Hustlers, Hoaxsters, Pranksters, Jokesters and Ricky Jay

the people that I know hold Riki and or magicians if not the magicians themselves people I know who have spoken to other magicians granted it's a certain degree of hearsay but Ricky's held in awe and like I said I keep going back to the word sophisticated with Ricky you don't you don't feel like you're being amused you feel like something larger is happening you know that is something that goes back maybe 2,000 years you know when you're watching Ricky you know you could hear Glenn Gould play Bach's two-part inventions you know which everybody starts out play when they start playing to Canada when they're six years old Glenn Gould plays them you said oh my god that's extraordinary you know you see that says on doesn't most scientific tois right and there's three little lines of pastel pastel paint and you say my god that's the most beautiful mountain I've ever seen or Michael motioned the juggler has one of his routines he does he juggles one ball and it's what Ricky does is just so extraordinarily pure and honed and and perfect he's the man he's it there are I came to discover really three Ricki J's there's the the public persona then there is the private persona and then there's the private persona within the private persona why is he so secretive about his early life his family his father's nothing what do you think actually what happened I assumed it was unhappy and I don't know more than that I mean he told me a story about his father he said the only thing in you know he said my father brush his teeth with Ipana and put Brylcreem on his hair and he kept the tube hair oil in one place and the toothpaste tube in another place and when I was about nine years old I switched the tubes around and the only thing you really need to know about my father is that after he had brushed his teeth with hair oil he brushed his hair with toothpaste I don't know anything else about the mane and I can only assume that he didn't get it but what shaped him far more than you know an unhappy childhood is his relationship with his grandfather which was a happy relationship and specifically this hanging out with these magicians in New York I mean this was the place to be if you were going to become Ricky J this was at a time when Ricky had already left home I mean he has become a vagabond sort of at the age of 18 was attending different schools living upstate New York in the Midwest and never went home again now what do you want me to do just mention a card for me ten of diamonds okay so uh we'll try to do this this is it's a strange strange concept but I think I ought to be able to do this so okay hmm all right I'm gonna hmm all right ten of diamonds all right this is a man a somewhat imposing human being a little bit fearful to countenance who has the most extraordinary grace physical Grace with a pack of playing cards but he's not just his skilled sleight of hand which only magicians can understand but just the way he holds the deck removes a card from it the way he shuffles a deck of cards is a beautiful thing to watch lovely lovely hands but Ricci is also a great great scholar of the particularly the Western European tradition of all sorts of ragamuffins magicians con artists freaks various kind who do low-level entertainment for the masses he is a deep historian in this area who knows it all and thinks carefully and wisely about it so he brings together in his performances in NN his love both the incredible physical skill and grace and this intellectual awareness of the conman and the minor artists who entertain us and they bring he brings the two together in his presentations I'm actually looking at my own magazine that allowed this is Jai's journal of anomalies I have to have to confess that I take some sort of cumulative pleasure at seeing each new issue joining the racks of the ones which preceded it it it's literally the personal reflection of what of what interests me but what interests you is a sort of range of and yeah well here actually on this on this play bill we did this before we even launched the magazine and it calls it a quarterly periodical devoted to the investigation of conjurer's cheats hustlers hoaxsters pranksters jokesters Impostors pretenders sideshow showman armless calligraphers mechanical marvels and popular entertainments I mean that's literally the scope of what interests me literally so I'm planning issues in the future one on cheating at bowling which goes back to the 16th century issues about Houdini imitators Houdini howdy Nena zeny and zucchini pretenders to the throne it really runs the gamut and again like I said it's just it's it's kind of lovely for me that that there there is no limitation to it I mean the limitation is this that I have something interesting and hopefully original to say and that I have really wonderful graphic material to go along with it this particular issue is on Edward bright his death in 1750 he weighed between 660 and 620 pounds the thing that particularly intrigued me about him is the concept that he when he was dead there was a wager about how many people could fit in his weskit and this is the room from the original engraving which I have from 1750 one of five grown men of the age of 21 were supposed to fit in his weskit but in this case you can see he wins the bet when seven men the age of 21 fit in the weskit without straining a stitch or popping a button what about this book well this is this is actually the the German translation of learn dead pigs and fireproof Woma some song fewer fest a book I wrote a number of years ago about the oddest and most unusual entertainers and particular entertainers that really captured my passion in a wide variety of fields