Latest / The Magic Guys / The history of Cardini! #260

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The history of Cardini! #260 · The Magic Guys

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They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.
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Ladies and gentlemen, how we doing? And our fellow robots.
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I don't mean to, you know, exclude the AI that's starting to watch these episodes, I'm sure.
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I'm Josh Norbedo. Welcome to episode 260 of the Magic Guys. To my left,
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we have the handsome doppelganger, Nick K.
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Hello, friends. I'm Nick K.
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Okay, and speaking of robots, could you kindly stop attacking my website?
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It's been down for a week, and you keep attacking it, and then my developers
0:40
keep going in there and fixing it, and then apparently it got hacked,
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and there's 30 plugins that I didn't ask for that keep it in circulation, and it just won't load.
0:50
And so, yeah, like, whoever, like, and I said, like, is it someone?
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They go, nah, man, bots be like that. Bots do it like they just, people make bots.
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They just want to see the world burn. And I'm like, oh, cool,
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the best $10,000 I ever spent.
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$100,000, Bitcoin.
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Anyway, that was silly. I'm getting my coffee. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah, get your coffee.
1:16
I've already got my liquid fluel for those early adopters of the podcast.
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It is great to see everyone here in the chat live as
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close to live as we can get and herbert thank you for blessing our episode with
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the demon 666 donation where would we be without that let me give you give you
1:37
an applause today thank you brother thank you for that 66 i like it you know.
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If we just had a million people give us six dollars
1:47
and 66 cents then you
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know i too could try and buy three houses
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like nick but you know we can't all
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be that lucky i'll tell you what
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i would do like i would if we if we
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actually had something to the extent of like our patreon is
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crazy and we've got millions i would put together like
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a magic guys convention and i
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think that would be so rad you know interesting and
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herbert you would you would have a vip ticket everyone
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else has to pay still absorbent amounts of money to
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attend but um yeah it'd be
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fun that would be fun to have a magic guys convention what would
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it what would it look like like what would be a
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unique point it would be educational in in
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the highest possible way it'd be highly entertaining
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i'd like to make it a multi-day event and
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whoever lectures like that day does a
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live interview that evening so i think it'd be cool if we did like a live broadcast
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of the magic guys podcast at a maybe like a pub or something where like we can
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all eat and drink and then that way every time i say i'm in a band we genuinely get to have shots.
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Yeah right there should be a band playing like
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throughout the convention so every time you say it like you could
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literally run into the band and play a little yeah well
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anyone could any we could have a band there so that anyone can jump in and be
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part of the band so that they can now forever say i used to be in a band i'm
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pretty sure we've spoken on discord and identified there's a few magic folk
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out there who do play other instruments and we thought yeah it's totally possible,
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what about the idea of like
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the convention having some variety show where
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any like a like a like a stand-up like
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how people would go to like a sign-up stand-up show like anyone can have one
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minute on stage and there's like this friday night anyone who comes like signs
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up or everyone who attends has to perform for a minute that could be ah that
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could be now you're talking yeah yeah yeah i.
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I remember when I was in New York, there was a karaoke bar out there in Green somewhere.
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I can't remember what the area was called exactly. But we went there for a drink
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and the rule was, if it's your first time, you have to sing.
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Like you have to sing. And so, yeah, but it was great. I was there with our
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good friend, Bo Kramer. He and I sung some Book of Mormon stuff.
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Really, really fun time. But yeah. Book of Mormon, yeah.
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And I think bringing it back to magic, isn't the i've
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never been but the 4f convention you have
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to be invited and approved and all that but
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you the requirement is you must perform the first
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time you've attended you're attending right um the
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close-up convention that's um you have to prove that
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you're actually you know good and going to contribute to the group by being
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there and stuff yeah i think it takes yeah didn't derek ostilvani explain how
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that kind of works like you need someone to vote like to nominate you and then
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back it and it's like it's a
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bit of a process but man i would love the privilege to be invited to a 4f,
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Just as experiences and just to be among that type of company,
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I think that would be phenomenal.
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Yeah, apparently the next one is in New York or maybe they're all in New York. I don't know.
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The next one is apparently. I don't know. But it doesn't matter because we're
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going to have the, obviously the Magic Guys convention will be much cooler. So. Yeah.
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I don't know what we'd have. We'd have to have it in the States.
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We would have to. Really?
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We'd have to. Why don't you finally, because hear me out, if we have it in Australia,
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everyone else has to travel. But the good thing is everyone's like money doubles coming here.
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So yeah, everyone becomes an instant millionaire coming to Australia.
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The magic guys come in where you're a millionaire already.
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Yeah. No hair, but a millionaire. That's a good one. Yeah.
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And then you can get, you can pay for our $3 a liter fuel prices right now, which is great.
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Although I don't mind. I have a Tesla. so eat it yeah
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how does it feel being a tesla man i feel
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so smug i'll be honest because i get a lot of like you
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know crap for for being an ev driver and i've had the car for like three years
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right and it's so funny because like it's either like people will attack you
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to be like well you think you're saving the planet you think you're being good
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and i just say back to him i go no i bought it because it's faster than the
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porsche i was going to buy and they go oh and i'm like yeah,
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And they don't push back for that.
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And the other side of it is like, people...
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Will tell me how bad they are. Tesla's a bad man. And I'll just go, yeah, yeah, cool.
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And then they'll tell me blah, blah, blah. And they go, you ever,
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you ever, you ever been in one? I go, yeah, I own one. And they go,
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what do you think? I go, best car I've ever had.
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And they go, really? And then all of a sudden they just like,
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because I didn't push back on anything I had to say, it's just really weird.
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I don't know. It's, it's, I don't know, Knox, what do you do?
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But I mean, it's, it's had its ups and downs with how people feel about it for sure.
