Magic is dead, p.23
Magic Is Dead, page 23
A short card is exactly what it sounds like: it’s a card that is slightly, almost indecipherably shorter than the others (you can make these at home, using a ruler and a razor blade). Using a short card can create a few different technical advantages, but in my case, it acted sort of like a marker: a way to see—and feel—where you are within the deck. At the start of the trick’s second phase, after I’ve swapped the signed card for the top card—we’ll again use the jack of hearts as an example—and placed it in the box, I am standing there, holding the deck, the signed card on top. The short card would be directly underneath it, in second position, a duplicate of what’s now in the box, in this case the jack of hearts.
“So, you’d cut the cards,” Xavior said, demonstrating with a deck, “and your short card, with the signed card above it, is now in the middle of the deck,” he continued, pointing to the middle of the pack. The short card was visible, plain as day, but only from the performer’s perspective. From the front, the deck looked clean. From here, I could dribble the cards down, which is basically allowing them to fall, in quick succession, one by one, from one hand into another, in a flourishing motion. Before you do that, you’d tell the spectator to say stop whenever they’d like, Xavior explained, and that the card where they choose to stop will be theirs. So, you start to dribble. But once your thumb, positioned alongside the deck’s rear edge, comes in contact with the short card, it skips slightly. You can feel it on your skin. It’s a signal to stop dribbling. It all happens so fast that the spectator thinks it’s completely legit. They said stop, and you stopped, so it’s entirely fair, right?
“And it’s all there right there in front of you,” Ramsay interjected. “Genius!” When you hit the short card, it’s the last card to fall into the stack in your left hand, the other half of the deck still held in your right. From here, it’s easy: you merely point down to the top card of the stack in your left hand with your right index finger. This does two things. First, it signals to the spectator that that is their card (which is the short card, the duplicate, the card you’ve forced onto them, the jack of hearts in this instance), and it does a second, much more important thing: the move allows you to see, in full view, the signed card. When you point down with your right index finger, your hand naturally tilts forward, revealing the bottom card of the stack in your right hand—the one with the signature. You can read the name and your spectator is none the wiser. You’re way ahead now. The rest is easy.
Another famous underground magician was also in my apartment for this brainstorming session: Doug McKenzie. I had first met Doug when Madison and Ramsay came to New York City to film their chess-themed project for Ellusionist. For that trip, they had rented a giant Airbnb in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, not too far from where I lived, and we spent a lot of time there. Doug’s apartment was right down the street, and one night he stopped by.
In jeans and a hoodie, Doug reminded me of an average tech guy. At that time, I didn’t know much about him, aside from what Ramsay had told me: he was an incredibly skilled performer (he once managed to steal Rudy Giuliani’s watch off his wrist), booked gigs with celebrity clientele (Paris Hilton, LeBron James, Harrison Ford, Johnny Depp, Woody Allen, Bryan Cranston, Lenny Kravitz, Ellen DeGeneres—the list goes on), and had invented some of the most innovative magic in the twenty-first century.* It wasn’t long after Doug showed up at the Airbnb that Ramsay piped in. “Hey, Doug, ah . . .” he said, rubbing his chin. “Would you show Ian something?”
“Yeah?” Doug said, looking at Ramsay and then at me, his eyes thinning to slits. He took a deck of cards from his pocket. He cycled through a series of card tricks, impeccably performed, with a finesse and air of confidence that I had not yet seen up close. He was so smooth, so well rehearsed. He roasted me over and over. I laughed and stomped in place like a little kid. I loved every minute.
“Okay, one more,” he said, fanning out the deck. “Pick a card, but don’t look at it. Just put it into your pocket.” I followed his instructions.
“Now pull out your phone and open a new text message and put in this number.” He rattled off the digits and my fingers punched them in. “Now text the number, asking what card you chose.” I paused, looked over at Ramsay, and rolled my eyes. Madison stood to his right, a grin plastered on his face. I texted the number. A message popped up almost immediately: King of spades.
“Check your pocket,” Doug said.