you know learned pigs poison resistors mind reader's singing mice conjurer's matthew booking here the little man of Nuremberg was born in 1674 his arms were they were they were sort of like thalidomide flippers and yet even though he was 28 inches as high as a full as a full-grown adult he had a remarkable string of accomplishments he played many musical instruments he was a dancer he danced the horn pipe even though he had which I guess we would call stumps rather than feet he did trick skittle shots trick bowling shots did sleight of hand which is what attracted me to him initially played cards and dice could thread needles and so and I think he's a great example of the indomitable 'ti of the human spirit and I'm just utterly extraordinary and I dare say he was one of the most famous people in the world and in the era in which he lived I know there are a limited number of fields of Arts and Sciences in our culture and each one has its master and I wanted for your birthday to expose you to a true master in one of these fields someone who would do something just once in a very unique way that would never occur again so I'd like to I'd like to show you an experiment based on Japanese cinema and a deck of cards would you open up the case for me play and take out the advertising cards and the Joker's and then start shuffling yeah start shuffling the cards I I'm in a great fan of Japanese cinema I know you've both spent time in Japan this is really what what what I'm dealing with over here we don't need the Joker's as well but do give them a thorough shuffle or two and then I would also have you give Leslie the cards and have her shuffle them as well and you really can't shuffle them thoroughly matter of fact I asked you to shuffle them thoroughly this story is based on a series of Japanese movies called sword of vengeance and it starts to me sapporo Wakayama who plays ito egami to the capitate ER to the shogun and very few people have seen anything on me I actually have a picture of them in my wallet well actually on my wallet this is ito egami over over here which is kind of interesting now you keep shuffling while I did it yeah it actually is a much better picture of Ito egami it's sort of a close-up that they took I'm actually well I have this out I have some of these washi cards as well which are kind of interesting and I'm going to take the you happen to have a Sumi brush I do so I'm gonna use the Sumi brush and and make a small prediction I want you to see exactly what I've done here but you can you can see some of it so so let me let me do this and I'm going to cover it up so you see you can see that there is something there's some prediction you know I'm probably one of the only people who also has a picture of mrs. Ito egami right i'll show you actually i have her here as well this is this is a mrs. togami which actually one should use to fan to fan out this but I think I'll just leave I'll leave this here so you shuffle the cards very thoroughly a matter of fact you've been shuffling the cards for a moment yet if I can have them back so so here's the premise of this this series of films which is called which is called sort of vengeance is a rather remarkable series and the thing I think that makes it so remarkable is this wonderful relationship of Ito egami who as the official Decapitator to the Shogun is part of an incredible rival clan intrigue and that rival clan are the yog use the Elder yog you especially read Sudha Biagio who gets involved in this particular picture and here's what happens you take it a deck of cards and you shuffle them I haven't changed the order of the matter than anything else with them what I'm going to actually do is spread them out but I'm going to tell you we don't need all of them so I want you to take a big bunch of cards and push them towards yourself literally push them towards yourself yeah push them and push them out of the way so we will not use now this this this film etho egami comes home to his house and finds is a dreadful thing to talk about that his wife has been murdered by ninja assassins and this is true there's just no way to deal with this other than to tell you this is the absolute truth of the situation actually Clayton take a bunch of cards and push them towards you a whole big bunch of cards and and we can put them that's actually fine put them aside so he's faced with this rather remarkable this rather remarkable decision he sees in his house an infant child and the child because he has some remarkable composition has convinced the ninja assassins he's not even in the house they leave him there an infant child the wife is dead Ito egami by the way he talked ami has played back to me sabor Wakayama whose brother in real life is Shintaro katsu the guy who plays doctor Lee Chi you know when I was at Francis Coppola says he has Shintaro katsu his armor was almost exciting as finding out that you in fact choreograph to me sabor Wakayama takes some of these away and push them aside this because this is truly an exactly the work you know he's a character no again Clayton like I said we shouldn't use all of these cards so take a bunch and push them and push them aside take a couple more if you want to okay and push on the side now eat origami is in literally in his own house at this particular point he's in his own house take away a couple more cards we need some but take away take away a couple of cards that's fine eat Ogami is in his own house he has this child die guro and die Goro is is got this amazing demeanor but he still doesn't know what to do with Tiger he has to literally decide whether he is going to take the girl with him into this path of retribution into purgatory lone wolf unto the Hades with a baby