Ricky Jay:On the Stem

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Steve Bryant
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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Steve Bryant » July 2nd, 2002, 12:04 pm

And for those who are star-struck, Heather Graham sat two seats to my left in the row behind me.
I'd have missed Ricky's entire performance!

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Brian Morton
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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Brian Morton » July 2nd, 2002, 4:07 pm

KevinM wrote;

Yes, that was me with the deck of cards in my pocket -- And no, I didn't see the switch. Last year in Cambridge, I also sat with Ricky during his 52 Assistants show while he did the "gambling demonstrations."
Considering how quickly you leaped up to the stage when he asked for volunteers, I'm guessing you're getting pretty good at obtaining the stage-view seats at a Ricky Jay show... :p

brian :cool:

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Pete Biro
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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Pete Biro » July 2nd, 2002, 6:06 pm

No disrespect... but IMHO when a magician asks for a volunteer from the audience... LET A NON MAGICIAN go... a magician's reactions are totally different and can throw a performance. :eek:
Stay tooned.

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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Guest » July 2nd, 2002, 7:59 pm

A chance to assist a future legend! C'mon, how could one pass on such an opportunity? I once assisted Slydini with his Paper Balls Over the Head routine. I'm a hobbyist, amateur at best. I can also be a willing spectator that wants to be entertained.

I also play baseball in an "over 40 league." Yes, real baseball not the wimpy softball leagues. I would jump at the chance to get an at bat against Randy Johnson or Nolan Ryan. Sorta the same thing, eh?

No disrespect here either. As Jon would write, "Onward..."

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Brian Morton
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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Brian Morton » July 2nd, 2002, 9:23 pm

KevinM wrote:
A chance to assist a future legend! C'mon, how could one pass on such an opportunity? I once assisted Slydini with his Paper Balls Over the Head routine. I'm a hobbyist, amateur at best. I can also be a willing spectator that wants to be entertained.
Kevin,

I fully understand your enthusiasm -- I was you once, and you even seem older than me. But magic is different.

As I say on my web site, magic is different from other performing arts. In the opera, the soloist does not invite you to join in the aria. The guitarist does not call you up onstage to help with the solo. Magic is the only art where the spectator is the validation of the effect.

You being a magician, you "see" things different from other spectators. And you react different. That reaction is part of the show as much as whatever Ricky does.

Slydini once had an amateur magician onstage for "Paper Balls." The reaction was so different for the audience -- different from the usual, which Slydini saw every night -- that he stopped the trick and sent the guy back to his seat, saying, "Excuse-a me -- I picka the wrong guy." The "guy" thought he was "just helping out."

I'm with you in the "seeing the legend" part. But someday, years from now, I hope to be a legend myself. (Cue raucous laughter here) And I'd rather the magicians in the crowd savor the reaction of the real laypeople instead of wanting to test their acting skills by jumping up on stage with me themselves.

Just my hopefully humble .02 cents, and I hope you won't think I'm being too brutally frank here.

brian :(

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Cugel
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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Cugel » July 3rd, 2002, 1:02 am

Brian and Pete are right.

Your enthusiasm is understandable, but the fact is that you will never be able to react in the manner that a true layman would. And that simple fact, while not necessarily ruining the performance, will certainly ensure that the audience's enjoyment/amazement is not maximised.

Maybe you don't believe me, but any person who has performed a professional show and used assistants knows that their reactions are a very important factor in generating energy and entertainment value.

I'm sure you don't fall into this category, but I've seen magicians really damage other magician's shows. On several occasions I've seen magicians use faro shuffles when asked to shuffle by a performer. (Actually this is quite common at the Magic Castle.) Even if the person means no harm, they've just sent a message to every layman that the performer may not be as uniquely talented as they had imagined.

I remember once seeing a magician 'assist' Tamariz with a routine and, when Tamariz reached the impossible climax, the magician badly faked his reaction because he knew the effect's modus operandi. It was awful to behold and every person in the room must have thought, "hmmm... stooge". Needless to say the reaction wasn't what Tamariz was expecting.

Another foolish thing that magicians do when they go to public shows is to get out a deck of cards and ostentatiously toy with them before the show or at interval. This usually gets the desired result of having people seated nearby ask if the person is a magician. Once confirmed, and after having conversed with the culprit for a short time, the layman might conclude that the show they have seen so far (or are about to view) can't be all that special.

In my view you should avoid assisting if you're a magician.

Andrew

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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Brad Jeffers » July 3rd, 2002, 1:17 pm

Could one of you who attended the show, elaborate a little on Mr. Jay's presentation of the Knight's Tour. I had the pleasure of seeing George Koltanowski do this back in the 80's. In his presentation, Mr. Koltanowski would have members of the audience fill in the 64 squares of the chessboard with bits of random information - their social securtity number, their pet's name, a foreign country, etc. After all the squares were filled in, he would take one or two minutes to memorize the board's information, then he would turn his back to the board and have someone name any square. From that random starting position, he would call out what had been written on that square, and then proceed with the "Knight's Tour" - moving as a knight would, he traveled from square to square, never landing on the same square twice, and calling out the item that was written on each square as he went along! Koltanowski was a Grandmaster of chess who at one time held the record for simultanious blindfold play (34 games) - so I would not expect Mr. Jay to present the Knight's Tour in as dramatic a fashion as that ... but you never know! Jay is a pretty talented fellow, so prehaps he does! I suspect that he does not include the memorization bit, or someone would surely have mentioned it in their review.

