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Review: Entertaining 'Anomalies' from Ricky Jay



"Jay's Journal of Anomalies"
By Ricky Jay
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Non-fiction
216 pages

By L.D. Meagher
Special to CNN

(CNN) -- Did you hear the one about the man who walked on the ceiling? Or the one about the recreation of the siege of Antwerp by an army of fleas? How about the story of the Aztec Lilliputians?

You've heard of them all if you happened to subscribe to a quarterly publication by Ricky Jay, the acclaimed sleight-of-hand master and chronicler of the arcane.

If you missed "Jay's Journal of Anomalies" at your corner newsstand, relax. Jay has collected sixteen issues into a handsome book of the same name. In it, he recounts the exploits of magicians and hoaxers, performers and prevaricators of all stripes. There are ingenious dogs and duplicitous bison, women who float and machines that win at chess, and a cadre of dieters who would make Jenny Craig weep with envy.

It's evident from his descriptions that Jay loves his subjects, even the ones who preyed on the gullibility of their fellow citizens. Why else would he devote an entire essay to the centuries-old tradition of cheating at bowling? And his compassion for the aforementioned "Aztec Lilliputians" (in truth, a pair of handicapped children from Central America) is clear in his account of their exploitation at the hands of European and American promoters.

Decapitating a goose

Jay has a special reverence for conjurers and illusionists, in particular those who create tricks that enter to standard repertoire of magicians through the ages.

"The decapitation illusion," he writes, "was performed for Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid. The magician, Dedi of Dedsneferu, severed the head of a goose and placed it at one end of a great hall, far away from the animal's body. After the appropriate words were uttered, the head and body moved toward one another, in a funky, pre-Rufus Thomas waddle, until they were united and the beast 'cackled with joy.' " The story serves as an introduction to an equally venerable illusion -- cutting off someone's nose.

Insider knowledge

Though not as comprehensive as the earlier "Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women," "Jay's Journal of Anomalies" is presented with the same level of meticulous research and droll narrative.

Whether paying tribute to Isaac Fawkes, the Houdini of the 18th Century, or tracing the connection between an automaton chess master and the invention of the telephone, Jay imbues his prose with an insider's knowledge of the magical world and a scholar's mastery of original sources. Even the footnotes are fun to read.

"Jay's Journal of Anomalies" is lavishly illustrated and beautifully presented. It is as much a feast for the eyes as it is a delight for the mind.



 
 
 
 



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