card or have to kill his own child how does he determine this I mean a horrible choice for anybody to make how does he determine it what he does is to give the child the choice of a ball a beautiful spangly ball or a sword and the sword is in its scabbard you know but a little of it is exposed where they're just before they held a few inches and the child is now crawling around trying to decide you know is he more interested in the ball and more interested in the sword and he thought gommi decides if the child picks picks the the the ball it means he has a playful nature and he could never survive this particular journey if he picks the sword it would show that he has the soul of a warrior so ultimately this is entirely about choice you know I think we can sense from the fact that there's six movies in the series we have some idea might what might have actually happened in this particularly number two baby cart to the river styxx where the hibachi brothers Benton and Rey create real havoc but we're down to the choice so here's Dana one this is what I want you to do Leslie we're down at the Dana want think for a moment and right now put your left hand on one of those cards now put your right hand on a card now push them aside the final choice will be yours push them aside there are two cards left I told you the final choice is yours just like every other choice every other choice hand me one of those cards take as long as you want and hand me one of those cards now push this aside one card in 52 which you have given it now the choice of the ball and the sword is a big choice it's the choice of life and death but it's one in two this is really impressive this is fifty-two different objects 52 and for the first time we're gonna look at the card which you gave me and it is the two of hearts and you can see I know you've both been to Japan which is why I had you here you can read what it says on this card I can you can't well you know the really wonderful thing about these Japanese movies is that they're often subtitled yeah yeah you see on the other side it actually it actually says that the parts in case there's any problem and just in case you think there's anything they're not pretty great well on my way to the luckiest night of my life how did he do I have no idea it's amazing it makes you wonder if things are as they appear to be it makes you wonder everything because I I made the choices clay and I made the choices you know he didn't he didn't steer that in any direction other than telling us to take more away till there was one left and it happened to be this the two of hearts that he wrote before he started the mastery of sleight of hand as opposed to the kind of magic that were used to seeing say in Las Vegas or that kind of entertainment this is literally inches away there's there's no artifice it's it's it's more magical more mysterious than any stage delusion could possibly be you're sitting there with a person who simply with their hands with their narrative ability takes you into another world and helps you see you know things in a completely different way it was a long process our commissioning Ricky to come up with a book that would work for contemporary artists and we do run a program here at the Whitney where we combine the work of contemporary authors and contemporary artists and most of what we he was talking about was so historical that I couldn't find a way for contemporary artists to engage until one day he was describing his extensive collection of blow books and as he described them I realized and I think he realized simultaneously that at last we had a form of book that would accommodate the work of contemporary artists inspire them and also allow a historical text by Ricky to describe this kind of book so that it would be both a subject and an object of mystery so the result is as sort of a two-volume opus I might say a collaboration by Ricky j6 contemporary artists I'm very proud of it I particularly like this cover you can see magic magic to way so you start off disoriented or hope the book has the wonderful quality to be able to change you see so if we look at alphabets this is some stemple foundry type an old wooden type Frye's ornament I mean some really lovely old typefaces for that if one simply blows on the leaves I know that sound very strange what you get instead are Harlequins see there are no alphabets you just click on close it if you blow very carefully again you see the origin of all books the tabula rasa the blank sheet from which exploration takes place because it's really oldest a book of life this is probably the greatest collection of early English language magic books in the world a number of them which are unique for instance this which is the earliest of the books Thomas Hills a brief treatise entitled the natural and artificial conclusions from 1581 they have the first major major work on magic year which is a Scots discovery of witchcraft from 1584 which is really the seminal text in the English language dealing with conjuring never called magicians by the way called jugglers until the 18th century at least that's the mr. Geller's there we go this is in many ways the sexiest book in this collection this is a hocus pocus jr. the first edition from 1634 I imagine many of the people who would watch this would wonder why this was sexy on any level but it's incredibly sought-after there are four known copies of this first edition which went for many many editions and it really has the first the first illustrated book devoted solely solely to conjuring as an illustration for the cups and balls this is a wonderful old effect called the cabin pants and it appears for in print for the first time in this book and the patter of