This is, of course, an old Arsenio clip featuring sleight-of-hand man Ricky Jay, who just recently passed. Fascinating look at his personal style. The way he seems to teeter on the edge of bumbling before striking home with the trick is reminiscent of the wilier pool hustlers. As for how he tosses one card in the air and catches another, ???
I feel like I need to track down the book he's talking about too.
2 comments:
It was sad news hearing that the amazing and extraordinary Ricky Jay is gone. Yet another reason for me to hope there's a heaven. Do you remember the only story he ever told about his father? According to him his father brushed his teeth with Colgate and pomaded his hair with Brylcream - keeping the first in the bathroom medicine cabinet and the latter in a cupboard. One day Ricky switched the two and his father brushed with Brylcream and put toothpaste in his hair. He apparently had better luck with his grandfather.
Having just looked up Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women, it turns out to be one of those sadly out of print. Amazon has links to some that cost hundreds while Abe has some cheaper but still costly s&h. You might be lucky at the library.
note: It was only very recently we learned that Abe is wholly owned by Amazon. sheesh.. all those years when we thought we were dealing with a separate entity. Bezos also owns Good Reads. another sheesh..
That's a funny story about Ricky and his father. I can see putting toothpaste in your hair. I mean, it would work as a fixative, if a little mintier than most of us are used to. How do you not notice you're brushing your teeth with Brylcream, though? In any case, I'm glad he was able to bring some of that impishness to his adult life and make it work for him.
Oh yes, the Ocean State Libraries Catalog does list a handful of copies of Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women. I do think I'm going to make that one of my next nonfiction reads. It's got a great title.
I think I've only used AbeBooks once. I didn't know about them being owned by Amazon. The reason I haven't gone back is because the seller the one time I dealt with them made a lot of dumb goofs and didn't get the book to me in any kind of timely fashion. So no big loss for me not to use them. Shame about GoodReads, though.
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