Translator: Rachael Williams Reviewer: Theresa Ranft
I have a confession to make.
I think there's something profoundly beautiful
about a brand new pack of cards.
Clearly, it's just me.
(Laughter)
Every time I open a brand new pack
I get this feeling there's sort of a connection,
like a symbiotic relationship between my brain and the cards.
If we get rid of the jokers and the advertising cards
you can see the rest of the cards are in new deck order.
Ace through king of hearts, clubs, diamonds, and spades.
When the cards are in order, my thoughts are in order.
Cards prefer to be in this orderly state of tranquility.
It's like a Zen thing for cards.
Problem is if I were to shuffle these cards,
my words mixed up become a little.
(Laughter)
And shuffle a more bit and words might become confused more even!
(Laughter)
Imagine can you now shuffling keep
if I understand won't able you be to anything!
(Laughter)
I digress but.
Said as before I to cards orderly of prefer in be state and tranquility.
Therefore, concentrate I if enough hard
I force can my words back into order,
If I concentrate hard enough I can force my words back into order.
If my words are in order my thoughts are in order.
Therefore, the cards should be in order.
All I'd have to do is fan through
to see the first one was the ace of hearts, right?
Thoughts in order, 2 of hearts.
Words in order, 3 of hearts.
Cards in order, 4 of hearts.
Every single card back in its original order once again.
(Applause)
Oof!
Sorry, you can see my act is picking up!
(Laughter)
It was January of 2013
and I had the privilege and honor
of performing with 50 of the top close-up magicians
around the country.
It was actually Barack Obama's second inauguration.
It was a beautiful black-tie affair.
It was at the Washington Renaissance Hotel
right in the district.
I had just performed that trick along with a couple of others
dealing with Schrodinger's cat and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle -
just whimsical little fun things to card tricks.
And this staunch but polite elderly lady came up to me and said,
"Oh, gee. I really wish my grandson were here to see you perform."
And maybe her grandson has a propensity for quantum mechanics
or an interest in Hugh Everett's multiple world interpretation,
but barring that
as someone who likes to use complex concepts
or more adult ideas to do magic tricks through,
or use those tricks as a metaphor for those concepts,
it's not the most flattering of phrases to hear.
So why do we, as adults, respond this way to magic?
Well, three reasons.
First is, basically, a recent change in the public's perception of magic.
And by recent, I really mean only in the last 50 years or so.
Magic's historically been for entertainment
but it's also been used for religious reasons,
political reasons, even to successfully stop a war.
It really wasn't until 1960.
In the early 20th century
you might see a magician on vaudeville or music hall stages.
It wasn't that it wasn't for kids, it just wasn't exclusively for kids.
You know, 1960 was the first time the world got to see magic on TV.
Basically, the first magic TV show was Mark Wilson's "Magic Land of Allakazam."
It's a great show and it really did wonders for the magic world,
but it also may have inadvertently created this precedent,
this perception that magic's for kids because it was targeted at kids.
If the large portion of the world sees magic for the first time on TV
and says, "This is for kids,"
those kids might grow up thinking that magic's for kids.
They have kids of their own, and so forth, and it carries on indefinitely.
Now, the second reason is it might be a defense mechanism.
And by that I mean nobody likes to be made a fool of.
And yet, as magicians, we use the term "to fool"
when it comes to a magic trick that successfully works, right?
And that's terrible!
So, maybe what we're doing when a trick fools us
we look to a scapegoat.
We look to someone that societally is acceptable to fool, a child.
"Well, a child doesn't have as much life experience as I do.
So, of course, they're going to be more amused, more amazed,
and it's OK for the kid to like magic tricks."
Now, the third reason that I think adults respond this way to magic
is the most interesting to me.
And that is, I think a good magic trick
instills, or can instill, a sense of childlike wonder.
You've just witnessed the impossible
and it brings you back to this moment in life
when, just for a few brief moments,
we forget what it's like to think we know everything.
That's a really wonderful moment.
Well, what is childlike wonder?
Well, you're born with it.
