Ricky Jay - Master of the House of Cards
Richard Jay Potash, born in Brooklyn in 1948, is a master of the art of deception and an expert specifically at sleight-of-hand. He has been performing magic for very nearly his entire life, making his television debut at the age of five on the show “Time For Pets.” Ricky Jay’s magical antics have taken him to comedy clubs, had him opening for rock bands and had him performing one man shows and appearing in film. The majority of Ricky Jay’s magic involves what he likes to call his “52 assistants”, a standard deck of cards. He is able to manipulate a deck of cards in ways man seemingly was not meant to do. His amazing memory and card control abilities border nearly on fantasy.
A Simple Shuffle of the Deck
The video that first exposed me to Ricky Jay begins with him merely shuffling a cut deck. He meticulously shuffles the two sub-decks, using both practical methods of shuffling and ornate and flashy methods, such as fanning the cards out and combining them. He spreads the deck out face down across a table and then seemingly randomly places several cards of the clubs suit on to the spread deck – the ace, the two, three, four, and five – and then reshuffles the deck.
For the next two minutes Ricky Jay performs nothing short of a miracle as he begins splitting the deck and finding the cards he just placed. He splits the deck and tosses two cards in to the air, catching one in each hand – the ace and two of clubs. He places them on the table and flips out the three of clubs. He tosses the three in to the air and manages to catch it between the four and five of clubs in the deck. He then reshuffles and casually tosses out the rest of the clubs, shuffling and splitting the deck every so often as to boggle the mind.
The six, the seven, the eight, the nine, Jack, Queen and King join their brethren soon enough. Ricky jay gives a sideways glance to some crew off to the side of the camera as he shuffles the deck one more, slams it on the table and then fans it out. From the pile of cards spills the remaining three suits of cards, organized from smallest to largest. In silence, he points to the cards and then stares at the screen before the video cuts. Magic.
A trick, a con, a game?
This brand of trickery shouldn’t technically be referred to as “trickery” per say, as there isn’t truly a trick involved. At some points in his life Ricky Jay spent ten or so hours a day practicing card control and strengthening his memory until he was able to manipulate cards. During his shows he would invite audience members up to the table where he performed and let them watch from mere feet away, showing them that there was no “magic” involved, but that card manipulation was merely something he was able to do. While he did perform straight forward deception, such as an advanced version of the cup and balls con, the meat and potatoes of his acts were his card tricks. Ricky Jay would explain exactly what he was doing during his tricks and would refer to them as gambler’s exercises, non-theatrical in nature. As well as a magician, Ricky Jay has also given lectures and contributed to various exhibits about the art of deception and the confidence game. He wants above all else for the art of deception to be recognized by the public, for them to enjoy the mechanical aspects of it rather than enjoy it for deception’s sake. Ricky Jay’s special brand of non-magical antics were entirely unique to him at the time and was later adopted by other magicians and performers such as Penn and Teller, as seen in their burning of the American flag trick, where they step the audience entirely though the process where they burn the flag using the Bill of Rights. Ricky Jay sparked the modern revolution of being almost completely straight-forward in the performance of magic, showing the audience that it isn’t magic at all but rather a complex confidence game born out of skills and sleight-of-hand.
--Garrett Roth