboyant guy

with a wonderful, grey, twirled mustache,

an elegant, dapper figure.

And, the story was told that one year

at the art director's show in New York,

a very famous show, that he was performing.

The effect involved a green handkerchief,

which was in his hand

and he said that he was gonna change color, you know,

and his hands were completely empty,

except for this green handkerchief.

And he tucked it into his hand

and at that moment a completely nude stunning model

walked across the stage behind him

and then the first words he said were,

"And now the handkerchief is yellow."

And when the people looked back, in fact,

he had done this sleight of hand effect,

so, that illustrates perhaps more of the principles of magic

than any other story with which I'm familiar.

I would go to see Slydini at his apartment in Manhattan

and take lessons from him.

How formal that they were, I don't know.

There was certainly no family decision,

"Now you'll take lessons from Slydini."

Like it was Nadia Boulanger, or something.

I mean, you know, it was Slydini

and one day I was invited over to his home and it was great.

Slydini was an Italian man

who did this wonderfully poetic magic

and was a wonderfully artistic fellow.

I mean, he actually made me in those years...

He was a wonderful tailor and he made suits

that were like Spanish toreador outfits,

where every flower was dyed by hand and put on with sequins.

That's what I actually performed in when I was a young boy,

13 or 14, and, you know, with penciled in sideburns.

I then moved to New Jersey,

so when I would come in to see Slydini,

I would take a bus in from Elizabeth to Port Authority

and then walk to Slydini's house.

Slydini had this apartment on 45th Street.

It was, just, really entering a world

that was just so different and unusual.

I still, you know, I can picture this vividly,

sitting at this big table he had

and he would start running through this repertoire

and, actually, specifically teaching me effects,

like "Coins Through the Table"

and making me practice and commenting on the practice.

It was really fun.

Practice to me was never anything but pleasure.

It's what I like doing.

If I'm frazzled the nicest thing to calm me down

is, probably, to put a deck of cards in my hand

and let me sit down for a few hours.

- I worked very closely with him for many years.

I directed two shows, "52 Assistants" and "Ricky Jay."

Then I directed, I think, seven or eight movies.

- Trip aces, beat em' my friend.

- Club flush, you owe me six thousand dollars.

Thank you, very much.

Next case.

- I would always tell him, you know, "Show me something."

So years ago he said,

"Okay, I'll show you a beginning effect."

Off you go, when you can come back and do this effect

better than anyone's ever done it, I'll show you another.

So I worked on it for awhile and got bored

and it wasn't my thing and never did it again.

I mean, I respect the fact

that the essence of his profession,

the secrecy and unattainability,

we all want to know how the trick is done.

The technical skills, to master them, take a lifetime.

To tell them to the uninitiated would be a desecration,

so, I stopped asking.

Secrecy in magic, is still prevalent.

There are many things that my mentors,

I'm sure, didn't show me.

There are probably even a couple things

I've come up with that I haven't shown anyone else.

The code of secrecy thing, clearly, was instilled

from the very beginning, for me.

My grandfather would say,

"When you watch Francis Carlyle,

"it's not only technique and presentation."

But listen to the way that he explains an effect

with such clarity, that people go away

knowing exactly what's happened.

I'm gonna show you something very unusual,

I'm never gonna go near the deck.

Take that queen of hearts and put it in your hand

and I put it in his hand.

Now, I'm gonna show you something very unusual,

that you won't ever forget.

It was a wonderful piece of advice.

Because people are often confused

in terms of what was even supposed to take place

in a magic illusion.

Francis was great about letting you know

what was supposed to happen, and what did happen,

and why you should be excited about it.

Francis was a serious alcoholic

and he had stopped drinking for years

and he went out to the Magic Castle, in Los Angeles,

and had a number of very good years out there

and eventually he started drinking again.

And, I found him on the streets of L.A.,

shortly before he died,

brought him home to stay with me for a few days

in my apartment in Venice

and not long after that he was found on the streets.

People frequently talk about

how much more difficult it is to cheat in a card game

than to perform good sleight of hand.

But, if you think about it, what makes magic different

is that it's inherently honest.

That's the major difference between deception as crime

and deception as performance.

In the performance of magic and sleight of hand

you tell someone you're gonna deceive them,

before you deceive them.

That's really difficult,

to tell someone you're gonna fool them.

To have them on guard and aware

and then, to still fool them.

It really is a very peculiar profession.

I would go an visit Al Flosso.

I would go to his shop on 34th Street

fairly often and watch him.

He'd walk up this long narrow staircase

and open up the door.

Al would be behind the counter

and he was a very small man,

I mean, he was barely past five feet tall,

with these giant thick glasses and this great grin.

Usually wearing shirt sleeves and suspenders

and just surrounded by this clutter.

He got me interested in the history

of the art, as well.

The first posters I ever bought were from Flosso

and he really did create one of the great personas

of anybody performing magic.

The "Coney Island Faker".

It was just a great character

coming from the Barker tradition.

And he worked on the Sells Floto Circus

I think he worked at Al G. Barnes.

He really was a side show carnival

magician out of Coney Island.

- So, now from the curcus lots, Professor Al Flosso.

I remember him making Ed Sullivan, truly laugh,

which was almost unheard of.

- Well, come on up here, I'll show 'em how this is done.

All you have to do is reach up in the air

and get all you want.

Grab one.

In the can, that's good.

With the other hand.

In the can,

that's better.

Blow it in before you use it.

Give a hand before you can miss.

Grab one, put it in your pocket.

Keep that for coming up here.

I don't care for money.

Did you get it?

- I think so.

- Let's see.

- That's what I thought.

Hold that there with both hands.

Well, well, well thank you, my boy.

- You, literally, cannot think about Al Flosso

without smiling.