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But this has got to be one of those moments where like you can just coast through
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the petrol station like just do a lap and then drive out like slowly like oh
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cool i'm just getting milk i'm just getting milk in a snickers bar and then
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i just keep going oh i'm almost empty i guess i'll go home and plug it in,
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you know like it is just but real talk if if we were to plan something,
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far away away so everyone had a lot of time is it's something you would and
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we promised to make it cool like not well you can would you no no yeah yeah
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would you what is it something you would travel to australia for if we held
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some kind of magic guys convention um,
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Anyway, let us know. Nick, what are we doing today?
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Buddy, it's been a while since we've had a little look back on history.
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And if you know me, and I know I do, you got to know where you came from to
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know where you're going.
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And this is someone that I would like to talk about today that I did my diligence
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on some while ago. It's kind of an old report.
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And you know what? I'm glad I took a little bit of time at this because as much
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as I tried to find information on this cat, there wasn't a whole lot out there.
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This person was very, very quiet and very particular with their privacy.
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And I think that obviously with this particular person starting their career
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way back in the early 1900s, the documentation wasn't sort of all that great.
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But erroneous of that, he led a beautiful life and there were some wonderful
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lessons to be learned along the way that are so far from the way we currently
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conduct ourselves in the magic realm that I thought But I would sort of go,
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you know what, let's not fluff it up and try and make this a purposely long episode.
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Let's talk about what this wonderful person had to offer to the magic community
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and what we're to take away from it and then discuss it with a little bit of
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time at the end of the episode.
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And that person is Cardini.
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Welcome Cardini to the show.
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Kind of like a zombie. Yeah.
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It's funny the black head gaffer comes out like doing with fans.
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Wow yeah that would be hilarious it's hard to believe that we're a fism winning
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podcast and we fool around as much as we do but we do take the scene very seriously
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so friends jimmy let's let's begin i have some very interesting dot points and
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things i want to talk about.
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Enjoy the ride now the journey with our friend gardini
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begins in 1895 where
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he was born richard valentine pitchford he
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was born on november 12th 1895 in
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britain and right away the thing about this origin story is that nothing screams
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legend like there is nothing to do with like him having any sort of like theatrical
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dynasty he has zero magic magic lineage there was just like nothing in the early
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time frame sort of explaining that this young boy, like he's just with this ordinary name,
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goes on to become one of the most important figures in magic.
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Now, through his sort of childhood years, which I affectionately called the
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quiet years, there's no documented evidence of Pitchford being a child magician either.
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Like there's no reports of him performing at school, nothing to do with him
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like studying books obsessively or being mentored by any particular a magician
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or visiting magic shops, there's just nothing of the sort in any of the material
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that I looked up on this amazing performer of ours.
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But the absence of this is kind of important because unlike many magicians whose
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lives are shaped entirely by magic, Cardini appears to have had a very standard education,
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come from a working class upbringing, and was just a very normal.
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Unremarkable kind of childhood but if magic exists in his life during that time
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it would have sort of changed the course that he was on i believe.
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And the reason is this, even though magic wasn't around him all that much as
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a child, one thing that was very common in that era was card play.
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Folks played with cards all the time. They played cards at home,
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in pubs, at social gatherings, whether it be bridge, gin rummy,
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all manner of sort of games, right?
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And I guess I was kind of the same when I think about it, you know,
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like I used to play this Greek game called Ex City.
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The Greek listeners out there would know exactly what that is. It's a tough game.
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I crush at it. So, while he may not have been doing magic per se,
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he almost certainly grew up comfortable with cards in his hand,
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which is a very subtle but crucial distinction.
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Because the magical journey for Cardini begins in 1914 when World War I begins.
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And that's where everything changed because Pitchford joined the British Army during that time.
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And this is the true beginning of the cardini
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character that's about to evolve it wasn't actually
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evolved on stage but evolved in
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the trenches so during the years of
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1914 and 1918 which
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the great war happened during long periods of
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waiting in combat pitchford began practicing cards and manipulation
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and he didn't do it to entertain crowds he did it purely as something to do
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and something to focus on something that he had control of and the thing was
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that while being in these trenches during this awful time it was freezing cold.
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And as we all know as card magicians, when your finger's cold,
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you can't be handling the deck of cards all too well.
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And so this is where the kind of, what's the word I'm looking for here?
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Like the quintessential essence of what Cardini does, he practiced wearing gloves.
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And which then later evolved in him performing with these beautiful white gloves doing manipulation.
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So him wearing gloves was never a theatrical choice. It was purely practical.
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And in doing so, he trained himself to perform slider hand under conditions
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that would ordinarily cripple most magicians.
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Now, Josh, we've done a lot of gigs, my guy.
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How many times have you done gigs outdoor?
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Yeah right i'm about to this week
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go to new zealand for my sister-in-law's wedding and
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of course i'm going to do some magic as as
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my sort of gift to the wedding and the cocktail hour
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and i'm looking up the temperature it's going.
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To be a maximum of 15 degrees that
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day and so i'm literally going
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to have to try and channel some kind of cardini yeah when
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it's that cold it's just awful because there's
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no moisture in your hands and everything is
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just you have to go back to basics
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you can't do your cool you know dps's and
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your whatever second deals like you can't not that
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i do them anyway but it's everything is yeah
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brought back to basics i can't even imagine trying to
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do all that with gloves to begin
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with have you experimented with gloves like while
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been in character costumes or anything honestly only
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only once where i when i
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did my very first show because i came from the streets
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and then put it into a theater i carried that with me and then what
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i did was i had a buddy of mine who just quit his job
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and was unemployed and so and what
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i loved about him is that he looked homeless and so what
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i did look homeless he just looked homeless he
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was just that type of guy that like loved a beer and wore
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white and then basically had like you know like a beard it
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was quite scruffy looking and so what i
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did was i thought it'd be funny if
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i hire him for my show because i needed a stagehand so i paid him to do my show
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and i put him in a suit and gave him white gloves and then i would and then
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basically he would just come out like i give him a six pack every show he would
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pound the six pack and then just like we would do these quips throughout the
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show and be drunk and i explained like oh please give it up for mr pitley he's my.
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You know like i found him on the streets he's been down in his luck but i've
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given him a job And what happens is like at the end of the show,
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I pay him with a sandwich.
