Juan Tamariz, the godfather of close-up card magic
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
As a spaniard, I think this is a great way to put it.
It's not that we consider him a clown, or aren't aware how extraordinarily skilled he is. It's just that he's got such a one-off charismatic personality that your mind ends up classifying him as something separate from reality.
There's no need to set a stage or act like he's an otherworldly being. Tamariz just strolls by looking like he's just out of bed, casually defies physics laws, says goodbye and walks away, because he's Tamariz; in the same way that the Roadrunner can keep running through the drawing of a road because he's the roadrunner.
It's just the nature of things.
This one from 2022 for Penn and Teller is amazing: https://youtu.be/5_KcQt0z-eE
At the point where he’s tearing up a card, it’s chosen at random and he’s just taking the <2% risk that it won’t ruin the trick
I get what you're saying though. I get why you're saying it.
He's very good at what he does, and it's hard to spot in real time. Amazing card scanning, too.
(start around https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KcQt0z-eE&t=229s )
It's random in the context of the trick, it's not like he specifically chose that card because he knew he could avoid it later
On the other hand, Penn was asked to name a card which was then shown, an alternate card destroyed, and the named card shown again. If a further name a card was attempted on the 51-card deck, you'd have the chance of naming the destroyed card.
Thank you. I agree. I am happy as well to call him my friend.
A form of entertainment, playing with deception. Deception's expected in the act, but not, perhaps, in other parts of life. I hope you share a strong ethics.
My kind play with words. I wish we shared a stronger ethics.
At a surface level, magic is a form of entertainment that plays with deception.
The Spanish school of magic (which is what we're discussing) deeply relies on psychology, that has nothing to do with deception.
It involves the fundamental aspects about how humans behave. That is useful in all aspects of life, and has nothing to do with deception.
For some reason I'm not very interested in magic and I don't especially like being fooled. But this... this is well beyond anything I have ever seen. So thanks for that.
Right after the guy to his left said 21, Dani made a cut, so Dani knew exactly where the middle of the three cards he gave Alyson was, because he knew how many cards he gave to the two guys on his left and the other guy on his right. Dani made sure Alyson never shuffled her cards and only reversed the order when she put them one by one in the deck.
There’s a significant number of magicians worldwide that have learned Spanish just to spend time around Spain and around other Spanish magicians.
Are you also spaniard or just into the topic?
Tamariz is still a big influence in the magic scene of course, but DaOrtiz and his Villa Kaps seem to be expanding the circle at a faster pace for the next generation.
(Not Spanish, from Puerto Rico now living in the US, and very much into the topic. =) )
Plus many more.
If you are learning Spanish, technical/science books share lot of Romance origin words which already exist in English, so half of the road it's paved to begin your learning path.
Found this one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=alfwdvQaLIE
New to me but I'm a fan.
Friends comment: TV did not do any justice at all to to the man (except, the tv execs could see his genius), as everything was 'rushed'. When something went 'wrong', live, he had time to react to the situation. The reaction had people on the floor and unable to breathe - for minutes, and minutes, and minutes.
By the way - it took my friend about 20 minutes just to explain nothing happened for twenty minutes, he was laughing so hard.
"The trick with the egg..."
The thing that really strikes me about this article is how the magician's philosophy of his art is so similar to what I've heard Armando wax poetic about: He studies neuroscience and psychology, has contributed to brain imaging studies, and seems irrepressibly fascinated with learning about complex subjects... not so much in the service of magic as out of a staggering intellectual curiosity. Magic is just his ideal vehicle for synthesizing that knowledge. It's unbelievably impressive, like watching someone who's thinking in the Assembly Language of the human brain.
The explanation of this 10 minute act using a non-gimmicked deck of cards is 3 hours long. https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/card-magic/dani-daortiz-fo...
Anyway, thanks for being a $upporter.
After the show, he went down the stage, set up a table in the middle of the venue and asked people to gather around him for a couple of more tricks --obviously this was also part of the show. Those days smoking cigarettes was allowed, and he managed to put some cigarette ashes inside the closed hand of my girlfriend while doing his thing. I was at, what, one meter from him, and knew he was doing something that was not related to the card trick but couldn't for the life of me guess what it would be. He doesn't stop talking, joking, guides your eye to where he wants it to be, throws decoy tricks to make you thing you got him, but then the trick is somewhere else... also a very nice and charming chap.
If someone deserves to be called a "magician" it's him!
That, however, doesn't diminish Dai Vernon's or Erdnase's contributions, but yeah, not a competition.
I don't see why we can't celebrate someone for doing something without having to mention everyone else who's also done something. No one is diminishing their contributions but they're not the topic of the article. If you want to write an article about them, I'm sure someone would be happy to publish it.