AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

A great magician left us this week.

Jerry Andrus was an incredible inventor: of card sleights, toys, and optical illusions. His performances were marked by two eccentricities:

1) He would never use a move or sleight that he had not invented.
2) He would never tell a lie. Not even on stage. He wouldn't say "The coin disappears" he would instead say "The coin appears to vanish", or "The coin is no longer in my hand."

Jerry was deeply committed to honestly, and had a rabid hatred of charlatans and fake-psychics. I remember he used to carry around an ad that he had clipped from a supermarket tabloid that had been placed by the Amazing Kreskin. Kreskin was offering to use his "abilities" to help the desperate for a price. When the subject of magical ethics came up, Jerry would pull the ad out of his wallet and fulminate.

Jerry's creations were beautiful and bizarre. Many of them depended on a single principle: that a flat surface has two sides, and the relationship between them tends to confuse the eye. He would show a board with a hole in it on both sides, reach into the hole and produce an orange. He would show a dollar bill on both sides, and then fold it, and pour out a coin.

He also created optical illusions: he had an understanding of the science of visual perception with that same incomprehensible depth that a great painter has for color. Many times he would grab me and have me stand in a certain place and cover my eye in a certain way, to see some weird visual artifact. Jerry understood that human perception was full of flaws. This was the basis of his magic, more so than fingertip athletics. "We are constantly filling in information," he'd say. "When you see a person, you don't wonder if the back of his head is gone! Otherwise you'd go crazy." He'd illustrate this point during his performances by sticking his fingers through his glasses, revealing that he'd been wearing empty frames.

Jerry was an incredibly generous man. He loved to session with other magicians, he would invariably begin with "May I show you a trick?", as if a private performance from him wasn't a great privilege. I remember him patiently teaching me his tricks when I was a total beginner. He had none of the supercilious impatience that many other greats did. He loved magic and magicians, and he wanted to share.

He burned with a raw, mutant intelligence. I never saw him laugh, or express much emotion at all: thinking was sex to him. He seemed at times to be a member of a superior alien race, the wheels of his mind constantly burning behind the impassive mask of his face.

It's hard to eulogize an atheist, he wouldn't want me to pray, or say that he's in a better place. Its best I think to say that he lived a long and full life and will be mourned by many.

Here's a clip of his "Impossible Crate". There's much more of his work on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SErHThEGTDc