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And then like, I do this whole revelation and in this like box at the end of
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the show, like I open it up and inside the sandwich, I then give him the sandwich.
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And then inside there is like the ring walnut type of revelation.
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So yeah, like, and during that time we had white gloves, I tested it.
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Trying to do the slides at no no it's like first the first thing is that the
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gloves would have to be tightly fitted you know if there's slack in the gloves
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you're not feeling anything and you're not,
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like maybe some coin work maybe like
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if they're tight at least you could do some things but like you
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know grabbing a double lift for example it's gonna be impossible well
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one benefit of having the back
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palm is that when you go into back palm you've got these white
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windows but when you've got white gloves in the equation you've now
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got a bit more of a safety net to blend in
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white art yeah white art yeah
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yeah so it's yeah
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it's an interesting interesting way to approach it but another key
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factor that was sort of influential with regards to
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his card work was that he became obsessed
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with this feat that was attributed to houdini and
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it was the ability to like palm an entire deck of cards like
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having the entire deck and doing that but like with an entire deck which i just
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failed so the beauty of what his approach was to magic wasn't about like chasing
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tricks he was about chasing the limits of what can be achieved with a deck of cards now in 1916.
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Pitchford was wounded in war and had to spend
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time recovering now i tried my hardest to find out
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what caused this the exact nature of the
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injury was not documented and very much keeping in line with cardini's sort
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of long life privacy so but what is documented is that during his recovery he
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practiced and he practiced and he practiced relentlessly and this becomes a
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defining theme for his life where he practices relentlessly.
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He didn't let the trauma of his injury stop him and he didn't let any disruptions
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slow it down either. In fact, he allowed them to sharpen him.
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And that's the key to this story. So post-1918, he was returning back to the civilian life.
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After the World War, he attempted to establish himself as a British variety
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performer in their theaters. And here's the important thing.
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He wasn't great. And it didn't work immediately.
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He wasn't an overnight success. He performed under several different names.
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He experimented and he refined.
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So this is not a fairytale rise. It's a grind.
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A big one at that so much
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so that he actually in the early 1920s became
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a local boy and pitchford flew all the
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way well when he flew would have gone on boat but he came all the way to australia
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instead of performing on variety bills now this chapter matters more than people
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realize and that's because he treated australia as his development lab where
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he performed for smaller crowds tougher crowds which josh and i can attest to
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right josh oh mate let me tell you.
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Tough oh my bloody australians
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oh the aussies they're a tough crowd yeah
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they love to be relaxed and not give an f but um
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they'll let you do your thing you know so but you
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got to prove yourself it's it's this and they're
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right and if they give you a bit of a hard time and
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then you make it through you've earned your straws and now
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you're all right you're all right you're one of us near you're right they love
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to it's a very like uh pick on your mate culture so if you can like include
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the people in the group and make or open a tunnel where they can make fun of
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their friend while the effects happening but it's,
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helps the effect be stronger that's like your gold area if that makes sense
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it sure does it sure does fat so let's move on yeah so thanks baldy.
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So it's here in oz where the act started
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to become tighter and everything that was unnecessary was entirely
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stripped away and this is where the name cardini begins
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to emerge that name is important
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because it doesn't really promise like mystery
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in a sense but what it he believes is that
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it promoted skill and that's the fun thing
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so before he was cardini he actually worked under this name which was val raymond
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perfectly acceptable stage name sure but didn't really hint what was coming
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and then once cardini arrived that's where all experimentation stopped for him with regards to.
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Names it's you know it's pretty clever talking
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about marketing you know like cardini great
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coinini that's still open for someone to claim double crossy double crossini
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um that's that's available spongini sponge donnie sponge donnie well that's
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very niche because that's just sponge dong manipulation I guess rubber beanie,
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Was it, didn't Randy Marsh on South Park do cock magic and he called himself
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something? Could you look up where we called him? Oh.
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On the sidebar and we'll check back in on that one. What was the guy's name?
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Randy Marsh, cock magic. Look that up on South Park and he's got a stage name.
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It's particularly funny. And I'll continue with the story and we'll circle back to that one.
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Because in the mid 1920s, whilst he spent some time in Australia,
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he then decided to travel to Canada.
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Our friends to the north continuing to perform and refine and this is where
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his act undergoes the most important transformation he stops trying to impress
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and starts trying to be believable which is a little interesting way to approach
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it but let me let me explain i was in bandini.
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Okay the well it says in south park randy marsh performs under the name the amazing randy but,
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right that's funny i mean the amazing randy's already a taken up name but yeah
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that's but i guess he means randy as in like rain like i'm feeling randy or
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i don't know well yeah and And his name's Randy Ma.
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He did dick magic. Like, basically, he does a whole lot of stuff with,
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he's doing kind of like zombie ball stuff with his wiener. Like, he's doing all kinds of.
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Yeah, it's a good act. You should watch it. Yeah, you'll see it in the next
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history lesson episode.
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Yeah, when we do the amazing Randy, guest appearing on South Park,
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he performed his signature cock magic pieces. Moving on.
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Now in the mid 1920s, of course, moved on to Canada and started to just focus
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on like polishing, polishing, polishing.
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And it was during that time that he met Swan Walker, his partner.
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Swan becomes his wife, his assistant, his manager, and his protector,
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which is a very interesting thing to say.
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We have a beautiful picture of Swan Walker, which we'll throw up for the guys
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watching on YouTube in a moment, but it was Swan who helped him with the pacing,
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the consistency, and the presentation of everything he did.
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And many historians on this matter say that without Swan Walker,
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Cardini's act would not have remained as perfect or as perfected as it did.
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And that's because she was really diligent on doing it repeatedly and polishing
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and polishing and polishing.
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When I looked into their married life, I didn't find a lot. I tried to see if
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they had protégés, if they had children.
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They had no kids, no protégés. All they had was each other and the work.
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So later in the 1920s, Cardini and Swan then enter the United States.
