Cards as Weapons

by Ricky Jay

The author of the critically acclaimed Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women, a nationally known sleight-of-hand expert, movie actor and magician extraordinaire, presents a stylish parody of self-defense books that demonstrates how ordinary playing cards can be used as a means of protection. Photos.

Genres: Magic, Nonfiction, Humor, Martial Arts

94 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1977

About the author

Ricky Jay (born Richard Jay Potash in 1946) was an American stage magician, actor, and writer.

Born to a Jewish-American family, Jay is considered one of the most knowledgeable and skilled sleight-of-hand experts in the United States. He is notable for his signature card tricks, card throwing, memory feats, and stage patter. At least two of his shows, Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants and On the Stem, were directed by David Mamet, who has also cast Jay in a number of his films. Jay has appeared in productions by other directors, notably Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights and Magnolia, as well as The Prestige and season one of HBO's Deadwood as card sharp Eddie Sawyer.

Until recently, Ricky Jay was listed in the Guinness Book of Records for throwing a playing card 190 ft at 90 miles per hour (the current record is 216 ft, by Rick Smith, Jr.). Ricky Jay can throw a playing card into a watermelon rind (which he refers to as the "thick, pachydermatous outer melon layer" of "the most prodigious of household fruits") from ten paces.

Reviews

[Maritess · Rating 1 out of 5]

I LOVE MAGIC. I eat breathe study travel suffer experience ecstacy for magic.

So, I'm like, oh wow cool! Cards as Weapons! Awesome!

My mentor has it in his magic collection.

I open it up. Ricky Jay is famous, but not so famous when I first saw this book 16 years ago.

So

I open it up.

And.

It's

Ricky Jay this huge fat slob surrounded by chicks in bikinis. Page after page after page after page after page.


It was unreadable and offensive, even to my Las Vegas dulled sensitivity to porn, misogyny, and strip clubs. It was too gross watching this grotesquely fat slob guy drooling over these chicks in bikinis. I really really tried to look at a page and start reading but it was just way too offensive.

Yes, Goodreads is a public forum, yes, I expect any moment now for anyone in the magic fraternity to print out this page and show it to Ricky Jay and then I'm going to get a call sometime in the future and we're going to have it out.

I

Say

BRING

IT

ON

This discussion has been a long time coming.

[Mimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting subject, humor falls short to a point where it's just obnoxious.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious! And informative! And dangerous!

[Alaris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me 20 years, but now I finally know that I actually prefer the Thurston method :)

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely dated (scantily clad women with boorish attitudes towards them) but an informative book for me early teens. It's silly and very fun.

[John Norton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Using the techniques described in this book, my son threw playing cards so hard they stuck into the wood paneling of our gameroom. Enough said.

[олег]

хорошая книга

[Jim Leckband · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my most treasured skills is throwing cards. It has won me numerous accolades, astonished friends and made my enemies cower in fear. All of this I owe to reading this book and spending my high school years throwing thousands of cards all around my house. My mother and my cat were not amused. But, boy, I was.

[Jeff Youngstrom]

My review from November 26, 1995