None of the lies were harmful.

I picked up my journal and attempted to unpack the revelation.

I am not interested in fooling people. Or at least that’s why I’m so uncomfortable performing as a magician. It’s not about deception. It’s about the deception of truth. To know illusions is to know reality. How can we know what’s true if we can’t recognize what’s false?

it wasn’t until I saw a series of clips of Orson performing stage illusions on one of Walt’s VHS tapes that I realized he was an accomplished conjuror.

Walt was also confused by my aversion to the spotlight. “What’s the good of learning this stuff if you never show anyone?!” he said, trying to reason with me. Even those closest to me didn’t understand: Concealing my talent was the performance.

I had convinced myself to make the pilgrimage by giving myself outs along the way:

The Expert at the Card Table. Written and published pseudonymously in 1902, it contained a large section on card cheating techniques followed by an equally large one on card tricks of the era.

this would become a regular exchange between us. She’d ask me to “do a trick” and I’d reply, “Not today.” We both appreciated each other’s commitment to the bit.

Virtually all of the techniques that magicians and cheaters “share” come from the world of the cheater. For hundreds, possibly thousands of years, magicians have taken tools from cheaters and offered little in return. Or, more likely, cheaters didn’t want what magicians had to offer. It’s not that the magician’s methods are inferior. It’s that they