“Come on, man!” I said, pulling out the card. It was the king of spades.
Doug always made time to hang out whenever Ramsay was in town and, after we brainstormed methods for my trick, Doug suggested we head to Ludlow House, a members-only club in the Lower East Side. A man-about-town with a slew of social connections, I had become used to Doug’s spontaneous invitations to swanky places—rooftop bars, underground speakeasies, clubs like Ludlow House—and knew, whenever we went out, that he couldn’t help but perform for the folks we met. We were in for a fun evening.
The place was packed. A triple-decker spot with a dark, nondescript front, the club is a catacomb of various bars, lounges, parlors, and restaurants. We followed Doug from floor to floor, trying to find a place to sit. There wasn’t an open chair in the house. Clusters of women in leather pants and high heels noshed on appetizers, finance bros in expensive suits sipped on bourbon, and rocker cliques in skintight jeans lounged in suede armchairs and on leather couches. Music rumbled through the building and waiters scurried about. We finally spotted a small couch with two tables occupied only by two middle-aged women.
“We are waiting for a couple friends,” the women told Doug when he asked if we could sit with them. They must’ve been in their early fifties, well dressed in a Madison Avenue type of way, oozing money and confidence.
“We’re just going to sit on this side; we’ll find another chair,” Doug reassured them, waving for us to come sit down. We crowded around the small table, on the butt end of the couch, and ordered a round of drinks. We all took out a deck of cards, eager to fiddle a bit. A few minutes after our drinks came, two men walked over to our couch and the women stood up to greet them, a peck on each cheek, hands resting on their shoulders. Both men had a full head of silver-fox hair, short but swept back, with a glowing tan, as if they’d just gotten back from a far-flung tropical location. One man was shorter and more full in the face than his counterpart, who was tall, sinewy in frame, and dressed in black. The taller man took off his suit jacket, revealing a shallow, V-necked T-shirt underneath. Tattoos fell down his arms.
It was Anthony Bourdain.
He was with his best friend and fellow television personality Eric Ripert. Ripert is the owner of Le Bernardin, one of the best restaurants in the world. Doug and Ramsay looked at each other and smiled.
It wasn’t long before the women asked us about the cards.
“Are you guys playing a game?” one said, leaning over toward us, clearly intrigued.
“Actually, we’re magicians,” Doug replied.
“Magic! Ah! I love magic!” the woman squealed. “You’ve got to show us something!”
Doug and Ramsay took turns showing the women some simple card tricks, warming them up, waiting for Anthony and Eric to catch a glimpse of what was going on. Deep in conversation with each other, slurping down a shared pot of mussels, they weren’t paying much attention to our side of the couch.
“Ah! Oh my God!” one woman yelped after a trick. “Eric! Tony! Look! You’ve got to see this! These guys are magicians!” It was all over after that.
I sat off to the side and watched Doug go to work. He ran through his repertoire, including a few tricks that involved feats of mentalism—basically reading Eric’s and Anthony’s minds—seemingly knowing every card they chose, every bit of information they were thinking. Ramsay jumped in with his own effects, including a trick where Eric picked a series of cards, laid them out on the table in random order, and chose one card to be turned facedown—“X’ed out,” as Ramsay put it. Ramsay then rolled up his sleeve and revealed a tattoo of the exact numbers in the exact order Eric had chosen, an X scrawled over the number corresponding to the card in which he picked to turn facedown.
Anthony sat there, smirking and chuckling with every reveal. But as I kept watching him, I started to see it: He saw most of the sleight of hand. But he let us keep going; he understood, like a chef with food, that magic is a practitioner’s art form. The experience is not contingent upon the degree of transparency of its ingredients or methods, but rather the dedication of the specialist, the presentation of hard work, and the experience given to the spectator.