I suppose the only kind memory I ever had of my parents

was that when it was time for my Bar Mitzvah

they asked me what I would like at the party

* and I said I wanted Al Flosso to perform.

And it was a pretty ballsy thing to ask for,

in the sense, that Flosso performed on the Ed Sullivan Show

and often worked at Grossinger's,

and the Concord and the Catskills.

They inquired and they came back to me

and said, that he was, in fact, working in the Catskills

that weekend and he sent his apologies

but was unable to do it.

They were conning me,

and in fact, had hired him and he came.

And, so, it was great to see Flosso perform for my friends

and they were as taken by him as I always had been.

It was really nice.

It's actually Flosso who performed that frightening ceremony

at my grandfather's funeral, of breaking the magic wand.

They were really close friends

and also, I think, Masonic brothers.

Broken Wand.

Max Katz, 74, of Brooklyn, New York,

died March 31, 1965

following a long illness.

Survived by his widow, daughter, two sons,

and six grandchildren, including Ricky Potash, magician.

Shortly before my grandfather died

one of the last things I remember him doing

was getting me together with Roy Benson

and having Roy teach me the "Billiard Ball" act,

which was a great thing, I mean this was a legendary act.

The magic, Roy Benson doing the "Billiard Balls".

Beautiful "Billiard Ball" act,

which I did just for a short period of time.

It was much like Slydini, that learning from these people

was a wonderful thing, but somehow I knew

that I wasn't gonna go out and be Slydini

and I knew that I wasn't going go out and be Roy Benson,

or any of these other people, like Flosso or Carlyle,

but there was something wonderful about learning

both, in general, and also in specific.

So, there was a great discipline

that came from learning the "Benson Billiard Ball" act.

Most of these people that we knew, these guys,

who were the greatest guys in their field didn't have a pot,

these were not people making a lot of money.

I mean, I never stopped thinking about that.

The people who were so good

they would bring tears your eyes, tears of joy

from the beauty of their performances, couldn't make money.

My grandfather was Slydini's accountant.

That was one of the things he would always point out to me

was how little Slydini made,

so that I should, certainly, be interested in magic

but never think about it as a career.

I, of course, heeded that advice.

This week on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert

the incredible Kansas.

Family funk from the Sylvers.

The outrageousness of the Sex Pistols.

Some slick dealin' from Ricky Jay.

- What I'm gonna try to do

is actually penetrate this newspaper

with a single playing card.

Going through the newspaper

and knocking over the heavy beer cans,

which are on the other side.

Watch.

That's enough!

I don't often talk about my family,

but, when my grandfather died,

that was the end of the relationship with my family.

I was 16 or 17.

It's safe to say my parents just didn't get it

and didn't get me and we had no rapport.

And, I guess, it's also safe to say, going from no rapport

to wanting to get myself the hell out of their house,

happened pretty quickly and I left home very early

and, basically, never returned.

Leaving with no money in my pocket and no job

was scary on some level, but when you're that young

you don't think about that so much

and I quickly wound up getting jobs

doing sleight of hand.

Then I wound up tending bar in New York,

even though I wasn't even 18 years old.

You only had to be 18 to tend bar in New York.

And, so, that became one of the first skills I learned.

I ran away to Lake George, which was a big resort area

and wound up behind the bar doing magic

and making drinks.

And that's what sort of launched my professional career,

those days out at Lake George.

One of my first jobs, when I was about 17 or 18,

I played the Electric Circus in New York.

The first psychedelic nightclub in New York City,

where I appeared in between Timothy Leary

lecturing about acid and the music act of the day

which was Ike and Tina Turner.

Occasionally the Chambers Brothers were there, as well.

But, sandwiched in between Tim Leary

and Ike and Tina Turner was pretty great.

Even though I tried to go to college,

and I did go to quite a few of them,

mostly to Cornell.

I would leave at various times to go out and perform.

But, I remember performing on the Tonight Show

when I was still at Cornell, and living in Ithica.

It was, kind of, an odd thing to do.

To go down to New York, I did that a couple a times

and appeared on the show.

And, that was my first national television appearance,

which happened when I was, still, very young.

I mean, sometime around the age of 20, I suppose.

And that led to other shows, as well,

and I wound up becoming a fairly regular performer

on a number of those early talk shows,

like Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin.

Eventually Dinah Shore, she and I got along incredibly well.

Probably was on that show 20 times, or so.

The reason you're confused

is you have a tendency to watch the black cards.

Now you should totally ignore the black cards.

It's very important

if you're ever going to play this game for money,

to ignore the black cards

and simply concentrate on your red cards.

I now this may sound hard to you,

if you're playing the game, but it's fine.

All right, let me show you how this works.

Now here are two black cards

and here's the red card.

Let me do this, again.

Remember, black, red, black.

I'll do this once more, red.

Where's the red card?

Want me to guess?

Sure. Right here.

Well, I was doing this for Elizabeth, but...

you just happen to, yeah, happen to be right, all right.

But let me do this once more--

You want to put some money on this one?

- Well, I don't--

- Well, let me, let me. All right.

You want my five dollars?

- I'll put 50 bucks.

- Oh, 50 dollars.

- Okay, 51.

- Okay. okay, now you're talking.

All right, I'll do this quickly then.

I mean, I'm not gonna do it as slow as I did before.

Remember, here's the red card.

Do it as fast as you want.

As fast as I want?

Yeah.

All right, it's gonna be fast.

Where is it?

- This one.

- Is this what you're,

are you looking at this corner?

Yup.

Yeah, that's what I figured

and that's a good way to get--

After some years of drifting around

I moved to California, in search of

the two greatest sleight of hand artists in the world.

Dai Vernon and Charlie Miller.

So I had wonderful childhood influences,

but when I came out to California, it was really different.

I went from someone who just came out to reacquaint myself

with Vernon, to spending time with Charlie Miller

and Dai Vernon, that amounted to immersion.