It's literally the sense that everything is wonderful,
everything is magical.
In Piaget's study of object permanence
of the first couple of years of life
you see a very gradual understanding of how the world works
in the most functional of ways, the most basic of ways.
A child isn't born with the instinct
that when a coin is placed into my hand it continues to exist.
You know that, you have object permanence.
You know the coin's going to still be there.
To a child pre-object permanence,
that coin is out of sight, it's out of mind.
Let's get this one back 'cause I need it for later.
(Laughter)
Children are always encountering things they don't understand.
They're interested in learning, they're curious and want to learn.
They're also not afraid of being wrong
and not knowing how something works right away.
And, furthermore, they're continuously building upon their belief systems.
They don't have a full solid set of belief systems.
To a person who still believes in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy,
a well-executed card trick
might not be quite as amazing as it would be to someone
who has a little bit more jaded sense of reality.
I'm sorry if I've damaged anyone's childhood senses!
(Laughter)
A great example happened a few years ago.
My mother-in-law is a Head Start teacher for three and four-year olds,
and one of the activities she engages with the kids sometimes is storytelling,
at times with a little hand puppet.
It's important to know
that she is not, by any means, a ventriloquist.
She doesn't make any attempt to hide the fact
that she's the one operating the puppet
or making the voice.
And yet, at one point, the puppet talks to one of the children
and addresses the child by name,
and the kid looks up in awe and shock and says, "How did you know my name?"
(Laughter)
This is wonderful, it's beautiful, it's innocent
and, to a person like that, anything is possible.
And therefore, everything and nothing is magical.
Right, so why is childlike wonder important?
Well, it's not important, it's vital.
Curiosity is the catalyst for progress.
So much of today's science comes from yesterday's science fiction.
A lot of you are familiar with Arthur C Clarke,
science fiction writer.
He had three rules of predictions.
The third rule is the most popular, the most well known, and that is:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
I think that's pretty cool.
I think even more apropos is his second rule, and that is:
"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible
is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."
Think about that.
Today's science, yesterday's science fiction.
If you think about commonplace technology like a helicopter or a submarine,
things we all know right now,
they might not have been possible without the fantasy world of Jules Verne.
Or, that cell phone that every one of you has right now
in your hand or in your pocket,
has a direct lineage to the first communicators on Star Trek.
As for me, as a magician,
I'm not out here trying to be this whimsical silly little magician
trying to get you to believe that I can do the impossible.
Rather, I'm trying to get you to think that maybe, for just a second,
what you thought is impossible is not so impossible after all.
So, when did we lose childlike wonder?
That's a difficult question.
It's not like some switch was thrown and suddenly we're not curious anymore.
We've spent our entire lives building up assumptions
about how the world works.
We need these for survival and sanity.
Most of us don't walk around worrying that gravity is going to suddenly stop
or we're going to run out of air to breathe.
Not having those assumptions would get in the way
of how we function societally.
There's actually a great quote by a well-known magician
within the magic community a few years ago.
Jerry Andrus said this beautifully.
He said, "I can fool you because you have a wonderful human mind."
Usually, when we're fooled the mind hasn't made a mistake,
it's come to the wrong conclusion for the right reasons.
So we have these assumptions and we need these assumptions,
but sometimes we get carried away.
Sometimes we lose wonder
and it's my job, as a magician, to get it back.
I'll give you a little illustration here.
There's something about knowledge I find very interesting.
You'll see these again in a couple of minutes, not quite yet.
One of my favorite phrases in life is, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."
A couple of assumptions about knowledge.
First off, that people think that the more they know
the harder they are to fool.
Actually, it's the opposite.
The more you think you know,
the easier it is for me, as a magician, to fool you.
I'll illustrate that with another comment we get a lot
and that is, "Boy, I bet it's really easy to fool a drunk person."
(Laughter)
Ironically, it's not.
And in much the same way, it is not easy to fool a kid.
And I realize I just awkwardly associated kids and drunks, but it's true!
(Laughter)
In many ways!
