The Genii Forum

Brad Henderson

I only said that it was possible (and i purposely put italics around it to make it obvious). I did not say or imply it was the case (or even likely). Pretty much anything is possible. Aliens could land tomorrow. What's the point? wait, is chris condemning someone for building an argument based on w...

Brad Henderson

maybe he bought it for a gift and never had the chance to deliver it? Yeah, and before he presents the gift he glues his own bookplate into the book, because that is what one does when one gifts a book. You can't make this up. It must require real effort to construct that incoherent an argument. ca...

Brad Henderson

Of course anything can be said. The issue is what's normally said and what we can infer from it. You're missing the most obvious of points, yet again! You wrote: "You never say". You should be more precise. ok chris. let’s play your petty, desperate game. you said and the fact is, we do k...

Brad Henderson

and here chris demonstrates he has more interest in semantic games and argument winning then in actually having a real discussion. I was afraid you wouldn't get it. or, you’re afraid that you would be exposed for the manipulative fraud you are? if we want to call names, let’s do it. if that’s all y...

Brad Henderson

where did i say it would be ‘just as easy’ to find out if some one was a gambler 100 years ago as opposed to a writer? Wonderful, then you agree with me. That was my point. It is much harder on average to find out if somebody was a gambler than if somebody was a writer. Now that you agree let's see...

Brad Henderson

the only reason you believe erdnase had to be a professional writer is because you want your candidate to be erdnase. So you engage in imagining what could be, and not what is. Where did I say Erdnase was a professional writer? He was somebody who had extensive writing experience. Doesn't need to b...

Brad Henderson

]Compare this amount of knowledge of who gambled to the amount of knowledge we have about authors. There are very few writers from around 1900 who have written a substantial amount and who have gone unnoticed. I am sure there are some, but writing is an activity that is fixed on paper and paper has...

Brad Henderson

Who would have made a note about somebody appearing as the typical and average gambler? Nobody. The clever cardshark blends in, doesn't make it known he is a winner, avoids to stick out like a sore thumb. what does being a winner have to do with not being known as a player? and blending in is diffe...

Brad Henderson

]We know that generally speaking, but not specifically for anybody. . . Or do you have any historically relevant lists of names who played what game where and when? . you know chris, i just looked on the internet and there is no evidence of any individual ever playing cards. not here https://www.ri...

Brad Henderson

the authors you list who had one book all had books that were of note, so people took steps to find and preserve their early works. so you want us to compare the keepsakes of renowned authors to those of someone who self published a vanity text that was largely unknown in his lifetime. that seems de...

Brad Henderson

you can’t be a card cheat unless you’re playing cards and unless your playing solitaire you are doing that in public. while the act of cheating should remain sub rosa - any likely candidate will have encountered thousands of people who would know him as a card player. if you can’t put a deck of card...

Brad Henderson

writing is a skill but card cheating is not? if someone went to school they practiced writing. not so with cards (cheating or playing.) You have to be a great player to be a great cheat, and that takes time and experience to become either. there are naturally talented writers - mainly because writin...

Brad Henderson

You know, the "need the money" comment may have just been a little joke by the author and you may all well be reading too much into it. Come to think of it I suspect that you may all be reading too much into about 50% (or probably much more) of the various "clues" that you have ...

Brad Henderson

This post from Will Randell (back in 2004) on The Magic Cafe does a great job of expressing why I find the 21 Person Cabinet such a charming illusion. This has been one of my favorite illusions ever since I read about it in Jim Steinmeyer’s THE COMPLETE JARRETT. Still, I had to take it on faith tha...

Brad Henderson

it seems some are content to make cases based on what was possible, disregarding the mandate to discover what is true.

Brad Henderson

the idea that this turn of phrase proves erdnase gad small hands is nonsense. i have many times read and told magicians/laypeople - you might think having big hands would help, but that’s just not true. does that mean i have small or large hands? it says nothing about the size of ones hands - it onl...

Brad Henderson

and if that’s the case, then whose to say smith isn’t engaging in a false memory of whom he met or where he met them. If he is so unreliable for some statements, then he should be equally unreliable for any others. so being independently verifiable becomes irrelevant. now we have to trust smith reca...

Brad Henderson

seems to be a lot of selective standards here. he’s not fat, the picture is wrong we take some statements as fact, except for when we don’t. like when Dalrymple was a lie. or the accent was misheard, or statement of geography had to be misremembered. you seem to be cherry picking only those elements...

Brad Henderson

Ron Wohl shared a method with me and credited it to houdin. super simple, but incredibly effective. sadly i don’t recall but the vaguest of details.