I felt my heart begin to race as I watched the performance. I had a deck of cards in my hand and I was right here. We had this entire group in the palm of our hands, completely enraptured. I debated if I should jump in and do a trick myself. It was Anthony Bourdain, for God’s sake! How could I let this opportunity just pass me by? I had always looked up to Anthony: his adventurous, no-holds-barred approach to life, his understanding that profound moments could be found just about anywhere, his endless quest for wonder in a world that sometimes can feel so unforgiving. I was torn. I didn’t want to steal the spotlight away from Doug and Ramsay or crush the mood by performing a lackluster trick, but I also didn’t want to regret throwing away such an incredible opportunity.
Anthony got up from his chair. He threw his blazer on and went to shake our hands.
“Thanks a lot, guys, that was really great. But I have to get going,” he said. I gripped his hand, smiled, and, before I knew it, started talking.
“Before you go,” I said, “can I show you something?”
“Sure,” he said, sitting back down. I fanned out the deck and had him point to a card. I removed it and ripped off the corner. None of the guys had performed Angle Z, and I knew it would go over well—he’d never be able to figure this one out. I opened my hand slowly, finger by finger. The piece was gone.
“It doesn’t just disappear, though,” I said. “Check your pocket.” He reached into his blazer, pulled out the corner, laughed, and tossed it down onto the table.
“Okay, I am definitely done here!” he said, rising from his chair, shaking his head. He looked me in the eye, said thank you, and walked out. I sat back down and smiled to myself. My friends looked at me, proud of the little moment I gave to Anthony. Performing to a stranger—and a celebrity, no less—was a huge milestone for me. But it was more than that. With magic, the ultimate goal is to give someone something they can carry around with them for a while and, at his core, Anthony Bourdain did that very same thing with food and travel.
When I heard the news of his death in June 2018, I walked over to my desk and pulled open the drawer. There, underneath a stack of papers, was the card he chose, its corner missing. I rifled around, trying to find the missing piece. I thought he left it on the table that night—but it was nowhere to be found. Maybe he brought it with him when he left the club. I sat on the edge of my bed and held the torn card in my hand and thought back to that night. Although I could sense he knew how some of my friend’s tricks were done, he didn’t show signs that he knew the secret behind my trick. Was he really fooled? Was he astounded? Or was he just being nice because he knew that I, the nervous guy on the corner of the couch, was on some sort of journey—that, if he let me down by making it obvious that he knew how the trick was done, that I’d be crushed? That, perhaps, he had been giving to others his entire life and couldn’t stop now?
I tried to pinpoint how long that moment of awe my trick produced stayed with him. Maybe it lasted just until he reached the stairs and moved out of sight, but maybe it stayed in his gut until he reached the street and hailed a cab. Maybe, after he climbed into the taxi, he cradled the card’s corner in his hand—maybe that piece of the unknown was still with him there, at least for another moment. Much like a magician, Anthony instilled a sense of adventure and wonder in people—an honest quest not only to experience humanity and all its complexities through food and culture, but, more than anything else, the determination to give that same sense of discovery to an audience. He once said that travel—much like magic—is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering on the unknown. Now that he has passed away, I feel that Anthony truly understood the power of that sentiment and tried his hardest to translate that same sense of astonishment with his own exploration of the world. That, if he tried hard enough, he too could create magic for others.
Angle Z is a simple but highly deceptive effect. You don’t actually tear the corner off the card; you’re only pretending to do so. It’s been ripped the entire time, with the corner planted in the spectator’s pocket—or in their wallet, or anywhere else you choose—long before the trick begins. You can stash the corner hours before the trick’s performance, in fact, and wait for the perfect moment to strike.
When I decided that I would perform Angle Z on Anthony Bourdain, I knew had to find a way to get the corner into his blazer pocket without him knowing. He had wrapped the jacket over the back of his chair; it would be nearly impossible for me to get close enough to stash the piece. Nothing would be worse than getting caught pilfering through his jacket. I could see it now: me, kicking and screaming—It was just a magic trick, I swear!—as security dragged me out of Ludlow House for trying to pickpocket Anthony Bourdain, no doubt that evening’s most high-profile guest.