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And this is where everything clicks.
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Now, American audiences have seen magic but what
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they've seen was like mainly someone trying to
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maintain attention and boxes
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and whatever else but you know try to make things look rather large but cardini's
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character was different because his character locks into having the tuxedo he
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wore the white gloves the top hat and he had this slightly unsteady posture
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to him as well like it was this interesting way.
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I think we can probably play that act in the background, Josh,
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while I sort of explain how this kind of works, but...
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So for the guys on YouTube, we just have that playing ambiently in the background
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so you can get a better idea of this sort of character.
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But the gloves were like, from being necessary, now became this like miracle
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amplifier because the fact that he could achieve what he's doing with the gloves on, it's phenomenal.
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You can see just now in this opening clip that he's got, his hands look enormous.
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Like they don't look to me like thin, dainty gloves like a butler would wear.
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That actually look like quite large winter gloves.
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And one of the beautiful things about him is that like I mentioned earlier,
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where he was trying to become believable, he's constantly surprised by the magic
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that's actually happening.
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So I'll allow you guys to watch that as I continue with the story.
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So in the 1930s, this is where he kind of hit international fame.
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Sorry to interrupt, but that was a very astonishing production he just did.
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Look at this. He's just shown his hands fully open. Ah, it was here.
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And then he's like, all right, cool. And then he turns back and look at that.
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Now he's just got a full deck of cars again. Scope it out on YouTube. Anyway, sorry, Nick.
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Yeah, not at all. For me, this next portion is remarkable, how he goes up. He's holding a cane.
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And as he runs his hands up the cane, he just produces this fan of parts. What the fuck?
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Yeah, so he has a silk in between his fingers.
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In between his like ring and middle finger he's showing his hand both sides
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and then producing fans like it is just insane.
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It's, yeah, as old as this is, and this is, yeah, it's just so good. Look at that.
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And the other notable thing here is he doesn't talk in his whole act as well.
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He just rocks a monocle, a cool ass mustache, and just does split fans and crazy, crazy stuff.
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It's just gorgeous. And so in the 1930s, he starts to receive international
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fame and becomes a headliner across the US, Europe, and major theater circuits.
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His manipulation is mainly done with cards and cigarette, and it is regarded as unmatched.
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But here's the key difference. He never rushes.
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Magic appears after a joke, after the attention drops, and when the audience
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thinks that a portion of it's over, the magic then reappears.
26:33
You can see it now just with his vanishing, like the shrinking deck,
26:37
like it keeps shrinking, shrinking, shrinking.
26:39
And then he walks into the fan and his face hits it. Like it's just magic happens around him.
26:43
And it's just delightful to watch.
26:47
Now, at some point in the late 1930s to 40s, he considers the act to be finished.
26:53
And he stops changing it, which is kind of radical.
26:57
He doesn't try to make any bigger climaxes he doesn't add
27:00
any new props flashy endings he just
27:03
stops and his notion
27:07
is this that perfection doesn't need
27:10
updates it loosens the illusion
27:13
and he just has no interest in doing that so all that happens is all the chaos
27:19
that you see it's just highly rehearsed and the casualness of it as he performs
27:24
it is just all very precise and the way it's supposed to be so he stops trying
27:29
to improve he just starts to polish.
27:32
I mean even then that's a really nice take of actually doing so on the video
27:36
he's currently doing single productions and fans which he's dumping into his
27:40
assistant's receptacle which is a newspaper just folded in half that's actually
27:44
quite a nice way to to do it yeah,
27:47
and look at that just yeah he just ended and like that was kind of it yeah it's interesting yeah.
27:57
Yeah got so Mike has a question yeah which is do you think it was do you think
28:04
you had to work harder now or then to make it big as a magician it's a good question,
28:12
I I my theory is
28:15
that you know some people might say like oh the market's bigger
28:18
which means there's more people I don't really see it
28:21
that way I feel like there is a lot of there's a
28:24
lot of anything nowadays but what's good is good and what's
28:28
great is great and i think that like whatever is
28:31
exceptional will rise to the top so i
28:35
think i think you had to be quite exceptional
28:38
for your name to travel around further than
28:41
just your city right like when we think right now how many magicians we like
28:48
we could probably name 30 let's say but if you were to say name your favorite
28:53
magicians from the early 1900s you might think of three so.
29:00
It's yeah it's probably harder to like have a unique point to stand out back
29:04
then like and that's why you had the name houdini or cardini or you know whatever
29:08
but maybe there was like a lot of,
29:11
a decent amount of magicians making a living that
29:15
for all we know did really well and were just in their
29:18
town you know putting up the posters you
29:21
know doing four shows or whatever i totally
29:24
agree like there's folks like there was a don allen who like had
29:26
his own house as a theater and he would invite people over he was kind of
29:29
the creator of the like the the floating
29:32
ball and so forth and he would create that and you
29:35
know like nobody knows this cat but his story is
29:39
phenomenal and what he created is phenomenal and i've been meaning to write
29:43
a history lesson on him but i want to get his book and i can't because it's
29:47
out of print and yeah i'm just trying to find someone who's got it and i'm gonna
29:50
have to pay for like a 300 us dollar privilege to get that book but it was Teller
29:54
who put me onto him and who helped actually produce that book.
29:57
And it's quite a story in itself, but I will touch upon that at some point.
30:01
So it is that type of thing that like, just because you're known somewhere,
30:05
like, I mean, how many of us would know who Babel is if it wasn't for the illusionist
30:09
sort of releasing a thing, being like this guy.
30:12
Does this you know 100 and
30:16
and maybe also that's why they didn't have
30:19
to change their act because they weren't being seen
30:22
online only if you saw them in person could
30:25
you actually see their act and if they're touring around.
