Card Tricks

how to win friends and influence blondes with a full deck or less--a prestidigitatorial pictorial starring crack shot ricky jay

Ricky Jay, author of the top-secret treatise Cards as Weapons, is the court magician of the counterculture, a certified zany who has played night clubs, colleges, national television shows and cruise ships. ("I perform for people who have spent their entire lives working to earn enough money to get away from people who look like me.") A while ago, we had the opportunity to catch Jay's act: At the climax, he set up a plastic duck on one side of the stage, walked ten paces, whirled and decapitated his poor prop with a flick of his wrist. Jay's weapon? An ordinary playing card. Amazing. In Cards as Weapons, Jay describes the techniques that allow him to throw a card higher, faster and farther than anyone else in the world. He reveals the secret Oriental art of self-defense with cards, skills that were first developed by the dread Ninja assassins. He recounts personal anecdotes about big-game hunting with cards. Honest. He once felled a prized springbok with his trusted sidearm--a four of clubs. To catch up with this Renaissance man, we asked Jay for a demonstration. Behold.