Last night we watched a terrific documentary film
about Ricky Jay, a scholar, actor and magician.
The documentary is called Deceptive Practice.
In the movie, a martial arts teacher told us about
Jay’s tremendous focus illustrating it with a story of some artifice Jay did at
a dinner with his fellow Aikido students.
The trick involved folding two one dollar bills together to produce a
two dollar bill. Everyone at the dinner
begged Jay to tell them how the trick was done.
Jay, of course, refused. Just so,
he refused on many other occasions to say how it was done. A certain mythology
developed about what circumstances it could be done or not done. The students puzzled
over how they could con Jay into a position of being unable to perform.
They saw their chance when, after a workout, they
presented Jay with two ones while he was nude and showering. The picture is priceless. Jay is roundish and gnomish with a slight speech
impediment. Still, Jay performed the
trick flawlessly. To this day, the sensei
carries around the two dollar bill to remind himself and his students about the
power of focus and of their own inability to tease out how it was done.
The story reminded me of David and Goliath. The story is well known, so I won’t repeat it
here. Suffice to say that a Philistine
giant challenged the Israelite army to single combat to settle certain
territorial claims. Goliath had been
causing trouble all during the opening skirmishes in a valley between two
mountains.
David was a slinger. Incredibly, when David told
Saul he could rid him of this pesky hulk he never mentioned the sling. Rather, he told Saul he was a bear and lion
fighter.
Goliath was accompanied to the valley by a
shield-bearer. Upon seeing David, he began taunting calling him a mere boy
carrying sticks.
David ran toward Goliath who was dumbfounded by the
move. When it was too late David
produced the sling and fired off one of his smooth stones. Goliath went down. David finished off Goliath with Goliath’s own
sword. The Philistines took flight and
were routed by Saul’s forces. The
Philistine camp was looted and many invaders died.
David appeals to us even today because he is one of
those prized people who was both a warrior and a poet. This story also shows him to be shrewd and
exceedingly blessed. David’s lineage
puts him as a direct descendant of Ruth, the Moabite woman. It’s important to note that the Moabites were
an unsavory lot. Despite his
questionable purity, David was a forebear of Jesus. David was anointed King when Saul failed.
In the case of Ricky Jay’s deceptive practice, he
depends on our slavish regard for both the usual measures of success and insistence
on believing only those things we can see.
The story of David and Goliath points to the folly of a slavish regard
for the usual measures of success and an insistence on a belief only in what we
can see.
I’m Just Sayin’,
Poppy