It was every day of my life.

Every single day.

Often winding up at the Magic Castle

at 2 o'clock in the morning

and then going from there to Canter's Delicatessen

'till six or seven, or going over to their homes

and, it really was a complete and total immersion.

It was interrupted only by going out on the road to perform.

I found Vernon at the Magic Castle, in Los Angeles,

where he had taken up residency.

He was willing to divulge methods,

although not always, and not every time.

This is part of why it was so exciting to be around him.

There were other people came out,

really wonderful magicians coming from different places.

Steve Freeman, coming from Oklahoma,

and Earl Nelson, from Salt Lake City,

and John Carney, coming from Des Moines,

and earlier, Larry Jennings.

And, David Roth in New York.

There were quite a few people.

The measure of this man,

was that he made us, literally, uproot our lives,

without any, at least for me, without any plan to do so.

I mean, you know, I just, it was extraordinary.

Vernon was thin and dapper, and really good looking,

I mean, from the time I spent, most of my time with him

when he was in his 70s and 80s.

He had this wonderful shock of white hair

and the most wonderful twinkle to his eyes,

incredibly lively and women just seemed to find him

devastatingly attractive, even at that age.

He was born in Ottawa, Canada, in 1894.

And he got into magic at a very young age.

The incredibly important event, for him, in his young life

was he had a copy

of Artifice, Ruse and Subterfuge at the Card Table

by S. W. Erdnase.

Here was a text on card handling

that most people thought was incomprehensible.

They thought it was an engineering book.

And, at a very early age, using tiny cards,

because he was a just a young kid,

he mastered this book,

which is an extraordinary achievement.

Later when he came down to New York, in the teens,

as a young man, he managed to fool people rather profoundly

using the techniques from this book,

and it, really, established initially, his reputation.

And from that he had entree to the great magicians

of his day and he learned from them.

He was avaricious in soaking up

everything that he could find.

He, particularly, spent time with people

like, Nate Leipzig and Max Mullaney.

But, also, at this point he was beginning

to develop his own material

and to, really, start thinking about sleight of hand,

in a way that no one before him, really, had.

So, this just grew and grew, for years,

until he became the most significant

and well-known figure in the art.

I'm 84 years of age

and I've been studying magic for 78 years.

I wasted the first six years of my life,

but

Where do you study it, with other famous magicians?

No, you sit in a room and you take a pack of cards

or you take some dice, or you take a handkerchief

and you try to create some kind of an magical effect

and you work it out.

- Vernon loved to play his accolades off against each other.

He was, you know, a feisty,

sometimes even nasty, fellow,

although if you knew that that was the game,

it was great fun, I mean, but he could frustrate you.

And, he also used it as a learning tool.

You know, Vernon would be quick to tell you

about somebody who did some move

that he thought was unrealizable and really wonderful

and half the time he had just made it up,

to get you to think about it and do it yourself.

But, he clearly did show different pieces

to different people

and, you know, he really was like a guru,

you know, a Japanese sensei.

I mean, he used whatever techniques he thought were possible

to get you to do your best stuff.

I can recall one thing

that the audacity of youth prompted me to do.

He was always intrigued

with the way that I could boomerang cards.

Throw out a card and have it return to my hand.

And, it's not a particularly difficult sleight,

but, I did it with a sureness that he found interesting.

And, one day he said to me,

"I'll bet you can't do that 40 times, 40 times."

And it turns out when he said he was a kid

he would practice this over and over again

and he said he could do it 39 times, 38 times, 35 times,

he could never do this 40 times.

And we were in a dark bar at the time,

which I'm sure was part of his wager.

You know, the fact that it was kind of hard to see.

And he bet me an effect that had me absolutely baffled

that I really wanted to learn,

that he would do that against 100 dollars, or something,

if I could do this 40 times in a row.

And so, I then launched into boomeranging this card

and I remember doing it 39 times

and then I had the 40th card in my hand

and he looked at me and I looked at him

and I threw the last card and caught it behind my back.

And, we both smiled a lot and he taught me this piece,

which, of course, I will not reveal to you.

But, that's why I say the audacity of youth,

I mean, I have no idea why I was insane enough to risk

missing learning this piece,

by catching the card behind my back,

but I guess when one's in their twenties,

they do stuff like that.

Ricky and I were both, the hot kid

magicians in New York.

I was , sort of, an apprentice to Vernon

and I ran away from home and was on the road

with Vernon when I was 14.

And, for, something like two years

and Vernon could be merciless at taunting you

with some secret that you were dying to know

and he'd say, "Ah, I'm not gonna say."

And one time we were travelling and he said,

"Well, you know,

"I've been thinking about magic all my life."

I said, "Yes, Professor, I know that."

And he said, "I think I figured out how

"to say the essence of pure sleight of hand,

"in a single sentence."

And he said,

"But, I've decided I'm never

"gonna say that sentence out loud."

So then I'd start working on him.

What was the sentence, you know?

But, we'd argue and he'd,

"Well, maybe if you do this,

"you know, I'll tell you something."

Anyway, he would never tell me.

So, he would get people infuriated and fascinated.

Vernon and Charlie were different

in that way, Charlie was much more direct.

Charlie didn't like games in quite the way that Vernon did.

- Now, I'd like the assistance

of some gentleman from the audience.

Doesn't have to be a gentleman,

almost anybody will do.

Would you Oh, thank you very much, sir.

Would you step right up here, please.

- Uh, I'm--

- Thanks a lot, don't be nervous, think how I feel.

Excuse me, may I relieve you of this?

Charlie didn't bluff.

He, just, spoke open and honestly.

If you could get him to talk at all,

I mean, he was far less likely to open up to people

than the Professor was.

He didn't open up to me, right away.

It took awhile and so it should.

Charlie was born in 1909, in Indianapolis,

and died 80 years later in Los Angeles.

