[ohyes]

The thing I really love about magic is that so much of it boils down to “I practiced for years and developed a seemingly superhuman ability to manipulate this object”.

I really relate to this because despite being at least ostensibly “gifted” my entire academic career, almost all of my professional success has been because I have been willing to climb steep learning curves at the expense of hours of my life and extreme frustration.

In short, I can relate because I too practice a type of “up close” magic which few people can even appreciate.

[fenomas]

A good specific example of this that isn't widely known is the "muscle pass".

It amounts to holding a coin in a classic palm position (dead center of the palm), then spending several months strengthening the palm muscles and developing a callus, until you can propel the coin a foot or so without noticeably moving your hand.

Random video demonstrating:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sJJNULXJT0Q

[osullip]

That's also a trick

Edit: but look, it's a good one. A little bit of reality mixed in so it looks cool

[gkoberger]

“Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.” - Teller

[tralarpa]

Nice, I didn't know Teller writes package.json files.

[JdeBP]

Kostya Kimlat comes to mind.

[troupo]

Those beady little eyes! https://youtu.be/SCFXV6o7cro?si=T7TCSHAkHvkcI2SX

[theshrike79]

FYI the si= part is a unique tracker added by Google to track who clicks the link you shared.

You can, and should, remove it to not give their graph more data about you.

[JdeBP]

I can just reiterate my prior comment:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCFXV6o7cro&lc=UgyhehHF9YBGF...

(-:

For M. Kimlat's own commentary and someone else's particularly insightful comment:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49CSV2w0i0g&lc=UgxqIy_Vgt37q...

For the time spent on prep for the second appearance:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5VTb7fesN4

[lisper]

> so much of it boils down to “I practiced for years and developed a seemingly superhuman ability to manipulate this object”.

Amateur magician here (but a magician member of the Magic Castle, so I know a few things). Manual dexterity is certainly a useful skill, but it's just a tiny part of the art of magic. You can be a consummate sleight-of-hand artist and still be a mediocre magician, and conversely, some of the best magicians don't use particularly difficult sleights. The best example of that I know of is Dani Da Ortiz's routine on Penn and Teller Fool Us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KcQt0z-eE

Now, Dani is in fact a master at sleight-of-hand, and so one would think that you are watching a masterclass in sleights, but no. There are a few sleights, but they are not particularly difficult, beginner-level. I could do them, and I'm not particularly skilled. The trick is based almost entirely on timing and misdirection and psychological subtleties.

The degree of psychological subtlety in top-level magic continually blows my mind. The best magicians make it look like magic even when you know how the trick is done. Dani's trick is a consummate example. The performance looks like chaos, but in fact every detail is meticulously crafted and serves a purpose. It's almost like watching a dance.

[incone123]

" The best magicians make it look like magic even when you know how the trick is done. "

Agree with this. I remember being the 'skeptic kid' at a birthday party long ago. The magician involved me in a trick everyone could figure out but it was done with charm and I was completely delighted.

[zvr]

You are absolutely correct.

When teaching this whole routine, Dani spends much more time on the psychological background and nudges that are used, rather than the physical card manipulation techniques.

[lisper]

Yep. I am blown away not just by Dani's execution of this routine, but also by its design. It is a true thing of beauty, with layer upon layer of subtlety that most audience members will never appreciate because they don't know it's there. It is deliberately hidden. It has to be. Being hidden is an essential part of its function. Which is why I always try to seize the opportunity to raise awareness of this sort of thing among muggles.

BTW, if you are a Castle member, Carl Hein is currently doing a routine in the Library Bar that is IMHO in the same league Dani's Fool Us routine. We took some friends of ours to the Castle a week ago and Karl absolutely melted their brains. They're still talking about it. :-)

(And if you're not a Castle member but are in the LA area, contact me privately and I can set you up with a guest pass.)

[crooked-v]

That reminds me of a few episodes of Fool Us where they gave the prize to the guest because they knew exactly how the trick was done, but were literally unable to physically detect the person doing it because their skills were just that good.

[pklausler]

A learning curve is a model for how much you can learn over time. A subject with a steep learning curve is actually one that doesn’t take much time to reach a high level. It’s the subjects with shallow slopes that take more work to raise up to proficiency.

[elsjaako]

It's a bit of a fossilized error. Like "this begs the question of...", "head over heels", "sleeping like a baby", and "Have your cake and eat it too" everyone should understand what it means, even if it doesn't stand up to technical analysis.

[agos]

obligatory random mention that the last one is how they caught the unabomber.

[exe34]

No, the typical meaning of a learning curve is the path you walk up the hill - some hills are very steep, which takes a lot of effort.

[unanimous]

True, that meaning seems to be typical now. The opposite is the original meaning though.

> Scores of authors use the phrase “steep learning curve” or “sharp learning curve” in reference to a skill that is difficult to master. . . . Nevertheless, from the standpoint of learning theory, these and other authors have it backward, because a steep learning curve, i.e., a curve with a large positive slope, is associated with a skill that is acquired easily and rapidly (Hopper et al., 2007).

Source: Fifty psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid: a list of inaccurate, misleading, misused, ambiguous, and logically confused words and phrases (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....)

[rpdillon]

Everyone is talking about curves, but no one's talking about how the axes are labeled.

Based on common usage of the term learning curve, I had thought of it much like a power curve where the y-axis is the amount of cumulative effort you have to put in to reach a particular point on the x-axis, which measures mastery. Sounds like the official definition is effort on the x-axis and the total amount you've learned on the y-axis, which would indeed invert the meaning from how I've understood it.

[exe34]

Yes, but most people can hold two competing definitions in their head at the same time!

[InsideOutSanta]

Overlooking your comment, I sanction your opinion.

[khazhoux]

Jason Ladayne is a great example. His card control is unreal: https://www.youtube.com/user/CardMagicByJason

[Fezzik]

Feels like the perfect thread to re-link to my favorite card-trick movie - Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants. Not only is he a deft card manipulator, but he is a great story teller with a vast knowledge of magic history.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z7InE1zXAY4&pp=ygUfcmlja3kgamF...

[IAmBroom]

Ricky Jay was legendary, on the level of Houdini, and a gift to Hollywood as an adviser and occasional (but good) character actor. As good as he was at cards, he admitted others were better - but none beat him at throwing cards into targets. The man could probably have assassinated with a poison-laced deck, no lie.

He took on a young "partner" (mentored a student, but without admitting it), and presumably taught him much in his last years. Hopefully nearly all.

[sqircles]

Jason is phenomenal. There is absolutely no telling how many hours he has had a deck of cards in his hands.

The foundations of card magic are certainly out there, and for me knowing how the fundamental slights work make it that much more magical to see it performed at such a level. No different than having played a sport makes spectating that much more interesting and appreciable.

[CSMastermind]

Saw him live in person and I couldn't see a thing, no clue how he was doing it.

I've seen other famous magicians live and up close you can catch move or notice things but he was pure skill.

[itsthecourier]

what's your favorite speciality?

[fsckboy]

>willing to climb steep learning curves

fwiw, learning curve theory relates how much learning you get through time or episodes of experience. a lot of learning from a small amount of experience (easy to learn) means you will slide quickly down that steep learning curve. a shallow learning curve implies that it takes a great deal of experience to learn.