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Look at my new gloves -- they're magic!
Dec. 17th, 2002 11:18 amSomeone just did a magic trick in our office. He's this guy who works downstairs and on the weekend has a gig at some bar down the street from me. He gave a little demonstration using my five-dollar bill -- folding it up, changing it into a one-dollar bill, then back again. Even though I knew how it worked, it was still impressive. I love that isht.
What I love about magic tricks (or illusions, as they might be now called) is that they're usually done exactly how you think, but you can't see it happening, so you start looking for other answers. He really does it palm it or push it up his sleeves or whatever, and he did it right as you were looking at it, but you still could see it. I like these better than secret compartments, though those can be cool too.
One family vacation we went to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in the Smoky Mountains, near Pigeon Forge (home of Dollywood). We never went to Dollywood itself, and only cruised the strip of Pigeon Forge once or twice. Mostly we stayed in the quaint germanic-appearing touristy town of Gatlinburg. There were clever putt-putt courses and tiny white wedding chapels and ye olde fudge shoppe. And a magic shop. A magic shop where the clerk performed tricks for you then sold the equipment to do the tricks at home. My dad was along and he offered to buy me the special deck of cards -- perhaps he was just as impressed as I was at the trick.
The deck was called, I believe, long-and-short cards. Half of the deck was one card -- I think the Jack of hearts -- and all of those cards were cut a few millimeters shorter than the rest of the deck. When you flipped through the deck one way, it looked like a regular mix deck of cards, but if you flipped through in the opposite direction the deck appeared to be made up entirely of the Jack of hearts.
When done properly, it made for a great performance. My peers in the fifth grade were usually pretty impressed, and I was a bad magician. Not because I wasn't techinically proficient in the tricks, but because I usually revealed the secret shortly after performing the illusion. After they knew how it was done, they weren't really interested in continuing with tricks.
I never cared that I knew how it was done. I loved seeing it and doing it over and over again. I mean, sure, it wasn't the exact same magical feeling as standing in the touristy town and being overwhelmed by nature being defied, but I still got pleasure out of flipping through the cards and saying "is this your card?"
I don't believe in the absolute power and mystery and allure of the unknown. Sometimes the known has comparable power.
What I love about magic tricks (or illusions, as they might be now called) is that they're usually done exactly how you think, but you can't see it happening, so you start looking for other answers. He really does it palm it or push it up his sleeves or whatever, and he did it right as you were looking at it, but you still could see it. I like these better than secret compartments, though those can be cool too.
One family vacation we went to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in the Smoky Mountains, near Pigeon Forge (home of Dollywood). We never went to Dollywood itself, and only cruised the strip of Pigeon Forge once or twice. Mostly we stayed in the quaint germanic-appearing touristy town of Gatlinburg. There were clever putt-putt courses and tiny white wedding chapels and ye olde fudge shoppe. And a magic shop. A magic shop where the clerk performed tricks for you then sold the equipment to do the tricks at home. My dad was along and he offered to buy me the special deck of cards -- perhaps he was just as impressed as I was at the trick.
The deck was called, I believe, long-and-short cards. Half of the deck was one card -- I think the Jack of hearts -- and all of those cards were cut a few millimeters shorter than the rest of the deck. When you flipped through the deck one way, it looked like a regular mix deck of cards, but if you flipped through in the opposite direction the deck appeared to be made up entirely of the Jack of hearts.
When done properly, it made for a great performance. My peers in the fifth grade were usually pretty impressed, and I was a bad magician. Not because I wasn't techinically proficient in the tricks, but because I usually revealed the secret shortly after performing the illusion. After they knew how it was done, they weren't really interested in continuing with tricks.
I never cared that I knew how it was done. I loved seeing it and doing it over and over again. I mean, sure, it wasn't the exact same magical feeling as standing in the touristy town and being overwhelmed by nature being defied, but I still got pleasure out of flipping through the cards and saying "is this your card?"
I don't believe in the absolute power and mystery and allure of the unknown. Sometimes the known has comparable power.