it actually involved a patron of a bar doing this and saying if he's successful he would like the services of a woman of negotiable affections for the evening and he is successful so perhaps that's why it's the sexiest the dessert there really are treasures and secrets to be found in these old volumes and there's a practical current application that can come from coming back to say a piece that you do one of the many pieces you do say it cups and bowls increase the history of that did you find a history of that here in this library well yes I mean again said that although you know their written accounts of a that goes seneca wrote about the cups and balls for instance being fooled by a set of you larry by roman conjurer's using stones and cops on their accounts which may precede the hat but in this library you know we have the recounts and scott's discovery the wonderful illustrations in hocus pocus jr so not only do i do i use them in historical performance for technique but even some of the patter literally coming coming from these books specifically indirectly many people say that the cups and balls is the oldest magic effect in the world they say that on the tombs of the king Beni Hasan of ancient egypt there are representations of nile magicians doing the cups and balls I'm not one of them I do believe the cups and balls was the oldest sleight of hand effect in the world that it was known to the Greeks and Romans and one of the things that I find fascinating about it is it exists independently in two separate genres the genre of The Gambler as well as the magician you may be familiar with this scene as the old shell game on the British racecourse it might have been known as thimble rigging in the language of the streets it was called the Hinks the Dinks the blocks or the nuts the idea was this that one might put a ball or pretend to put a ball under one of the cups but then the ball would appear where it was least likely watch again and if I place the ball in this cup I move the others you might think that the ball would be over here but in fact it's over here once again if I place the ball in this Cup and move them you would think the ball over here this is why people have been known to lose houses and even clothing playing this little game let me show you how a conjurer might do it instead it would be a little different the conjurer would take the ball and place it in his hand he would use a magic wand and make the ball vanish actually I should point out the conjurer is also cheap they're known to use many of these so actually the effect was played with three cups and three balls for a long time I'm going to show you an actual sequence of events from a 17th century bestseller called hocus-pocus jr. the idea here that I will cover the center ball with the cup place another one on top I'm trying to make this ball literally penetrate through the solid copper cup solid through solid joining it's made below once more now that you know the plot two balls covered up one ball now trying to penetrate to solid copper cups here's the idea remember underneath two balls on top one this method a favorite of mathieu booking or the little man of norburg only 28 inches tall the cups obscured almost his entire body and all three below matthew Buchinger had no arms or legs but he did have fourteen children the most famous man to ever play the game the Italian Bartolomeo Bosco Bosco appeared early in the 19th century cut an unusual figure he wore a black satin weskit black velvet trousers he made sure his sleeves were carefully rolled up he took a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully polished the tip of a magic wand a wand which he said was made of a strange amalgam of materials known only to himself and Erasmus of Rotterdam above his table was a beautiful brass Bell he struck the bell and said the word spirit I me he infernal a oba detai infernal spirits obey my command ladies and gentlemen Bosco's passes with the cups and balls vie des jeux vo celerity three gone and yet three returned you'll hear people say as if it were criticism that he is difficult or that he is an elitist but the fact of the matter is most people are unwilling to hold themselves to the standard that he holds himself he understands that magic is a performance art it's not just something you box up and tell everyone you have and what's amazing about him as a historian is his tireless effort to go to the source material he's unwilling to rely on other people's accounts of what happened or what something said or what someone did he travels wherever he has to or pays whatever he needs to to find out for himself from the source material what really happened so that's kind of remarkable there's actually a great story about someone trying to challenge him once he was at a karate competition I think it was a Cornell and someone waited till he got in the shower he's completely naked absolutely wet and someone hands him a $1 bill and says do something with this so standing there naked in the shower he takes a $1 bill folds it up unfolds that it's changed into a real $100 bill and hands it back to him and there he stands absolutely naked and wet Michael and Ricky solve problems they come up with ideas that enable us as filmmakers to create the kind of scenes or or create kind of illusions that we want to without having to use visual effects all right yeah with Ricky and Michael we can create a situation where it's actually happening but it's by magic so it's a little bit of film magic and real magic for me we've got a story about a boy and actually it's it starts with these this group of dogs golden retrievers and have you ever seen these dogs that are in competitions where they catch frisbees yeah