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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Brian Morton » July 3rd, 2002, 2:39 pm

Ricky's version of the Knight's Tour, while not loaded with personal information from the audience, still has a certain amount of mental calculations in it.

First he unveils the board, with light switches under the numbers that mark each space on the board. Then he explains the movement of the knight, and then, "to make it more of a challenge," asks one of his two volunteers to state his personal "lucky number" that might be on the board. (For our performance, I believe it was 33). When Ricky calls the space number, the volunteer is to turn on the light, proving that he does not land on that space twice.

"To make it more of a challenge," he then hands the other volunteer a set of large cards with cube roots up to one million on them. He has the man shuffle the cards and asks that when he calls on the man, to announce one of the numbers and Ricky will then calculate the cube root -- while moving through the board without repeating spaces.

"To make it more of a challenge," he announces he will recite a soliloquy from Shakespeare from one of the plays called out by the audience. (Midsummer Night's Dream)

"To make it more of a challenge," he then announces he will sing a song of the "field holler" style while moving along the board and calculating the cube roots.

He then begins, and about every five or six moves, calls out for a cube root, recites the Shakespeare, and sings Leadbelly's old blues holler "Black Betty."

When he gets to the final space, all the lights flash like on "The Price Is Right."

It was amusing and impressive, to say the least.

brian :cool:

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Brian Morton
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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Brian Morton » July 3rd, 2002, 2:40 pm

Ricky's version of the Knight's Tour, while not loaded with personal information from the audience, still has a certain amount of mental calculations in it.

First he unveils the board, with light switches under the numbers that mark each space on the board. Then he explains the movement of the knight, and then, "to make it more of a challenge," asks one of his two volunteers to state his personal "lucky number" that might be on the board. (For our performance, I believe it was 33). When Ricky calls the space number, the volunteer is to turn on the light, proving that he does not land on that space twice.

"To make it more of a challenge," he then hands the other volunteer a set of large cards with cube roots up to one million on them. He has the man shuffle the cards and asks that when he calls on the man, to announce one of the numbers and Ricky will then calculate the cube root -- while moving through the board without repeating spaces.

"To make it more of a challenge," he announces he will recite a soliloquy from Shakespeare from one of the plays called out by the audience. (Midsummer Night's Dream)

"To make it more of a challenge," he then announces he will sing a song of the "field holler" style while moving along the board and calculating the cube roots.

He then begins, and about every five or six moves, calls out for a cube root, recites the Shakespeare, and sings Leadbelly's old blues holler "Black Betty."

When he gets to the final space, all the lights flash like on "The Price Is Right."

It was amusing and impressive, to say the least.

brian :cool:

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Brad Jeffers
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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Brad Jeffers » July 3rd, 2002, 3:57 pm

Brian, Thanks for the info. For those interested in trying The Knight's Tour for themselves, go to http://home.earthlink.net/~tfiller/knight.htm#

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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Pete Biro » July 3rd, 2002, 7:21 pm

To All:

Read Whimhurst's post above about six times! :eek:
Stay tooned.

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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Pete Biro » July 3rd, 2002, 7:22 pm

The "H" is silent!
Stay tooned.

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Dustin Stinett
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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Dustin Stinett » July 4th, 2002, 2:20 am

I agree with Pete, Brian and Andrew, but only 99.99% of the time. If I may, I would like to share the story behind that .01%.

Several years ago I was fortunate enough to be at a business conference that was held at the Boca Raton Resort and Club in Florida. As most of you are aware, Bill Malone's Magic Bar is located at the resort. There was only one person at the conference that was privy to fact that I am a magician and I swore her to secrecy. I explained to her that if the performers became aware that I was a magician, they may alter their performance and it could be less enjoyable for her (she loves magic). We were there for three nights, and went to Malone's every night.

The first night it was just my colleague and me, and we saw one magician work (I wish I could remember his name, but for the life of me I cannot). The second night we were part of a larger group of people (eight or ten – and my friend kept mum about me) and we saw two different guys work. One was the same guy from the previous evening, and he used me as his “assistant” for his entire set.

For our third night it was just the two of us, and again, we were entertained by the same magician from the first night, and then later a different magician from the previous two. At the end of the evening, I approached the first guy to give him a message from Kevin King, who had asked me to simply say “hi to the guys” (to no one in particular – Kevin used to work there). He asked me how I knew Kevin, and I explained that, though we had never met in person, I was working with him and Tim Trono on a magic project (via the “magic” of email). “Are you a magician?!” He was honestly flabbergasted, and I was as happy as could be, knowing that I had successfully pulled off the toughest acting gig I have ever had (my college major was theater – Doc, you would have been proud).