But, he probably worked more, professionally,

as a magician, than Vernon did.

In a variety of venues, from club dates to cruise ships.

Even though these were the two great old guys

of magic, there was still a big difference in their age.

So, Charlie was always the "kid" to Vernon.

When he was 78, he was still the "kid".

On the other hand, you know, I saw an inscription

that Vernon once wrote to Charlie saying,

"To the finest exponent of pure sleight of hand

"I've ever seen in my life."

So, ultimately, there was this remarkable respect

and admiration, you know, for each of them.

But, particularly, as they got older,

they could be fairly cantankerous, together.

Charlie was inclined to work on the specifics

of one particular move, and the finest points

and finest subtleties of this particular move.

Spending eight or ten or twelve hours a day practicing.

You can just get into a rhythm

where it just feels so wonderful that you do it without,

really, spending an awful lot of time

thinking about doing it.

And, it's not the best way to practice.

I've probably learned more from Charlie Miller

more about how to refine practice, the concept

of, instead of just getting into the rote and the rhythm

and this wonderful thing of how nice it feels

when you hit a move, you know,

when you're working on your chops,

to actually consciously try

to make the move better, each time you do it.

Being in a room with Charlie and discussing a move

is one of the stranger kind of pleasures

I've ever had in my life.

Charlie would bring up a move and he would start to do it

and he would start to question it,

and he would start looking at it

from different angles.

He would run to one corner of the room

and you would have to do it,

and he would run to another corner of the room.

It was this fine line between torture and absolute pleasure

because for Charlie a good evening

could be asking you to do the same shuffle

16,000 times, you know?

And, he'd be very happy doing that,

and you'd be happy for most of it,

but he always managed to take over the edge,

where you, just, didn't want to shuffle the cards anymore.

I mean, it was just endless, the variations

and the craziness of it, and it was, you know,

often, you know, as close to pure joy

as anything that I can imagine.

I really miss this, enormously, in my life.

I remember, specifically, one night

I was maybe 20-21, we were both attending

and working at the same magicians conference,

here in New York.

I think it was at the Roosevelt Hotel.

We were sharing a room.

I was, you know, a young kid,

maybe on his fifth or sixth trip to New York.

So, I stayed out a little bit, later

than Charlie did that night

and I came back into the room

and as I opened the door

and the light, kind of, came through the crack

in the room and illuminated Charlie in bed,

he was lying in bed with all of the lights out,

on his back, holding a deck of playing cards, up like this.

And he could not, even with night vision goggles,

he absolutely could not see what was going on in there,

but by touch he was practicing

something in the dark, in bed.

Not really, waiting for me but just not asleep,

and

you know, it tickled me

and it didn't surprise me, all at once.

- One of the things that I found so appealling

in being able to spend time with both Charlie and Vernon

was that they realized that,

perhaps, the most demanding branch

of all of sleight of hand, was the artifice of the gambler.

Because of the idea, that when these sleights and moves

were done by people in card games,

if they did them imperfectly, they were in danger

of being exposed, and therefore,

had their own personal health at risk.

They became people who were extraordinary practitioners,

able to do moves under fire,

to do something under the closest scrutiny.

And, both Charlie and the Professor spent the time

to track down these moves

and learn to do them incredibly well.

So, a very large part of my training was involving

the mastering of

card table artifice.

What I'd like you to do Ed is just, literally,

reach into the deck, like that, and cut a group of cards

and let's see, anywhere at all.

You don't even have to put them down

we can just, oh, that's good, you've cut a deuce.

But, in a way, you've given me the perfect opportunity

to show what a hustler could do.

Because, for instance, if I could cut a three,

that might make you think

I was almost as unlucky as you were.

I can, by the way.

And then you'd be inclined to stay in the game, right?

You follow the concept.

Linda, I want you to do the same thing.

Cut absolutely anywhere, and let's see what's on the bottom.

We don't have to, well, you keep putting them,

well, it's another two.

Just cut it up and we'll see.

Anywhere, cut anywhere at all, okay.

Let's see, this time you've cut a seven,

which is a noticeable improvement in this game, anyway.

So, in this case, would it be possible

for me to look through the deck

and beat your seven by cutting an eight?

Oh, lucky me.

So, you know, this is, kind of, the idea.

Some people might call this hustling.

But I've got to be honest with you,

if we were playing for $80,

I might want to take a chance and do this.

If we were playing for thousands,

I might want to try to cut an ace.

I wouldn't be messing around.

So, you guys are really gonna be the eyes

and ears of the audience,

I think the eyes will be particularly useful.

And, what I want you to do is watch me

actually shuffle the cards

and see that it's a good, legitimate shuffle.

Because, after all this shuffling

I'm gonna do what gamblers call "Dead Cutting an Ace".

The concept here, is you reach into a shuffled deck

and, literally, cut out an ace.

This is an acquired skill.

And, please notice, with me, both of you,

that there are no "dog ears", or breaks or protrusions

in the deck, and that once again,

I'm gonna break the cards, as you might in a game,

and once again, I'm really gonna shuffle them

and push them in, and once again

I'm gonna, actually try to reach into the deck

and just be able to cut out an ace.

In this case, you'll see that

there doesn't happen to be an ace, over here or over here.

I'm also gonna try this left-handed, by the way.

That's something I do in case someone breaks my right thumb.

Let me try to cut an ace, to the bottom of the left-handed,

that would be the ace of hearts.

Please watch me narrowly, as I shuffle the cards.

And this time, Linda, I'm gonna give the deck

a number of cuts and while I'm cutting the deck,

say stop at any point.

- Stop.

- Ed, be my guest.

Thank you.

Well, good God. I'm--

- It was divine, it was so wonderful.

It was so different from seeing it on the tape, too.

- Oh, yeah, television, yeah.