you know where they they actually have these competitions where they throw the leading amazing amazing chance and the duck does all kinds of tricks and then they score them and everything well this is a fantasy film where this dog through a series of sort of magic potions and things and spells things turns into a boy so the kid would have to catch the frisbee in his mouth okay so this recognizable actor and it's got to be real time right one and you know of course in the challenge of all challenges like with the martini I'd like to do it in one shot without cutting away and cheating all right you know so it would have to be something like that we're sorry and also we're I wouldn't have to you know use the competitor to remove wires or whatever things like that okay so we'd like to do it for real so I was a nice meaning yeah he's just great just great that's a nice problem but we should we'll play with it we'll get for this beautiful play you know let's get on a toaster let's do that now okay I mean you know I really didn't you remember that piece I used to do with the cards where I would throw up three cards and catch one in each hand and one in my mouth I mean it's an unbelievably difficult to say actors who clearly will be allowed to throw things at his face well if it's Macaulay Culkin so his faces this lavish and they have to something this one's kind of stuffing to cut wire in it hard that one winter like yeah so here's a straight one this it's just like a straight I think we have purple a purple yeah we should get a couple of those Oh totally grody balling egg gora completely weird greenie you're lucky we know we get these only one yeah right so recap he has a boy with the dog inside and the rabbi with the soul of a dog so that's exactly what I thought to enhance my guess is correct and the kids will probably be smaller let's hope so I mean what's the depth cause I'm hurting a wise mouth child right that's a knee that's an H and a half so there's no way you're gonna get something with getting that this kind of diameter to go intention happens with month okay so let's talk about the jump and get that out of the way this actually was the first plug that I ever played in Los Angeles I used to do these seances here starting in the early 70s on Halloween I would do them every year I see in this one I'm wearing my Odd Fellows ceremonial robe would I would rarely go anywhere without it as if I needed a badge to prove I was an odd fellow they were great fun we had a wonderful time here even very briefly toured as folk rock Rick doing Dylan parodies that was one of my quickest incarnations I think it lasted about two days I two dates what about a monologue say something like the letter what was that letter it was part of the piece where I had somebody take a bill their own bill $100 bill signed their name on it and I put it in one of a group of envelopes and I was going to burn the envelopes and they had to choose an envelope so they would pick an envelope and I would say it was actually the talk part of the Velvet owns version of the glory of love I hold in my hand dia three letters from the story of fine fine superfine Korea the first begins my Ricky my sweetheart my wonderful one I shall always be thankful for the things you have done the second letter came from the start it came from your pen dear but not from your heart the third the King the Joker of the deck you ended your letter please sign my check while you for a foolish little foofy to think you could take advantage me in this way when my only sin has been loving you much too much that's the store behind that's the glory of love and they would of course drag me off the stage and beat me to a pulp of course the envelope that was left was the one that did happen you the money on it oh I'm one night I remember doing a piece here where somebody in the audience was playing a guitar while I was talking and I threw a card and split the guitar in half so this is actually the place where I would try out new material and this club was literally my home club I worked in those years for a wide wide variety of musical acts I mean you might find me opening for the LA for which in those days might have been shelly manne and lauren and Ray Brown Herbie Hancock I opened four at the uptown in Chicago Albert Collins the blues act country acts like Crystal Gayle and a me and I I did it for years and the days really run together I mean these were times where you know sometimes it was 28 shows in 30 days you could barely remember the city it was like talking to old circus guys you know who just knew where they set up the tent and that's basically all they could remember but I did spend the days you know haunting antique shops and rare book shops that's really how I put most of my collection together once I I was throwing cards in those days and I made the entire audience come out into the street because someone had dared me that I couldn't throw a card over the building I threw a card completely completely over the shot with the entire audience watching and then they all came back into the club sort of for the finale of the show you once held the world record did you not for conferring i far as I know I still do if the actual world record holder for praying a plank up higher harder faster and farther than anyone yeah I'm as comfortable with deception as I am with cameras or being on stage when in a sense you've made a career of being deceptive not thinking about it of reading about it and occasionally being deceptive sure but that's led you to a fascination with frauds and tricksters and cons that's true and gambling is that right yes well tell me about that and I go if they ask me something more specific a magician is somebody who