So I sat and waited for him to go to the bathroom. Right on cue, about halfway through his meal, he excused himself. As soon as he left the room, I nonchalantly got up and stood next to his chair, under the guise of wanting to get a better view of Doug’s performance. Eric and the two women were hyperfixated on Doug and Ramsay—a bit of misdirection in and of itself—and I simply leaned forward, blocked the jacket from their sight-line, and slipped the corner into his pocket. I sat back down, careful not to arouse suspicion. Anthony returned a minute later and plunked down in his chair. After about twenty minutes, he got up, put on his blazer, and prepared to head out. Everything went according to plan. The fact that he was wearing the jacket when I did the trick made it all that more delicious. To him, what had happened was impossible. It was the perfect deception. Madison would’ve been proud.
Madison invented Angle Z almost by accident. “I was thinking, here’s the card, here’s the corner,” he told me once. “How can I make this look real, when this goes somewhere else?” We were talking about the trick I was trying to invent, and I wanted to know how he came up with new ideas. I wanted to know how a trick’s conceptualization fed into the creation of a method. I wanted to know how a magician’s mind worked when it came to the ultimate problem: invention. “It just clicked,” Madison said. “I thought, hold on, I can just put the corner somewhere, like in someone’s pocket, and then it will look real. If I pretend to rip the corner, they I have no reason to believe that I am just faking it.”
Angle Z is more a cognitive illusion than a visual one. When a magician holds a playing card by its corner, with the other three corners and most of its face entirely visible and unobstructed, the brain detects a pattern. It knows a playing card is a rectangle, with four corners; when it sees three of the corners, it automatically assumes the other one is there, too, even though your eyes can’t see it. “You don’t really ‘see’ anything,” explains Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde in Sleights of Mind, “rather, you process patterns related to objects, people, scenes, and events to build up representations of the world.”
The brain investigates what the eye sees in a hierarchical fashion, the information spelunking deeper and deeper into your primary visual cortex until your brain is able to make sense of what’s in front of you. But if a simple pattern can be detected early on in this process, with the rest of the information inferred or assumed, the brain is cool with that. It doesn’t want to work too hard if it doesn’t have to. It accepts what it sees as reality—as truth—even though, in this case, it’s most definitely not. Moreover, holding a card by your fingertips at the corner is a completely natural action. This added behavioral norm—harking back to what Dai Vernon called “naturalness of motion”—makes the trick that much more believable; the spectator has no reason to think that the only piece of card obstructed by the performer’s fingers actually doesn’t exist.
But still, developing something brand-new with playing cards is difficult—nearly impossible, to be honest. Most magic, especially with cards, is just innovating previously invented material. With hundreds of years of history behind us, it has become harder and harder to develop something truly unique. “There are only so many things you can do with a deck of playing cards,” Madison told me. “We all have similar hands. A deck is always the same shape, feels the same way. It’s just fifty-two pieces of paper.” But Angle Z stood alone as something entirely new.
Hearing how my friends had come to invent their tricks fueled my ambition. My goal at the start of this entire adventure had been to understand the mind of a magician, someone who sees the world through the lens of deception—people who strive, as a career choice, to hack the concept of reality for the entertainment of others. I wanted to capture that viewpoint in an article that I was sure was going to elevate my career to the new heights. But the journalist part of me was pushed aside long ago. I was now in it for something else.
It was this ability that I loved most about my new gang of friends—to see the world differently. The fact that I could now perform magic fluidly, to simultaneously charm and fool someone—especially someone like Anthony Bourdain—helped cement my understanding of magic not only as an art form but a philosophical principle. And these two things had connected in one day. My trick was getting closer to being perfect, and I had just fooled one of the most famous television stars in the world.
A few days later, still riding the high from my night at Ludlow House, I called Adam Wilber, general manager of Ellusionist. We had become close in the two years since Blackpool. He had just filmed his spot for the new season of Penn & Teller: Fool Us and was waiting for it to air.* We chatted about his experience on the show and what Ellusionist had in the works for the rest of the year.