- Oh, my God.

- Yeah, cameras, they should be avoided at all cost.

- They should.

- Wait a minute, wait a minute.

I was incredibly fortunate

to actually have mentors with this direct link

from people like, Malini, that went back that far.

The reason that I love Malini,

is that he performed in the heyday

of the most famous magicians,

of people like Kellar and Thurston and Houdini.

But, he performed entirely without props.

He would, literally, walk into the houses

of the rich and famous, that's where he would perform

and come in empty-handed and borrow a deck of cards,

a handkerchief, a couple of coins, a piece of fruit

and somehow, create miracles.

I had done a Canadian show, a number of times,

that I liked very much, and one day they asked me

to put together a whole hour of magic.

And, I asked the Professor if he wanted to come with me,

so, we flew out.

At one point, I asked him to talk about Malini.

- This may sound like a strange segue,

but that reminds me of a very peculiar story

the Professor always used to tell about Max Malini

and a chicken, I don't know if you'd care to--

- Oh, well, this is hardly, you know, people don't know

what lengths a magician will go to to create an effect.

Now, I don't know how many people in the audience know,

but if you take a chicken and you bend it's head

under it's wing and you rock it, in your hand, like this,

it puts the chicken into an hypnotic state.

And, in other words, for eight or ten minutes

the chicken is absolutely knocked out.

It's in a hypnotic state.

You put the head under the arm,

I mean, you put the chicken's head under the wing

and you shake it, like this,

and the chicken goes sound asleep,

into a somnambulistic state.

But, this famous magician, Max Malini, one time,

he took a chicken and he plucked alive.

He plucked this chicken alive.

He took all the feathers out and he put the head under the,

and he rocked it like this and put it to sleep.

Now, he put it on a big platter, he put a lot of potatoes

and garnishing around,

and they put it on the table

at a very fashionable dinner party in England,

with a lot of Lords and Dukes and everyone.

They put it on the table, and all these very stiff people

were sitting there, waiting for somebody to carve the turkey

and somebody said, "Well, you do the carving."

And he stuck the fork in the turkey and the damn turkey

jumped up out of the dish and ran the length of the table.

I'm gonna show you a piece

from right around the turn of the century,

right around 1900.

This was a piece developed by Max Malini.

The idea, here, was that more than one person

would take a card, during the course of an effect.

So, I've had a number of cards selected.

I'm gonna shuffle the cards

and try to find those cards again.

Actually, I have to confess,

at this point during the show every evening,

I wonder what it would be like if I didn't find those cards.

Just a thought.

So, I'm gonna find the next card by means of a simple cut.

And, that is the ace of clubs,

the card the woman on the aisle took, your ace of clubs.

Your card was, your shaking your head. No?

No. Ace of clubs?

What was it?

Four of diamonds.

- If you insist.

I'm looking for a little sympathy, you give me nothing.

Play the chill for me.

Icy, no I'm fine.

You took one, I believe,

would you be so kind as to mention it for me?

Jack of diamonds.

- Jack of diamonds, out of the deck and into my hand,

as if, propelled.

Jack of diamonds.

I'm gonna try to find yours

in the South American or Cariocas fashion.

If you'd be so kind as to name it.

Ace of hearts.

- The ace of hearts. Let's see.

Good.

You haven't forgotten yours, I trust.

What was that? Nine of clubs.

The nine of clubs, the last card.

Yeah, you didn't take one did you?

Oh, oh, in the second row, what was yours, sir?

Six of diamonds.

- Six of diamonds.

Now, I'll have to find both of them.

Nine of clubs?

Six of diamonds.

Your nine of clubs, your six of diamonds.

One day I drove up to the Magic Castle

and Vernon was sitting on the bench

in front of the castle, as he was wont to do.

And I said, "What are you doing, Professor?"

And he said, "I'm watching people

"put on their sports jackets."

And I said "What?"

And he said, "I'm watching people put on their jackets."

It was a private club and to gain admission

you had to wear a tie and jacket.

It was a hot day, so most of the people who

arrived weren't wearing coats.

And Vernon said, "No two people put on their jackets

"the same way."

And, it was just fascinating, the two of us sat there,

for a very long time, watching people put on coats.

It was a wonderful lesson, a wonderful lesson in naturalness

and how you begin to understand

that much of sleight of hand

is the duplication of natural action,

when you're doing something that may be surreptitious.

In terms of legacy, Vernon, really leaves a record

behind him, and Charlie, in his reluctance to publish,

or discuss with us or even share his magic,

with as large a community,

certainly, leaves less

but I think he's no less important.

I think he really is equally important

and equally remarkable.

Now, it occurs to me, that people who are really good

at sleight of hand, will never have seen Charlie or Vernon.

It's, just, it's almost incomprehensible, to me.

- You know, ever since the first caveman, Wog,

accidentally killed himself

by swallowing flaming fire sticks

in order to amuse his fellow cave persons,

people have been looking for new

and ever-more original ways

to entertain their fellow man.

And never, I repeat, never in the annals of entertainment

has one man devoted himself more dutifully,

studied so scrupulously and documented so diligently,

his eccentric, bizarre and astonishing feats

of physical and mental daring-do,

than the man they call, "America's scholar of the unusual",

magician, author, bon vivant, raconteur,

prestidigitator extraordinaire, and a personal friend

to whom I no longer owe a favor, Ricky Jay.

- I will not waste your time this evening

with kumquats, pears or prunes, no, no, no.

Ladies and gentlemen,

the most prodigious of household fruits, you guessed it...

the watermelon.

Out of season and, dreadfully, expensive.

Watch as I try to penetrate the juicy, rich, red interior

of said melon

with a perfectly place shot from an ordinary playing card.

Yatz.

Yatz.

Yatz.

Yatz.

Yatz.

Yatz.

Yatz.

Why is he still doing this?

