As you grow old you pretty much guess what magic is all about. It’s about you getting fooled by some kind of manipulation. After awhile you realize that all those manipulations are based on a few principles. Once you understand that, the only thing that can get you interested in magic is the trick, not the result of the trick.
What i mean is, you know that the magician is going to come up with your card, so why stand there when you could go watch the Sopranos instead ?
As you grow older, the only reason you still care about magic is to understand the technique behind it. Of course, magicians won’t show that to you, after all, it’s their job to hide the mechanic of the blow-your-mind effect that’s coming.
Ricky Jay doesn’t show his tricks either, he’s actually pretty adamant about it. But at the difference of many magicians, he aknowledges that you know there’s a trick. His performance is not based on “look how clever the trick is” but rather on “look how good i am and how can i fool the shit outta you while you’re standing 3 cm from my hands”. Basically he’s saying, the trick doesn’t matter, skill does.
That’s why his show, Ricky Jay & his 52 assistants is such a treat to watch.
We hate to know that the thing we are shown is maybe just a simple illusion that we are too dumb to grasp. But we love to see a guy with skills and training showing us basically what humans are capable of doing if they put their mind to it.
That’s entertainment. That’s why we love to watch Jackie Chan jumping from buildings to buildings, or skater kids pulling sick tricks on broken pavements.
It’s not only the feat that’s impressive, but the fact that we know those guys have put up with hours and hours of training to achieve it.
Youtube is full of that, people showing their skills whether it’s on a skateboard, with a soccer ball, playing the guitar or doing the robot dance.
Ricky Jay’s stuff is about how he’s a professional sleight-of-hand with hands and mind so sharp that he can make you think you’re seeing something completely different from what is really happening.
For this, and the fact that the guy is almost as smooth with his tongue as he is with his hands Ricky Jay & his 52 assistants is as good as magic can get.
Oh, and David Mamet directed it. So stop being a bitter intelectual and go watch it.