30:28
America which you could do constantly forever and
30:31
always do just by the time you've
30:33
gone to every city it's been so long you can do it
30:36
again you don't have to change your act i
30:39
suppose you know what's what i'm realizing
30:42
more and more throughout like the years is that
30:45
if you are like an amateur magician you are
30:48
constantly learning stuff because you have your family
30:51
as an audience for example and they want to see new stuff new stuff new
30:54
stuff and i really envy like that freedom to
30:57
constantly do new stuff and not worry about like refining and perfecting
31:00
and perfecting but then i find that like the higher
31:04
up the echelon you go as being a professional like you just
31:07
do the same act in and out i mean how many of us have seen copperfield
31:10
do his thing to the point where it's like he's just going through the motions
31:13
he doesn't love this anymore like he's just you know
31:16
yeah same i don't
31:19
know i mean it depends who you think of right like i think
31:22
blaine's always working on new stuff that he's interested in right different
31:27
different kind of performer but yeah that's tough i mean personally like where
31:34
are you at now with magic like for me i'm still like i'm playing around the
31:40
stuff today that like moves and and.
31:42
Finesses that i'm excited to try out at my gig tonight not new big premises
31:48
but definitely new bits to me that that i think will enhance the stuff i'm doing
31:54
but like where are you at right now are you sort of like.
31:58
Me personally, I am at the point now where I finally have a forum of having
32:02
the theater of magic, which both Josh and I perform in different sides of the
32:05
planet, but having that, yeah, it's the best, but having that forum allows me
32:10
to actually, a lot of the ideas that I had.
32:13
I now have a means to perform, like to actually start creating and working on.
32:16
Like it just, if there was no point working on stuff that I was never going
32:19
to have a forum to perform it in, but now I do.
32:21
And so like I am scripting and scripting and rewriting and shortening and tightening
32:26
and doing everything I can to get this act like as tight as possible because
32:29
a lot of the stuff that I have the privilege of doing.
32:32
I won't only be doing it at the Theater of Magic, but I'm also doing a Melbourne
32:36
Magic Festival show as well, like a deeply personal show.
32:39
And so everything I'm doing is like, you know, to that extent.
32:43
And even just last night, Toby, who, you know, Toby Trinh, one of our great
32:47
helpers and does things for the Theater of Magic, you know, he's great at stagecraft
32:50
and scripting and so forth.
32:51
So I've run all my scripts by him and he's helped me polish and polish and and
32:55
work on stuff even adonis was like this week was
32:58
sending me scripts to like cross check with him and whatever else like
33:01
it's one of the things that we do and i think that's where i'm
33:03
at right now it's like you got so many
33:06
years to get like your ideas
33:09
on paper and you've got so much budget to make
33:12
those ideas come true as well and that's where i'm at
33:15
so like i'm not done creating i'm not done making pieces of
33:18
magic that people will talk about so yes
33:21
perfect so you're still in a place where you're
33:24
excited about working on new things trying new
33:27
stuff implementing ideas you've had and i
33:31
think like don't you think that's pretty important for longevity and magic like
33:35
you have to enjoy the stuff you're doing and be interested to try new stuff
33:40
to keep that fire ignited in you because and i think that's exactly why we don't enjoy doing.
33:49
Like the classic bought tricks you can buy that automatically get you a reaction
33:54
from an audience because then there's just no invested fun in us learning it
34:00
or you know yeah our own version or,
34:03
yeah i'm failing or whatever having to be present yeah
34:07
where's barker refers to those guys as lunchbox magicians where
34:10
you just put their you know their juice box they're
34:13
this they're that they open their lunchbox and they just perform bits out of it you
34:16
know and right well look i mean everyone i
34:19
think it's fine to start like that too by the way like you need
34:22
to learn how to you know get going and
34:25
just the craft of it like they're great
34:29
routines to do to get yeah but but if you
34:31
but if you only do it like nick saying lunchbox magician
34:35
let's say like you're gonna get either you're gonna spend just so much money
34:39
because you're always churning through the next thing that's out but also i
34:43
think you're gonna get really bored and and that sucks I think yeah it's it's
34:50
I don't know like no people.
34:55
No one's ever outshone the original no cover band is ever
34:58
going to outshine the original band like that's that's the
35:01
thing you know so for example even yesterday
35:04
we were in a jam session and we were discussing shuffleboard where
35:07
you know your shuffle cards face up and face down and so forth and
35:10
i don't like it and i'm
35:13
like but i want to i really want to like it i really want to like
35:16
this premise so i said like could you guys like
35:19
show me as many versions as you know and we'll discuss it and
35:22
like i'll just try to think of something to come up with like there's something in
35:25
that that's like needs to be good because
35:28
one of the things that i think that people do is that when they want to create something
35:31
they take something like that's that's perfect
35:34
like the invisible deck like it's an amazing you don't even need to
35:37
do anything better than that but they want to make that better and it's like
35:40
why do that like it's already good and after seeing mario lopez in his lecture
35:45
he was like stop trying to make good things good make the bad things good like
35:50
this is a boring trick but this is my version of it and now it's amazing i'm
35:53
like it is man And it's sick, you know?
35:56
Like, I don't like counting tricks. I don't like counting tricks.
35:59
So I had to come up with one. And now I love this trick because it's my counting
36:04
trick and I love it, which is effectively a shuffle to memorize deck.
36:08
But it's a counting trick.
36:10
And i love i i love that now but that is the thing
36:12
like i need to find out like why don't i like it what's weak how do
36:15
i strengthen it and i think that's a good place to be creatively and
36:19
it's not somewhere you get to immediately either right and
36:22
in the coming months you know with regards to
36:25
this level of creativity we will invite our friend eric you house back
36:28
whose book i'm currently proof proofreading which is
36:30
all about creativity and there is several nuggets in
36:33
that that we'll share yeah and and it's like everything
36:36
from like the guys from mind to mind to you
36:39
name it like there is so much knowledge in that book about creativity but it
36:44
doesn't it doesn't even mean you got to be original you know half these guys
36:47
say that like it just needs to be something that like is personal or delivered
36:53
and sometimes breaks character you know so think about that but.
