Sublime

Mr. Forte wasn’t a magician. He was a game protection specialist who worked with the casino industry, helping with theft prevention. And his video series had nothing to do with magic; they were educational tapes from the 1980s, produced to help educate people on the techniques used by gambling cheats.

My favorite videos were the private home recordings of sleight-of-hand legends like: Del Ray. Miller. Grayson. Thompson. These were the guys Walt referred to as “the heavyweights.”

The reveal, however, was a work of art. Jim Steinmeyer describes it in Hiding the Elephant: “One orange remained at the top of the tree. Gesturing with his wand one final time, he commanded this orange to open. It split into two sections, revealing the borrowed handkerchief tucked inside.

“A great trick, like a great song, should be an inspiration,” Jim Steinmeyer told Esquire in 2012. “It should lead you to other things that are also wonderful. That’s what happens in literature, and it happens in music, and it happens in art. But in magic, they don’t do that. They just take it. You would hope that what you do inspires, but instead

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Both [the play and the magic show] present illusions. But the play uses its illusions to point to larger truths. The magic show points to itself. The magician keeps the audience focused on the illusion. Deception is the point. What truth does deception for deception’s sake reveal? That we can be deceived? That’s not enough.