(Laughter)
You see, a drunk person, like a child, has a broad wandering focus.
They're not necessarily able to see what's right in front of them.
They see everything, albeit a little blurry,
but finding the details is a little more difficult.
Whereas a sober adult has those assumptions of life.
They know what's in front of them, they'll focus here.
As a magician, I'm going to work in the periphery
to distract you away from the things that you think are real.
I'll illustrate this with a very old magic trick.
It's actually the oldest trick in the entire world.
And the first part of this will illustrate what I'm talking about,
but I'll do the rest of it because it's kind of fun.
It's called "The Cups and the Ball."
The more astute of you will notice that we're missing one of the key players.
The ball, right?
The magic wand is not really useful but it's useful for distraction.
It's not magical but it's a distracting tool.
Technically it's called "The Cups and Balls."
We'll use a couple of them.
You can either use one or two.
You can put them underneath or on top of the cup
and then you use the magic wand to distract people
from the third ball appearing on the cup.
(One person claps)
Thanks!
(Laughter)
Fooled one person, that's good enough for me!
(Laughter)
Watch the ball, don't watch the wand,
it's not imbued with any magical powers,
it's just a stick to distract you from the moment the ball disappears.
I got distracted, I was watching the wand myself.
You get distracted when the ball disappears,
that's ball number one.
Ball number two is a little easier for you to follow
because you know what to look for.
Here's the ball in the fist.
Looks like that one's gone.
The same idea with ball number three.
Now you really know what to look for.
They don't go through the bottom of the cups.
I'll give you a little flourish here,
so you can see this nice and easily.
It looks like it goes up the sleeve,
across the chest, down the other sleeve, under the one, two, three cups and balls.
Oldest trick in the world. Thanks.
(Applause)
Let's get rid of all three of these.
We'll mix them up and make it into a Three Shell game.
You know the Three Shell game
you have to guess which cup there's a ball under.
It's a great game for you, terrible game for me.
I'll make this a better game for me.
In fact, I'll make it a much better game for me.
At this point, how many should be left?
You'd say one.
You're correct unless I cheated,
and I cheated on your behalf by putting that one back.
Technically, I had to practice cheating ambidextrously.
It looks like that. That's ball number two.
Now you'd guess how many would be left.
You might say 1 or 2. There's actually 3.
I don't know how all three got under the cup. One, two, and three.
(Applause)
Let's get rid of all three of these completely,
this is a game of assumptions, of misdirection.
If I put all 3 in my pockets how many are left?
You'd say none. I'd say you're right...
wait... that's not even a...
... that's a turnip!
You never know what's going to turn up!
(Laughter)
That's a lame joke! Not as bad as a lime joke.
There's a lime over here, there's the lime over there.
It's not "The Cups and Fruit and Vegetables"
that's "The Cups and Balls," the oldest magic trick in the entire world
(Applause)
We adults need to realize
that we get stuck in patterns of certainty,
assumptions, self-fulfilling prophecies.
We spent the first part of our lives cramming our brains full
of as much information as possible.
Once in a while, it's helpful to be reminded
that there's always room for a little more.
So, the big question is how do we get this childlike wonder back?
Well, the first step, as always, is admitting there's a problem.
There is!
The biggest inhibitors to our curiosity, to progress,
is the naysayers in our brains.
And the best thing we can do is to try and shut them up.
And that's where the magician comes in.
And various mythologies around the world often have a trickster character,
the Coyote, Iktomi, Anansi the spider.
The trickster is the character, the protagonist,
that goes throughout the story and challenges people in various ways,
to teach them the ways of the world, or morality.
The trickster's an important character.
The modern magician can
and I think sometimes should be that trickster.
My job as a magician isn't to try and convince you
that I can read your mind or predict the future
or alter the laws of physics.
It's just to simply ask you, "Are you sure?" or "Why?"
to all the things, the assumptions, we've built up over our lives.
It's to challenge those patterns of certainty
for just a few, brief whimsical moments
to get you to think, "Hmm, maybe that's not so impossible after all."