36:59
These are things to learn and speaking of learning cardini had
37:03
no students no apprentices no
37:06
proteges nothing no publishing system
37:09
nothing instead all he wanted to do was become a benchmark that was it and others
37:16
judged him on his own terms and some people judged him but he was just like
37:19
nope i'm doing my act and that is all and didn't share anything of it and then in the 1950s and 1960s,
37:26
he became this living legend because as he got older,
37:30
as we all do, start performing less frequency.
37:33
Not because the demands fade, but because his act said everything it needed to say.
37:38
He was performing less to avoid overexposure, explanation, and dilution.
37:44
And so he protected his work by withdrawing from the scene.
37:49
And so that was between the 15s and 60s. But then, sadly in 1973 Cardini dies
37:57
on November 13th of that year 1973.
38:04
Gotta keep it light you know like it's
38:08
a celebration of life it can't always be sadly i
38:12
agree it was a good life he lived to a very
38:15
healthy wholesome 78 years old and
38:18
he died one day before his 79th birthday so it's it's it's almost serendipitous
38:27
for a man who was so obsessed with timing does someone learn his gloves is that
38:32
a thing that went to auction or did he just question,
38:36
and i did not learn that cardini gloves i mean it's copperfield if anyone does right but,
38:42
yeah i wonder i wonder he would have had so many he wouldn't have just had like
38:46
one gross manky pair of gloves like they would have been.
38:50
I wonder if, yeah, imagine like getting a sponsorship deal for gloves and I
38:55
wear gloves for everything I do.
38:57
Like when I, when I mountain bike, when I race, when I work out,
39:00
like I wear gloves all the time, like in everything I do, especially when I'm renovating, my God.
39:05
Yeah. I got big scratches, but otherwise, nope.
39:09
Demolition gloves are the best. I love them. So as far as his legacy goes,
39:13
Cardini leaves behind no children, no students, and no unauthorized versions
39:17
of his act. It's just his one perfect act.
39:20
And his influence remains everywhere in manipulation, in pacing,
39:24
in restraint, and also in this character-driven magic.
39:28
He proves something uncomfortable.
39:32
Magic doesn't need to be louder. It needs to be truer.
39:35
And so Cardini didn't try to amaze you. He just trusted you to notice.
39:41
And decades later, we still notice how amazing it really is.
39:44
And that's the cool story of our friend Cardini.
39:50
Just looking online, it does say that some of his items have been sold over
39:56
the years to private collectors and such.
39:59
One of which, apparently, it's saying Joshua Jay has displayed a pair of Cardini's
40:04
white gloves during lectures and things.
40:08
The Magic Castle has an exhibit of Cardini and has some of his artifacts and memorabilia.
40:15
And it's saying that there was a final pair sold at an auction for $26,400.
40:24
Wow.
40:26
So yeah i guess the thing i didn't think of is obviously
40:29
he didn't just own one pair of gloves forever he would have had
40:32
a few so yeah a few different pairs have
40:35
been sold over time even his monocles i would
40:38
love to see that exhibit at the the magic castle hey
40:41
i imagine that's maybe a like if you're a member you get private access to that
40:46
kind of stuff perhaps oh i'm gonna have to pull some strings when i go there
40:49
in july then see if i can get some love yeah yeah yeah shout out to jeff your
40:55
first live viewing of the magic guys live welcome welcome jeffo,
40:59
yeah oh we got friends in we got friends in tassie as well our good friend gareth
41:03
bell who's saying it's a very balmy 15 degrees there what's that like eight
41:07
fahrenheit yeah well that's where herbert is too our good friend is 666.
41:12
Yeah so how much will josh's invisible comb go for you son of a bitch.
41:20
So here's what i'm curious like here's a very interesting takeaway
41:23
from from this particular life lesson is that like sometimes what
41:27
happens during life like really tends to shape the outcome of it
41:30
and it's so fascinating that like what would have been the most awful experience
41:35
for most men in that era going through a great war to like it's shaping what
41:43
he's like known for because i I don't really know anyone else who notoriously does a lot of, I mean,
41:48
like Lance Burton does a little bit of Manip with the gloves,
41:50
but they come off pretty quickly to produce the birds and so forth.
41:52
But it's just fascinating that he had a whole career with two acts effectively.
41:59
Like I'm like, one Manip act with cigarettes and one with cards.
42:03
Like it is kind of staggering that if you just focus on that level of perfection
42:07
again and again and again, you know, like it is, there's something remarkable.
42:13
I was asking, do you think there was any secret within the gloves,
42:17
like any roughing or holdouts or clips or? Yeah, that's a great question.
42:24
I mean, you'd be crazy not to take advantage of the fact that you can modify gloves, right?
42:31
You know what? If there was, it would certainly be known, is my feeling.
42:36
Like, the fact that it's not documented, I'm going to say, like, no.
42:41
Yeah, like, people own the gloves, so they would notice things, right? Yeah.
42:46
But some of those moves, like, I'm just going to run that video while we're playing.
42:52
Because like like they're legit uh some moments here where i just have no idea what's happening,
42:58
yeah like where was that was it
43:01
this one like that doesn't make you oh that was a steal yeah yeah there was
43:06
one before it that just made no sense and this is like yeah that was crazy right
43:13
and then this is the the steel this is my favorite one that's so smooth but let me just go back,
43:19
because what the hell happened? What? Oh, no, it was before this one.
43:22
Okay, here, right? That's a back bomb. That's like...
43:28
So he he throws it for those just listening so
43:31
he's here he throws and then
43:34
he fans again but he brings it here and he does it yeah yeah it's just like
43:39
obviously this is a 10 000 hours thing he's practiced so much it just catches
43:43
you off guard and obviously he's got the black and white uh filmed in yeah but
43:49
how he runs then with his right hand he does this wavy empty number,
43:54
right like like see you later to cards toodle ooh and then as he runs his hands up the,
44:01
up the cane he then produces another
44:04
fan and that's that's sick and the silk so now he's he's clipped it while like
44:11
he's stolen it into a back clip yeah but even though the silk is through his
44:16
hands he's still able to palm cards back and forth back and forth wow so nice.