Brad Henderson

Another expert that Brad tells us to dismiss, please quote where i said we should dismiss greg’s opinion. And for the record, because Bill Mullins makes a habit to misrepresent my published opinion For someone who seems to take issue with having one’s published ‘opinion’ misrepresented, you don’t s...

Brad Henderson

what was the state of photography in the early 1900’s? did smith mention the lighting in the room? how much was spent on the developing? was he a photographer? did he mention anyone else there? did erdnase have the photos already and just hand them to him? i don’t recall anyone else mentioned by smi...

Brad Henderson

and if they were traced from photos, who took them?

Brad Henderson

why would we assume that drawings intended to illustrate moves with cards would be anatomically precise? I have posed for photographs and illustrations and though i haven’t done it tens of thousands of times, i already know that many times the concept you wish to illustrate can not be directly or ea...

Brad Henderson

who is more credible? the person not engaging in basic logical fallacies https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority I hope that next time you need surgery that the guy or gal operating on you is not a medical doctor, not an expert, because you certainly do not want to fall prey to basi...

Brad Henderson

who is more credible?

the person not engaging in basic logical fallacies

https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

Brad Henderson

JP Vallerino had a nice one sold through Camirand Academy. Once closed the work is done and the audience can open it themselves. won’t find anything other than the force page.

Brad Henderson

jkeyes1000 wrote: My purpose is chiefly to offer my criticism of the logic employed by either side.

no comment

Brad Henderson

these mules , were they smiling?

Brad Henderson

re needing the money what if erdnase was both a realist and a bit of a dick? imagine if i wrote that preface in response to books that keyes had offered to the public proclaiming social benefits and inspired ideas. erdnase begins with a ridicule of the pious and reformed. If they are not pious and r...

Brad Henderson

anybody pick one of these up at Magic Live and not using it? I was interested but had no application. Now i have an application and they aren't in stock

Interested in the latest model he had there. Let me know if you have on sitting in a drawer.

brad at bradhenderson dot com.

Brad Henderson

let's go work a bar mitzvah sometime and we will see how well your theory pans out. the thing is keyes, you don't seem to grasp the basic concept of timing. When the guy recognizes the pack and wants to catch you out, the switch won't fly. If he's so determined to bust you that he would reach for yo...

Brad Henderson

i never said you can't switch decks. i'm saying that second deck switch under the newspaper which occurs at the time when the heat is at the greatest won't work but i'll go further. your entire contribution consists of engaging with someone who, at the time you perform your trick, knows how it works...

Brad Henderson

i stand by my case. keye's 'solution' is that of someone who lacks real world performing experience. This is i think completely relevant for this thread as many of the offerings and theories offered on the jerx are colored by the same condition. keyes claims a tactic he has never tried will work. i ...

Brad Henderson

if one had good crowd management skills then no one would ever reach for the pack and everything you offered here ia pointless. Your option is only relevant if someone truly has it out for you OR you goad them into it. in the first case the duplicate cards will be enough to damn you. Likewise, he wi...

Brad Henderson

you've never performed for real people in the real world, so you don't know how they respond. If someone feels the need so strongly to want to debunk you, to show they are correct, they aren't going to accept the defeat. they will - as someone once said - wait for any small error and then pounce on ...

Brad Henderson

except this isn't that situation. It's a case of someone who is looking for duplicate cards going through the deck and looking for - wait for it - DUPLICATE CARDS. you have no idea how real people react to magic, do you? it's adorable how you think you will get away with two deck switches, including...

Brad Henderson

the impetuous fool who is doing only exactly what you expect him to do? and you really think that this imaginary fool whom you have invented - who would be so incensed as to grab the deck - wouldn't show everyone that your cards are not authentic? you live in a world of your imagination keyes. i don...

Brad Henderson

uh huh. because in a trick where you challenge them to make duplicate cards, you 'win' when they look through the deck and SEE duplicate cards. You REALLY don't think these things through, do you? I mean, you just said you wouldn't use a trick deck in a formal show (silly restriction, but whatever) ...

Brad Henderson

so you lay a trap, exploiting what you expect an audience member to do. and when they take it, you make them look like a jerk. again, classy! But that's not what you do. this is what you do: If a member of the audience claims to know how it was done, ignore him until you have reached into the pocket...

Brad Henderson

again not what i said.

but this IS what you said

jkeyes1000 wrote:

I consider The Art of Magic a challenge. The performer creates a mystery, and the viewer tries to solve it.

so, when the viewer does EXACTLY what you expect of them, you make them look like an idiot.

classy!

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