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An
Interview with Ray Piatt
In November of 2005, Mark Stevens asked me to do
an interview with Ray Piatt. I didn’t know much about Ray and I
began to look through the catalogs for his products. I found several.
After a few Email messages back and forth, Ray agreed to talk with me.
It was only days before Thanksgiving and his son
would be visiting. This seemed to be an opening and we began the
question and answer with the agreement that I would call the next day
at 1:30. He began by talking about an article in M.U.M. magazine,
which had been published twenty years ago.
I hadn’t seen it and he said he would send it to me. Ray
mentioned that the picture on the cover was a portrait of him done by
the late Ed Michell. I was happy to say that I had met Ed back in the
seventies in Allentown, PA. He was very kind to a young conjuror and
had taken the time to show me his sleeving techniques. Ray and I
talked about the old Kratz’s Magic Shop in Allentown PA, I had also
met Dai Vernon that same weekend.
I found Ray Piatt to be a warm and generous man
with a sharp intellect. His knowledge of magic and magicians is
encyclopedic, stretching back to those rarified days before Doug
Henning and David Copperfield. We talked for four hours. I tried to
ask probing questions and go a little deeper into the mind of an
inventor. Like Thomas Edison, Ray has had to develop intricate systems
and make his own tools. When cornered about how things really work he
replied in a comical way, “You’d like to know, wouldn’t you?”
And I would.
It’s obvious that other people share an appreciation
and friendship with Ray Piatt, including his peers and other
professional mentalist.
"Ray
and Lisa Piatt have been our friends for over 25 years. During
this
quarter of a century, I have watched Ray become one of the
finest craftsman and creators of magic and mentalism in the
world. What makes it all
more incredible is his ability to function as such
even though he has been plagued by a debilitating affliction
for over 50 years. Ray's
penchant for excellence in both quality and
methodology has made him a well-deserved worldwide reputation.
I am proud to call him a friend
as well as a colleague. As for Lisa, she's
an angel and deserves all the credit. I don't know anyone else
who could have kept Ray
percolating through the good, bad and ugly.
Together they make one terrific team. May they have many, many
more years of creating
"mental mousetraps" (Ray's favorite title) to
tickle the fancies of magic's aficionados. Larry Becker"
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| TUESDAY |
| NOVEMBER 22nd, 2005 |
| 9:30 PM |
SM:
Do you do card tricks? Do you make trick decks?
Ray:
I don’t perform a lot of card tricks, the exception
being a few of my own. Regards
to making trick decks - oh yeah!
I have my own decks “prepared” including my own
blank, marked decks.
SM:
How do you do that?
Ray:
You’d like to know wouldn’t you? Nobody knows that
but me. I take that with me when I go.
I have a marked deck that I use that are put out by the
U.S. Playing Card Co. They’re marked. That’s a long story.
I’ve seen other marked decks and I always asked, “Where do
you put the batteries?”
SM:
What does that mean?
Ray:
Well, they’re so obvious. You can see the marks
clearly. They put a big JS down by the bicycle wheel—Jack of
Spades. That’s
not a marked deck. How dumb can one get? You would never play
cards with a deck like that.
SM:
I have the deck with the rosettes scraped off. One side
shows the suit and the other wheel shows the value.
Ray:
Yeah.
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Scarab
- Ray Piatt (Click the name of the product to
visit the product page)
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A swami gimmick unlike any other.
Secret writing has never been easier than this. This
useful gimmick is small, contoured to fit well, easy to
conceal. Black lead only. A powerful gimmick used by
famous mentalist and psychic.
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$18.00
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