often wants to gain an advantage and sometimes that's pretentious it sometimes comes from a great hurt in their background I mean this is not I'm sorry but anyway that's what I that's what I sort of think a great hurt so that you want to be five steps ahead of everyone else magic is about control and little kids to say what do you say when you want to show you a superiority and you're controlling I've got a secret and I'm not going to tell you and magicians are big boys the girls saying I've got a secret sure that's a very personal thing and it is a control and control is what the magician is doing he's showing you as in an audience that he can control not just you but control a life and have some sense of mastery over things the act of deceiving deception the conman what is it what is the conman sang to you I find the I don't know whether it's as a as a writer or just as an actual bloke but I I don't know I find the confidence game fascinating the idea of that intelligent people such as you or me can be deprived of our hard-earned money and self-respect by the correct by a correctly structured drama in effect the first man come in please through how are you thank you um here's what we're gonna do and I make this really simple okay got some money I'll explain the rules first and you can put up as much money as you want to see over there no it's not a seal deck but you're absolutely welcome to what I don't know about readers on the end you don't know you're gonna have you know you don't you absolutely have no way of knowing it's a deck of cards you don't know why guys bring before the deck anything about a guy that's a friend of mine friend of yours absolutely friend of mine I'm gonna make this so ridiculously easy for you that it doesn't matter if the cards are marked or not we're going to play with 10 cards the choices will all be yours it doesn't matter if the cards are so I did slid written on nothing matters I'm going to make it absolutely simple for you you're going to take five cards I'm going to take five cards shuffle the cards you don't have to know what the cards are all you have to do is know the order of hands in public if I with a guy whose friend wrote the deck would I lie I play poker with anyone in the world so we got ten cards okay we've got ten cards here here's what we're gonna do you can put up as much money as you want right now I'm gonna cut the cards you are gonna deal okay okay could I do before you cut the card no you can't we're playing like a poker game I'm gonna make up every rule if you don't want to play at the end of this I don't have a fight okay you understand I'm gonna make the rules if you want to play you play if you don't you gotta take out your money we're gonna play five cards we're gonna play showdown there's no drawer right but I'm gonna give you the choices and you'll understand okay I'll put munificent explain it again I can guys you get but first can we look at the card so I put money down the best man takes the money yes the best and takes the money okay all right and I shuffle and an ideal but you want to have the last cut I'm gonna you shuffled I've got you want to shuffle again shuffle again I'll cut again I don't care just want to clear up one thing you know that before ideal you can have the last yes I'm gonna have the last Cup do you not want to play get me a guy who wants to play yes go out and get me a guy who wants to play now you're going Peter you're gone I want to play yellow card let someone else have some money Andy look I wanna play cards I don't want to talk can you take out someone either play or don't play I clucking care less I've got some money Jacket 20 bucks it's all I got get somebody with money how much money do you want $100 is fine we have a gun can it take 40 and 5a forties phone hey reveal me a card why don't you shut up deal me apart you don't want to play don't play okay Pete get the next guy in the mask is fixing the back I might win money doing that I you can do anything you want get the next guy and I want to play some cards here yes my pick go go history I'm not a great shot it's fine my lines take your time we're gonna play a very simple game of poker game of poker in which you shuffle the cards and I cut aparts but I'm going to give you every opportunity to win unfortunately Peter didn't want to stay long enough for me to explain this to him I will give you every opportunity to win if we were normally dealing in a game you would heal me the first card you would deal yourself the second book first put up some money how much are we playing 5050 great it's covered deal me this hard deal yourself a claim okay now you're going to shuffle them again shuffle the cards again you can do that if that's more comfortable it doesn't matter to me now deal me that actually I should cut them at this point I will finish the cut put this on top deal me the card deal yourself the next card shuffle them again okay I'll cut you cut the cards I mean it go yes you cut the cards deal me the next chord deal yourself the next part shuffle the cards again you owe me the next card deal yourself the next card okay I don't that time you didn't cut that time now should I cut it if you liked you want to take the two cards back fine fine do me up I feel yourself a card all right is that fair enough I mean I'm not even touching the bloody cards turn over your hand you have the best hand you win I have the best hand I win okay so that's just it straight up right it's showdown what do you have two sevens two queens two sevens and two queens this is a good hand you probably win except I have three nines thanks bring the next person yeah what's your name William pleasure Ricky this is a game of poker with only ten cards in