44:23
So that that seems to be a big secret of his is he he was able to do all these,
44:28
unconventional movements with stuff that aren't typically
44:32
taught with car manipulation flawlessly like even
44:36
to achieve what he's doing without gloves is crazy and
44:39
you know obviously manip has come
44:42
a long way you know nowadays they've got there's uh what's it called like flesh
44:47
colored cards in the back right so that you know when you have your hands like
44:51
so or even black-hearted you know cards as well so you know there is there's
44:56
a place for all this but this is the thing like it's yeah it all kind of started yeah,
45:01
here like it's cardini's niece i i i heard a rumor that cardini's something or other,
45:10
is affiliated with the magic castle as well some like tech giant and i tried
45:15
finding who it was but i couldn't seem to find find anything on it so i was
45:21
trying to affirm what i was told,
45:23
yeah that's interesting well look talking about talking about performing and
45:28
stuff can I share a little gig story with you guys.
45:33
Okay awesome let me just I just keep watching Cardini so I'm just going to close
45:38
it so I don't get distracted and let's do a little gig story,
45:43
so gig stories is a section of the show where we talk about magical moments
45:48
either while our day to day or while performing and we have a story from Josh boom,
45:54
this is surprising that it's the first one I've
45:57
ever done but I did a bucks party last week
46:01
i've never done one before not because i choose not
46:03
to but because they never want same with hens parties they never want to pay
46:09
my fee it's always a small budget because it's like the friend of the person
46:13
getting married but this i guess was more of a maybe an upper class type of
46:18
bucks like they had a private chef coming in to make them all these,
46:22
courses of dinner in in like their home and so i guess they wanted a different
46:26
experience with all their, with all their friends and they hired me. And I'm like, all right.
46:32
So the situation is I'm going to have nine dudes seated in a semicircle.
46:37
I'm going to come in and I got to make this more entertaining than if they'd
46:43
hired a stripper, essentially, like, let's be real, you know?
46:46
And so it was kind of interesting to think about.
46:49
So just food for thought in case this helps anyone like I got the the best man
46:55
of the groom who had hired me to just give me all the info he could about this guy,
47:02
And he found out like the date that this guy met his girlfriend that he's marrying,
47:08
you know, like, so the date they started dating, you know, he gave me a few
47:12
little anniversary dates, found out what his hobbies were.
47:15
And then essentially when i once i
47:18
got to the show i just tried to make it as
47:21
much about that guy as i could so
47:24
for example when i rocked in i knew
47:27
he was a massive fan of the brisbane lions which is
47:30
a footy club here in australia and nick
47:33
i love where this is going i love that you have gloves on okay hang
47:37
on let's just stop my story for a second i want to see how possible this is
47:43
here we go oh my god going here alright we got some gloves on these are brining
47:47
gloves oh that was yeah that was quite quite an expose on how back climbing works.
47:57
You know what if those gloves were
48:00
white it probably would look way cleaner right this is purely for educational
48:05
purposes do you have any illusionist black tiger decks or whatever they're called
48:09
I don't have it oh wait I don't suck that bad oh it's kind of worth it so it's
48:16
possible it's not great but it's possible okay keep going,
48:20
hell yeah no um yeah i just did some research and it was just really fun to to like think of a show,
48:29
about making it about that one person so for example instead of doing omni deck
48:34
where the deck at the end of the routine disappears in into a glass deck or
48:39
joshua jay's version with the single plastic see-through cards, we...
48:47
I just keep watching Nick producing cards from his gloves. You know what you
48:53
have to do? You have to, like...
48:55
Make a video where you're riding on your bike and
48:58
maybe you've got the person filming you on the bike next to you and
49:00
you just start producing cards while riding that's and you could do the steal
49:06
from the handlebars yeah hell yeah anyway long story short i knew his favorite
49:13
team was yeah this this brisbane lion so i ordered a deck of their trading cards from.
49:19
Last year, which they actually won their season.
49:24
So they're like really nice holographic cards. And I have a card rounding,
49:29
I have this card rounding device.
49:32
So I was able to actually cut them to be the same roundedness of a deck of cards.
49:37
So they looked like a deck of cards when I put one single card on top.
49:40
So at the end of the routine, like I've done this multiple card find and I have
49:45
his card and I'm like, look, let's do this as fairly as possible.
49:48
Everyone crowd around and I
49:49
I've done a deck switch and Sean Farquhar's version for anyone interested,
49:54
and that knows that and I put his playing card
49:56
in there's like a bicycle card on top and bottom
49:59
so it really just looks like as fair as it could be
50:02
that the card's going in right I steal the bottom
50:05
one out put the cards in his hands I like take the top card you
50:08
know guess what it is and it just so happened to be I
50:11
remembered the card that was on top was a
50:14
card that was picked by someone in the group so i did
50:17
like this timing force and i'm like say stop
50:20
boom what card did you pick before oh i grabbed out
50:23
his card that you just chose which person's card
50:26
should it be anyway small miracle i got excited about that but then i was like
50:31
look there's one easy way we could find your card and that's if it was obvious
50:34
and we got rid of all the other cards and i asked them what they did earlier
50:40
that day and they're like oh we went to the pub and we watched some footy and.
50:45
What the fuck do I just see on my screen right now? Nick, are you seeing this? Yeah.
50:53
I can't even finish. Hang on. Okay, let me finish my story before we freak out.
50:56
That's crazy. That's crazy.
51:00
And I'm like, I get them to say what they did earlier that day.
51:03
They're like, we watch footy. I'm like, oh, you like footy? He's like,
51:06
yeah, I love footy. I love the Brisbane Lions.
51:08
Like, oh, that's okay. In Brisbane Lions, they did well recently,
51:12
didn't they? And they're like, yeah, they just won the season last year.
51:15
And I'm like, okay, great. So if we can make these cards turn into the Brisbane
51:18
Lions, that'd be super an easy way to find out which card's yours.
51:22
Anyway, because it was something that was relevant to him, it got a way bigger
51:27
reaction than any Omni deck or Vanishing deck could have gotten.