Yatz.

Ladies and gentlemen...

please, notice...

that my last two shots

penetrated, exactly, the same slit

in the watermelon...

a feat so impressive,

I am forced to mention it myself.

But I know what you're saying,

you're saying, sure, you're able to throw cards

into the rich, red-interior, of said melon,

but, can you penetrate, the even thicker,

pachydermatis, outer melon layer?

Yes!

Of course not.

Who could do that?

But, encouraged by your approbation,

I will attempt to penetrate the even thicker pachydermatis,

outer-melon layer, watch.

Yatz.

This scares the melon.

This wounds the melon.

This ticks me off.

It's my last card.

Ricky Jay was a student of mine,

in an Aikido school in Santa Monica,

and he was, just, a very unassuming person.

He wanted to study Aikido and he practiced hard,

he always did.

Aikido, at it's higher level, do a lot of,

you might say, sleight of hand,

because it's done very rapid

and it's done with movements

that get their mind to fool them.

Probably a year after he was there

we had a banquet, all the members of the school.

Ricky asked two people, to give him one dollar bills.

So, we gave him the one dollar bills

and he held out his hand

and we're at this dinner table

and he holds out his hands

and he takes those two one dollar bills

and he puts them together, back-to-back

and he starts folding them, like this.

And, I don't know how he was folding them,

but, they just kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller,

until, finally, his fingers were together.

And then he went, pop, like that

and there was a two dollar bill there,

and the ones were gone.

And he handed the two dollar bill to somebody, that time,

and I don't remember who it was,

but, anyway, and after that it's like,

that's impossible, you know?

And I kept questioning him, and questioning him,

and questioning him and I waited

and it was probably, I don't know, two, three months later,

we had just finished working out.

Oddly enough, I was actually in the shower

with the water running when a bunch of guys from the class

came over and asked me to perform something.

- I walked up to him, and I handed him two one dollar bills

and I said, "Do it now," right, just like that.

And he looked at me and he put those in his hand

and said, "Oh, Fred, I wish you wouldn't have done this."

He says, "I'm not prepared" and while he's talking

to me, he folds the two one dollar bills up

and does, boom, and hands me a two dollar bill,

and I've kept this all these years,

but that's the one right there.

He handed me that two dollar bill,

and I was just-- I was dumbfounded.

I mean, I stood there for a long time, just,

he went ahead and got dressed.

He acted like I wasn't even there,

he did the trick and handed me the two dollar bill

and just walked off.

- As Stanislavsky said about Chekhov,

I beg your pardon, as Vakhtangov said about Chekhov,

I'll say about Ricky; he's devoted to the theater

which he alone sees.

That is to say that he has the ideal of magic

in his mind, to which he's devoted his life.

Like to teaching it, to perfecting it,

to performing it, to researching it.

The main thing about Ricky is you watch his hands,

I mean, he's commented on it himself, you know,

if he's adjusting his tie or moving a fork,

you don't know what the hell he's doing,

but you just have to watch it.

He's so used to making the audience get the idea

of looking at his hands, it's what he does for a living.

Right, it not that he wants you not to look at his hands,

he makes you look at his hands.

It's very, very beautiful, if you do anything long enough,

long enough, long enough,

as an artist the technique seems to disappear

and it looks completely natural.

I've seen him do the same effect,

literally, thousands of times, from watching the shows.

Watching the shows, I'm always fascinated.

I mean, I always said that the greatest,

you know, anybody can get a standing ovation,

but, to get the audience to go ooh,

make them forget themselves, you really gotta do something.

- With your kind permission, I'm gonna show you

an actual sequence of events, from a 17th century,

best-seller called, "Hocus Pocus Junior."

The idea here, that I will cover this center ball

with the cup and place one on top.

Then, I will actually cover this

and try to make the ball penetrate, solid through solid,

joining its mate, below.

Now that you know the sequence,

why don't you follow it again.

This time a ball penetrating through two solid, copper cups.

This method, a personal favorite of Matthew Buchinger,

The Little Man of Nuremberg.

He was only 28 inches tall, the cups obscured,

almost his entire body.

Look, that's enough for three balls to appear, below.

Matthew Buchinger had no arms or legs,

but he did have 14 children.

I first started examining earlier pieces,

literally, looking for material

that wasn't currently being done,

and thinking, was there some way

that I could make a piece that might have been 50 years,

100 years, 300 years, 500 years old, interesting?

And, as I began to read the stories of these people

they became more and more intriguing

and then at a certain point

I became a collector of this material.

The first serious discussion of false dice in English

is in a book called "Toxophilus" by Roger Asher.

This is 1544.

But, one hustle which they mention,

that I'm particularly fond of,

is sometimes, even if you have false dice,

if someone has a particular run of luck,

you know, they'll win, they'll win money.

In a case where a gambler is winning and they have problems

they talk about switching false dice into the game,

letting the honest gambler whose been winning,

roll them once and then accuse him of using loaded dice

and take his money.

Now, this seems to me, a remarkably modern concept,

for 1544.

The question was,

was I ever tempted to become a con man or a card shark?

Yes.

And I guess the follow

- I don't think I'll accept the follow-up.

- Could we look at the secondary image, Fitz?

That looks great. That framing's really good.

I gotta tell ya, these images look so good to me.

It's just, I mean it reads,

this is gonna read from the next building across the street.

- We're selling tickets there.

I'm so happy with this.

- Oh, thank God. Thank fucking Christ.

Go over here to Willard, the man who rose.

- Thank God.

It feels so good.

So relieved.

I've always been aware of boundaries with him.

I've never asked him how he does a magic trick.

I mean, I've never had an in depth conversation with him

about his parents.

We don't argue about things and haven't

for our relationship that's been over 30 years

except about things where he'll disagree with me

about the nature of somebody's character and I'll say

"Well, I don't agree. I don't think they're bad guys."