We chatted for a bit, and one of the things we talked about was this very subject (by this time, he had called over the other guy, who also had no clue that I was a magician). They said that they are rarely happy to have another magician at a table because, “they suck as an audience” and not just because they hardly ever tip (I tipped well, which, I'm sure, was one of the things that led them astray)! I let them know what a great time we had, and I honestly believe that we saw their best work because their “anti-magician” guard was down. They were sincere in their thanks to me, and invited me to come back anytime I wanted.

So does this mean that I would volunteer to be in a magician's act? No way! And for all the reasons stated so well in this thread. The Malone's situation was a special one; I knew what I had to do, and I was very fortunate to pull it off. Additionally, nothing cheeses me off more than some yahoo in the audience of a public magic show who feels he has to let everyone else there know that he's “a magician too.” Whether it's via card tricks before the show or by wearing their Penn & Teller T-shirts (both of which happened when I saw Copperfield in Hawaii and Ricky Jay in Irvine), I find it both embarrassing and infuriating. You know who you are. Please save it for the magic conventions.

Dustin

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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Cugel » July 4th, 2002, 2:26 am

Great story - I love the part about magician's and tipping...

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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Pete Biro » July 4th, 2002, 9:13 am

Yah, funny how magicians will watch a bar magician for example and leave without tipping.

Reminded me of a scene one night with Daniel Cros in Las Vegas. I was visiting with him and a guy came in with a "honey on his arm" and they sat at the bar... the guy kept hinting to Daniel to do some magic for the "babe."

Finally the guy lays a $20 bill down and Daniel still doesn't do anything. More hints, etc. and no magic, so the guy and his girlfriend leave.

I asked Daniel "why didn't you do any magic for them?"

He said, "The guy didn't put down enough money." :cool: :eek: :cool:
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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Guest » July 4th, 2002, 3:19 pm

I have only seen Ricky perform live on three occasions spanning about 25 years. Each time just once he has "Tipped" a move, I think he does it it to gauge how many magicians are in the audience ;)
Years ago when requesting a particular melody at a dance it was tradition to wrap the written note to the bandleader in a bill. Very late one night a gent passed such a request to the leader inside a 10~00 note,the musician looked at the request and then at the ten pound note,wrapped the whole lot inside a twenty and handed it back !! :p

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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Guest » July 11th, 2002, 2:20 pm

Okay, if some of you remember I started a thread a while ago. I was very grumpy because 52 assistants had an age limit. Well I finally got to see Ricky Jay and I must say he surpassed my expectations. I will say that I was asked my age quite a few times and treated like a 15 year old trying to sneak into the show. I thought his opening card work was awesome. I realized how great that style of card magic is for performing. You can do a lot of things in a platform setting that you can't in a true close up setting.
The card stab was wonderful, and I loved the way he justified having tons of cards all over the table by spelling stuff. The memory stunt was great, there was a magicians behind me who kept knowingly say what the next move on the chess board was, he was wrong every time. I also enjoyed seeing a very different kind of magic show, intelligent, funny and enough card work to make me happy. The piece about the blind man's artwork was everything a magic trick should be. Simple, amazing, direct and with an emotional hook. It was great to see the orange tree after hearing about it for so long.
I would like to bring up one thing that bothered me. And as my Jazz teacher would say, “raising an opinion flag now, OPINION ONLY”. MAGICIANS. I understand why he doesn't like having magicians in his audience. They were talking with their friends and wives during intermission about how the tricks were done. They would ooh and aaaaaaaah knowingly as he did certain moves so as to subtly remind people that they knew what was going on. I was amused hearing a few magicians discussing the deck switch he used to have the whole deck in order in the end of his “The luckiest card of my Life” routine. If you are going to ignore the theatrical aspect of a show and instead think about the methods you might as well get them right. That's all. The show was worth the wait and if you haven't seen it try to see it.

Noah Levine

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Dustin Stinett
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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Dustin Stinett » July 11th, 2002, 9:52 pm

Originally posted by NoahLevine:
I understand why he doesn't like having magicians in his audience. They were talking with their friends and wives during intermission about how the tricks were done. They would ooh and aaaaaaaah knowingly as he did certain moves so as to subtly remind people that they knew what was going on. I was amused hearing a few magicians discussing the deck switch he used to have the whole deck in order in the end of his "The luckiest card of my Life" routine. If you are going to ignore the theatrical aspect of a show and instead think about the methods you might as well get them right. That's all.
God bless you Noah. That is one of the most perceptive observations I've read on this forum. Someone you know well, with whom I am only acquainted (but to who I owe a ball game whenever he's here in my neck of the woods), told me what a bright young man you are. He's correct.

Best,
Dustin

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Re: Ricky Jay:On the Stem

Postby Guest » July 11th, 2002, 9:57 pm

Thanks, that is a compliment, a double compliment actually.

Noah Levine


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