51:31
And it was just a lesson and a reminder to me because that like stopped the
51:35
show for that moment because it was so personable to him.
51:40
All right, anyway, who cares about that?
51:43
David Rose, please explain yourself because this, you've just donated hang on,
51:48
this doesn't even do it justice yeah $500 $500,
51:55
This might be, we were having a conversation yesterday about a new book.
52:01
So for those listening, we have a Discord.
52:03
And on the Discord, we decided to create a book club. And just to talk about
52:08
what we're reading, I had Thieving Bastards from Andrew Wimhurst arrive the other day.
52:14
And Dicer, who is their username,
52:17
was talking about needing a book for the
52:20
Ross Johnson book that's just come
52:23
out on on march 8th which has been on everyone's radar it's a very expensive
52:26
book and the last post that dice has said was you're going to need an extra
52:32
big donation for the podcast tomorrow and here we are wait so that because wait
52:40
who needs the book that's expensive,
52:43
or you do oh well this is right so you said i'm gonna need some i didn't say
52:49
that i was like i I was like, I was looking for the book.
52:51
I'm like, where is it? And then someone said that you're going to need,
52:54
Dicer said that you're going to need an extra big donation on the podcast tomorrow.
52:58
And I'm wondering if that is where this is from.
53:01
Yeah, this is right there. He's saying the Ross Johnson book.
53:04
Right. Okay. So he's basically sponsoring this book to come into existence.
53:11
Okay. I understand. Jeez. Well, let me just put it out to the universe. I need a Tesla.
53:18
I need a Tesla. I need a Tesla, 60 grand Australian, I think, let's just say.
53:24
And, you know, I don't know, we have a podcast next week. I just want to put that out there.
53:30
David thank you so much for your kindness we for those listening I
53:33
will be ordering the book now and we'll be
53:36
discussing it on the discord we can so we
53:39
haven't quite figured out how to do it yet but my intention I think is to
53:42
do a video chat for if those want to
53:45
you know just learn about the book we'll talk about it we'll
53:48
you know do a little back and forth sometimes weeks
53:52
are busy and we don't have opportunities to read through the chapters in a single
53:55
week and then the intention is that whoever has read it
53:57
we can talk about it so david i
54:01
i'm i'm lost for words i'm staggered and your kindness is
54:04
beyond anything that we have ever experienced here
54:07
so thank you dave thank you
54:10
that's phenomenal my goodness this is staggering wow that's crazy it's so crazy
54:16
my dogs are even excited about it yeah so much well let it let it be known that
54:22
david holds the record for the highest donation on stream for now. So, you know.
54:30
Is a title that if anyone wants it no we're not we're not greedy like we do
54:36
it's it's it's really crazy like we started this box out with zero intention
54:40
of taking from anyone and all we ever wanted to do was to share share share
54:45
we share knowledge we share history we share interviews,
54:48
if you guys anyone is on the discord like we share scripts we
54:51
work on so much to you know and over
54:54
the years that we've all been this community we've seen guys from being amateur
54:58
magicians to getting their first gigs to building their first websites and so
55:01
on so like it's so great to see that and yeah it is very cool to receive that
55:08
love back it's unexpected and not needed to any degree but
55:13
we're receiving it and we appreciate it so thank you very much that could be the final word.
55:21
Yeah well we just gotta wait if
55:24
you can rehash that in in about 90 seconds that
55:27
would make it like a fantastic final word well
55:31
okay well oh and and herbert don't feel
55:34
redundant it's 506 dollars
55:39
and 66 cents was the total from this stream 100 you hold the fifth highest amount
55:47
i want to say on the stream big deal it's a big deal yeah so it just happened
55:53
i genuinely And you're a part of us.
55:57
100%. We did, you know, we did used to have a Patreon and stuff back in the
56:01
day, but we just found it was, you would get more value out of this if we just
56:06
put more time into this rather than half time put into this and half time put into it.
56:11
Because when we did the Patreon, if you guys remember, our public episodes were only 30 minutes long.
56:17
And then the Patreon episode would be 30 minutes long. And although we could
56:20
talk about stuff more openly and methods and stuff, you know,
56:24
it meant you're only getting,
56:25
half the episode here so we thought back then it made sense to just give you
56:30
an hour every week and everything's just available to everyone and the community
56:34
is all part of it at the same time yeah in saying that the cost of living is going up so.
56:43
We may have to carve that down a bit and hide
56:46
some behind a paywall but not with people like david here no
56:49
just kidding we love you all and the
56:52
patreon oh got busted mike the patreon was valuable af
56:56
to a lot of peeps well thank you you know what we're not
56:59
we're not opposed to bringing something like that back
57:02
we'll talk about it in the discord it because
57:05
it is time consuming for everyone like you have to
57:08
consciously make an effort to join the jam sessions you
57:11
know we have to be available for it and find a
57:14
time that works for everyone and you know there's a few moving
57:17
pieces but goddamn it was fun we'll see
57:20
what happens so yeah yeah and before we wrap up
57:23
look we're trying to do things where we can have a bit more of a presence on
57:25
the discord as well just to sort of solidify the community that we
57:28
are yeah like i mean for me
57:32
once things free up i'm in the middle of doing renovations and so forth
57:34
and i've got to run off now to to let tradies in to do stuff etc etc but like
57:39
once everything kind of settles it would be great to do like after pod hangs
57:43
that's kind of one of the things i want to lean into for us you know even if
57:46
just for an hour which ends up being five every time i say that which is you
57:50
know the way it is but all good Friends,
57:53
let's wrap this show up. Next week, we have a guest, right, Josh?
57:57
Is that accurate? Is it J.A. coming?
58:02
Let me have a look. Oh, yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right.
58:05
We have a guest. Ooh, big guest.
58:08
Requires a big donation. No.
58:10
We'll see you guys next week. Love you all. Peace, love, and grow that hair, baby.
58:17
Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now.
58:23
But we'll see you again on the next episode of the Magic Guys.