it I've done this to make the game very simple I realize you and I haven't met no idea what you do what your level of skill is but I understand that it's not a group of people to play a lot of cards you shuffle the cards if you place them on the table for me I'm going to cut the cards you can you can return the cut and I want you to now spread the cards out okay just spread them out and what's going to happen in this isn't it that's fine that's absolutely fine I'm going to take a cord and you're going to take the card we're going to make a poker hand that way take a card any part at all I'm going to take a card you're going to take you can take two cards yes yes I don't know you bring people who constantly have to change the rules I'll take a card and how much are we playing for I don't see any money on the table $100 fine all right I'm gonna take give me apart I'll let you give me a cord give me one of the next cards I don't care take one for yourself give me another card take one for yourself if I have the highest hand I win your hundred dollars if you have the highest hand you in my hundred dollars turn over your cards there are sevens pair of Queens turn over my cards I won't even touch him turn him over it looks like you win doesn't it except you dumped next person bring a man shuffle with all feel me important I'll tell you what since you're here as well look at the next card and decide amongst you whether you want to keep that card or you want to give it to me give it to me fun look at the next card see if you want to keep it you want to give it to me look at the next card see if you want to keep it or give it to me you might want to see what these cards are you can go behind them and see I don't care you want it keep it if you don't give it to make it take a look at the next chart you want to keep it I have to wind up with five cards you have to wind up with five look at the next one you want to keep it you want to give it to Nate David okay look at the next you want to keep it you want to give it to me give it it's gonna pair yeah that one does but we got together both those cards so we got three so we have no choice but unless we'll see what they are saying good why do we have it one at a time whether you snip no no no no no you look at them one at a time if you guys have both been here before if you paid attention if you were good poker players you would know what every party's that's the idea you have no choice you guys just looking to give it only got three cards right no to this oh alright look at both good point look at both like that look at those them give me one you take off here ah definite look at the 7s I'll giving three seconds yeah you got a good night right turn them over you win it's your money I win it's my money turn them over what do you have prepared Queens Hera queen I think it's safe to say turn over my car I'm not even going to touch him turn him over there's a pair of sevens a pair of nine two moons I'm an idea she need money that bad he's dead instead yeah he feels bad about cheating us as a couple hundred bucks yeah I don't know a lot of personality oh yeah a magician has power power is not totally controllable even by the magician in our image of in reaction to it so the power if somebody can do something with a pack of cards maybe he can do something with me directly if he can do something bad maybe he can do something good if he does something good maybe he can do something bad and so we you never know where the power which way the power is going to go so any magician worth its salt is a little bit on the sidelines not in the mainstream and you you bring them in when you want to be entertained or you want to be healed or helped but you're not going to consort with them on a daily basis he's a little bit too strange and too scary but there's a room now and then for a magician who will take on the role as it's always been and still can be of saying this is serious stuff and watch out watch out it may not go the way we expect but something will happen that's Ricky as a rule a man's a fool when it's hot he wants it cool when it's cool he wants it hot always wanting what it's not I once gave a lecture on nose amputations going back to the early 16th century you find them in Bridal pain tonight and here is well that goes something like see Gallants wonder and behold this german of imperfect mold no legs no feet no arms no hands yet all that art can do to man's first thing the Joker of the deck you ended your let if we sign my check while you for a foolish little foofy to think you could take advantage of me in this way when my only sin has been loving you much too much that's the story of that's the glory of love

Channel: 770pratik

Views: 286,669

Rating: 4.8701301 out of 5

Keywords: hustlers, hoaxters, ricy, jay, magic, history, card, cheats, Trick

Id: iWM4qQWwnu0

Length: 49min 46sec (2986 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 18 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/Fast_Biscotti]

Thank you. If it’s Ricky Jay, then I’m definitely watching it. He’s ridiculously smooth.

[u/MovieGuide]

Hustlers, Hoaxsters, Pranksters, Jokesters and Ricky Jay (1996) (TV)

Documentary [59 min]
Ricky Jay
Director: Rex Bloomstein

IMDb rating: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8.0/10 (15 votes)

This is one of those movies where there's nothing helpful printed on the back of the box.

More info at IMDb.
I am a bot. Send me feedback. Data sources and other information.

[u/mm2222]

Still can't get my head around him being in a Bond movie

[u/juandos1951]

Well now I wasn't sure what I was going to watch but it turned out to be a real winner...

Thanks for the link...

[u/GoldScreenLife]

r/documentaries