Ye Olde Magick Blogge

It’s “Cups and Balls Month” here on Ye Olde Magick Blogge, and if you’re going to start off a month, you might as well start with a bang. This is a very robust routine, and it’s pretty telling that Ricky Jay used this to close his 52 Assistants show, which was otherwise completely card-related. Magicians who’ve left the show have stated that they overheard regular people talking about this routine the most, and while it’s unsure if that’s because it was the best routine of all, or if it was simply because it was the last one they saw in the show, it’s hard to tell. That said, the novel penultimate reveal does elicit gasps from the audience, and it goes to show you that despite all the ubiquity in magic these days, there’s still more than one way to skin a cat.

If you haven’t had a chance to hunt down the clips for the entire show, I highly recommend it. In my opinion, it represents one of the most important sleight of hand performances of the 20th century.