And that'll piss him off.

He has this enormous

sense of you cannot cross the line.

If you cross the line, you're a goner.

It's not sweet.

I think it's that magician's reflex

of playing all the angles.

It's all about control.

He would never put himself in a situation

if he's not in control.

If you eat with him at a restaurant

his back is always to the wall.

It's the way he lives.

- We've been both kind of fascinated over the years

by the similarities between dramaturgy and magic

'cause it's the same thing.

He says magic is using the mind to lead itself

to its own defeat, right?

And the same thing is really actually true of drama.

What you want to do is set up a proposition

so the audience is going ahead of you

trying to figure out what's gonna happen next

so that the end, just as in a magic trick,

it's surprising and inevitable.

It's inevitable because you say "Oh yes, I understand

"that's probably what would have happened."

It's surprising 'cause it happens in an usual way.

It's always difficult to talk about

how you create a piece.

It takes me a long time to create material.

Sometimes things take me years, literally, to do.

But in terms of building a piece, I mean,

that's something that I really do think about

for live performance.

I mean, the excitement of a live performance is wonderful.

But I think that magic is at its best

is even impossible in that situation.

That for it truly to be magic, a magical moment,

it has to be spontaneous.

It has to be something that just happens.

Not in a staged show that's carefully plotted

from beginning to end but rather in a moment.

Probably the most famous of those stories is about Malini.

That's what his reputation; doing impromptu pieces.

He would sit down in a restaurant at a meal

and he would be at the table for a long time,

a number of hours.

He never got up during the course of the meal

and eventually he would borrow a woman's hat

and then he would get a coin and he would spin it

and he would say "Lady or eagle?"

He would never say heads or tails.

He would spin it and cover it with the hat

and when he lifted the hat, if the woman said lady

it would be the side that had the woman on it.

If someone said eagle he'd spin the coin again

and he when he lifted the hat a second time

there would be the picture of the eagle

on the face of the coin.

Then he would do this a third time,

he would spin the coin and when he lifted the hat

there was no coin at all.

But in fact, an enormous block of ice.

- So it was 1995 and I'd come

on an assignment from the Guardian.

I'd heard that the BBC was making a film

about this very extraordinary closeup magician

and I came to write an article about him.

I came in after the BBC had already started

and basically it was very clear the minute that I arrived

that it was not going well

and that Ricky and the director, in particular,

didn't get on very well.

And essentially the problem was the director

was on to Ricky, as I remember it,

to produce a particular effect.

He wanted a centerpiece for his film.

And the more he demanded it, the more Ricky resisted.

The tension built and built and built

to the point where

the BBC and Ricky were really barely talking.

In the middle of all of this, I think, is a break.

We went out to the Huntington Library,

trying to take the tension out of it.

He seemed to be altogether in a much better mood on this day

and we all noticed that and Ricky said to me

"Come on," suddenly.

He said "Come on, let's go and have lunch."

Which was quite unexpected because

he can be quite cantankerous, Ricky.

I think he'd admit it himself. He can be quite difficult.

And so he said "Get in the car, Suzy,

"we're going to Sunset Boulevard.

"We're gonna have lunch together

"and we'll do the interview."

I got in the car, it was me and Ricky in the car,

we'd started chatting, preparing the interview that we

were gonna do and we took the wrong turn

off the freeway and so then we had to find our way

back on and so a journey that maybe should have taken

an hour or something from Pasadena,

I'm not sure how long it's supposed to take,

took double.

And it was fantastically hot on this day

and I couldn't help noticing, even at the time,

I thought gosh, he's taking this all very well

for such an irascible man.

And so then we got to the restaurant

and it was the worst possible place for an interview.

It was full at lunch time, it had glass on two sides

from floor to ceiling.

First there was a 20 minute wait for the table

and then we sat down at a table,

Ricky was opposite me and he was chatting away

and he started to talk about the tension

there'd been with the BBC and saying, you know,

I think that he regretted that this had happened

and how he very much wanted to do this set piece

that Paul had particularly asked for that had been performed

by a 19th century magician, Max Malini,

at a dinner party and he started to tell me the story

of Malini at the dinner party, the hat,

the dollar and so on.

As he was telling me this story

I think I became aware at that moment

that he had his menu open in front of him

so he was partly concealed behind this rather tall menu

and as he was telling the story he said

"And Malini lifts up the hat."

At the moment he lifted up his menu and on the table

in front of me, I'll never forget it,

on the table in front of me was this huge block of ice.

I mean, it was about a foot square.

Really, I can't exaggerate. Huge block of ice.

Later, when I picked it up,

I held with two arms.

I remember I burst into tears

and I think that shocked him a bit, actually.

Because it was such a kind of violent reaction.

I just sobbed and he said,

I mean, he can be very gentle, Ricky, in fact,

for all that he growls a lot.

And I remember he said "I deceived you.

"It's what I do for a living."

But...

you know, he also...

I mean, it's a moment I'll never have again.

I'll never forget it.

It was

a kind of supreme piece of artistry

that I witnessed that was done for me.

And that's what it felt like at the time.

He had produced this extraordinary effect for me.

I think I realized, in that moment,

that this was what we'd all been waiting for, in a sense.

I remember looking under the table;

there was no water on the floor.

The sun was pouring in through these huge windows

on two sides and the ice cube was melting in front of me.

I mean, visibly melting so fast that I knew

the ice cube could only have been on the table

seconds before I saw it.

It was the most extraordinary thing I've ever seen

in my life.

- I think he does his teaching,

I mean, the whole idea of the way you find a disciple

in show business is you tell everyone

"Get the fuck out of here.

"Go away. I don't need you.

"I don't want you."

And the kid who doesn't go away

and eventually you ask him to bring you a cup of coffee.