I'm going to finish up with one last little performance here for you.
Take a few minutes and do something with, well, actually I'll use this one here.
Silver dollar, a very old silver dollar actually, 1925.
I think this one's a little bit older yet.
Yeah, there's two.
What we'll do is use your imagination.
Just imagine...
well, you imagine, I'll pretend.
I'll pretend to amaze you, you pretend to be amazed;
we all go home happy!
Three coins.
Imagine what it would look like for all three coins to disappear.
Obviously, they can't. But imagine the first coin.
Back to object permanence, you know the coin goes in my hand,
you know it has to be there, right?
That's the assumption I'm going to work under
and try to use that against your own assumption.
Let's see. One, two, that should be one -
that leaves me with two.
I know, it freaked me out too!
Same idea with the second coin.
Watch carefully,
you balance here at the fingertips
give it a little wave, a little snap, it looks like that one's gone too.
That one didn't disappear.
Everyone's saying, "Up the sleeve."
It's not, it's behind the sleeve, a slight variation on a theme.
(Clink)
And that was pretty loud.
You probably heard the clink at the back of the room.
Let me make that sound disappear and make the coin disappear.
We're down to one.
One last coin, one last time, watch it carefully.
You want to see how this works?
I'll show you, I feel like we're friends here!
This is what happens.
I shouldn't be showing you this, but...
We start with the magic marker.
It's cheaper than a magic wand and it's more permanent anyway!
(Laughter)
Watch the coin and marker, the marker starts up my sleeve.
I'm not supposed to show you, that's where it starts.
When I need it, I pop it out of my sleeve,
and we create a little suction, a little vacuum,
negative pressure inside the cap, like that.
So when I need to, I go one, two, three, the coin actually pops inside the marker
and then it goes back up the sleeve and that's how we get it done.
Cool?
(Applause)
I sense skepticism somehow!
I'll show you again slowly.
Cap, marker, we go like that, pops out of the sleeve.
I'll do it visually.
Here's the coin, the marker - 1, 2, 3,
the coin jumps inside the marker.
I'll slow it down for you.
Really slow, watch the coin, watch the marker,
nice and slowly.
That's one, that's...
(Laughter)
It's behind my ear, yeah!
Someone had to point it out eventually!
Everyone's watching the coin, they don't notice the marker.
It's misdirection, everyone's watching the coin.
And if I were to ask you why the marker goes behind my ear,
it's to distract people from the coin disappearing.
(Laughter)
So the coin's right here inside the marker.
No, I'm sorry, the coin's inside my ear,
but watch the marker instead.
I am so confused right now!
(Laughter)
Let's do this really slowly.
I'll show you how this works. No, I won't!
(Laughter)
Come on, I lie for a living, it's my job!
But I'm nice about it, I tell you I'm going to lie, then I do!
If I put my hand over the coin and I'd ask you, "Can you see the coin?
You'd obviously say, "No."
I'd say, "Why?" albeit a patronizing question.
You'd say, "Because your hand is covering it."
And it is, you see the back of my hand, not the coin.
So it would stand to reason if I took this, which is nothing -
it's a small piece of nothing, but nothing nonetheless -
if I put nothing on top of the coin you can't see it
'cause nothing's in the way, right?
Take nothing out of the way, you see the coin again, right?
You put nothing on top of the coin,
it's a matter of perspective.
Turn it over, now you have a coin on top of...
Let me use a smaller piece of nothing,
that's actually too small to cover the whole coin
but it will give you the idea.
Put the small piece of nothing right over, it should look like it's partly gone.
It's actually too small to cover this here.
I'll toss this out. That's for you, guys.
Just never tell anyone that I never gave you nothing!
(Laughter)
That's a really long way to go for that joke!
(Laughter)
But we're going to finish this once and for all.
And at the end of this some of you might say,
"Gee, I really wish my kids were here to see it."
(Laughter)
And that's fine,
but hopefully, along this little journey,
I've managed to inspire a little wonder in you as well.
Thank you.
(Applause and cheering)
Thanks.
(Applause)