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  • The Paris Review

    Ricky Jay, the Magician with an Edge

    by Michael Chabon Feb 12, 2019 3 minutes

    Ricky Jay, one of the world’s greatest sleight-of-hand artists, was also an accomplished author, actor, historian, and renowned bibliophile with a library to envy. He died on November 24, 2018. The essay below is adapted from a speech given at a recent memorial service in his honor.

    Still from the 2012 documentary Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay

    The first time I saw Ricky Jay perform was sometime around 1976, on . Ricky was beheading roses and puncturing watermelons with one of the simple playing cards that, in, into thinking that I really knew something about the magician’s art. The greatest of the many kindnesses he ever did me was to not hold it against me when he fairly quickly discovered that I was, in that regard at least, a charlatan.

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