It's the old rabbinic idea; I'll teach you anything

just don't ask me any questions.

- Charlie Miller, one of my great heroes and mentors,

said to me there's this guy you have to see.

And I said "Sure, anyone, Charlie."

And he said "Well, he's 15."

And I said "Well, maybe I'll hold off then."

I thought that that didn't sound very promising.

And Charlie said "No, no, no.

"You should meet Michael."

This was the thing that got me the introduction

through Charlie to Ricky the first time.

So, there's a classic

and somewhat mythical

technique with cards that lots of people talk about

but not so many people do

where the notion is, and you're gonna wanna stop moving,

the notion is really that you can take any card

in the middle of the pack, say of the eight of hearts

and square up the deck

and then without doing anything have that card

on the top of the pack.

And the question of "is that possible?"

And to have it look like you didn't do anything

is the subject of much discussion.

So I was 14 or 15 years old and I did exactly

what I just did there for Charlie

and the next time I saw Charlie, Ricky was there

so that was kind of how we met.

- How do I make this a favorite, Chrisann's phone?

- Touch her name.

Good. She's now a favorite.

- Great. Thank you.

- I have no idea how to work my phone.

Doing the highest tech visual presentation

in the history of man and I'm still a total Luddite.

What happens in magic that's so interesting

is that Charlie introduces me to a 15 year old boy

and we become friends and perhaps on some level

Michael's been very interested in the magic that I've done

and now I would say we've reached a point where

30 years down the road I'm really interested

in learning from Michael and really do learn from him.

- Perfect.

One goes in the corner.

One cup goes on to the nail

and when I lift them the nail is gone--

- I know for a fact that there's stuff,

having known him now maybe close to 30 years,

that Ricky has not shared with me.

And I absolutely have a lot of stuff

that I haven't shown and shared with Ricky

and I think that's important.

I don't think it's cat and mouse,

I don't think it's meant to be withholding

because if there's something that one of the other

folks really needs that's the time that comes out

and I absolutely have had the look on my face

or I've seen the look on Ricky's face where

I'll say or he'll say

here's something I haven't told you about

that might be useful and the other person's just like.

It's that dream that I think many people have had

where you dream you're walking through your house

but then you find a door in a room in your house

that's always been there and you didn't know was there.

One of the things we do is to show our work

in process to each other.

There are only a few people in my life

who I really discuss magic with on that personal level.

There's Michael, who I probably do it the most with

because I see him more often

and we have a company together.

And there's also David Roth, who's been backstage in my show

for years and years who's an amazing

manipulator of coins.

And Persi Diaconis, who is a remarkable mathematician

as well as an extraordinary inventor of magic

and Steve Freemen who is the quintessential amateur,

the absolute lover of the art.

And there's literally no one better at understanding

and performing the most intricate sleight of hand

beautifully.

I think I realized that because I left home at such

an early age and cut of almost all association with it

that I've been really lucky that my friends

have become family.

I mean, I'm incredibly blessed

with remarkable friends and that's become the focal thing

in my life and then I actually found a woman

who wound up fulfilling all those of needs and more

and having somebody that I married seven years ago

in my wife, Chrisann, who's just remarkable.

Great friend, wonderful woman

and a very nice ending to something that I thought

would probably never happen for me.

This is a poem Shel Silverstein wrote for me.

It's called The Game in the Windowless Room.

Of all the games I've ever played,

of all the hands I've dealt,

of all the pots I've ever raked,

from matchsticks to nickels

to untold wealth,

from the beckoning lights of the Vegas Strip

to the Pittsburgh roadhouse gloom,

the most dangerous game I'd played with a man

in that locked door windowless room.

His eyes were yellow as the golden crown

on the king of diamond's head.

His teeth were black as the mustached Jack

and his mouth was bloody red as the crimson gown

on the queen of hearts

and his hand was marked with the sign

that's found on the hand of the diamond king

and he smiled as his eyes met mine.

And he said what a shame

I've been watching your game

as you fleece these witless fools.

How would you do at a hand or two,

my game, my stakes, my rules?

A sealed room, no windows, no phone,

an unbroken seal on the cards.

No watches or rings or jaggedy things

that can clip or chip or mark on a non-metal

clear glass tabletop.

No mirrors, no overhead lights,

with foot thick walls and just one door that's locked

from the outside.

For as long as it takes for one man to break,

be it an hour or a day, would you dare take a seat

when there's no way to cheat?

Well, what could I say?

So in the silent tomb of that sealed room

we both sat down to play.

Well, he was no joker. He was an ace.

And although I was the king of this pack

I knew the lady would have to smile on me

if I were to win all his jack

so we played for hours, or was it a week?

I lost all track of time.

And he won a few. And he bluffed a few.

But the final pot was mine.

"Well, I don't know quite how you did it," he said

as I raked in his last buck.

"But shaves or seconds or a frigid deck

"it had nothing to do with luck.

"You're a hustler, a shark, a mechanic." He said.

Not the real game's about to start.

Here he pulls out his knife

and me with just this deck of cards.

"Ain't it funny to learn how the odds can turn,"

said he as he thrusted and flicked and fanned

but I dodged his blade and my eight of spades

knocked the knife right out of his hand.

"Hell, I'll beat you to death with my hands," he laughed.

And he raised a powerful first

but my five of clubs left a bloody stub

as he sliced his hand off at the wrist.

"Yah!" He screamed and he pulled a gun from his boot.

Last hand and the dealer dies.

But my one last card, my ace of hearts,

caught him right between the eyes.

Well, that I might say was the game of my life.

When did the police did finally arrive

they found a windowless room, a corpse on the floor,

the door locked from the outside

and no one there but him and me;

a classic locked room mystery.

But where is the murder weapon?

They search but they can't find it anywhere.

Oh where can it be?

They don't look at me.

I'm just playing solitaire.