The Place: New York
The Year: 2015
The Setting: Underground subway
The Characters: Cranky middle aged lady, Nikolaj and Tobias
The Why: Cardistry-Con 2015
A funny-looking lady turns around and looks at the boy. Her snap beanie makes her look like a retired detective. Or like an auntie that never grew out of her young clothes. She narrows her eyes and inspects the young gentleman’s hands, which seem to be holding a peculiar object. A rectangular shape that he seems to be playing with. Though her glasses are for her bad eyesight, it’s her hot breath that stops her from seeing what the boy is manipulating. A few seconds later, after the glass clears up and the subway passes by, she sees the cards. They’re being shuffled, but in a way she has never witnessed before. In a way that feels unnatural. Quite strange. It bothers her. It intrigues her. It makes her feel rather… uncomfortable.
And that’s when it happens. A thought appears. A question combobulates which she can’t hold back. Which she won’t hold back. And that’s when she says it.
“WHO SHUFFLES LIKE THAT?”
Noel Heath once told me that cardistry seems to have all the elements to be turned into a folk story:
It has De’vo, an anonymous villain-like figure who organised world championships, blindfolded cardists and took them in the forest where he had them go through physically demanding cardistry-challenges, the same guy about whom people speculate on forums that he is a retired army general, owns a gigantic villa and has Playboy-like women fancying about, Hefner-style.
Then there are the prodigal twins, Dan and Dave, who appeared on the scene to save the artform from its demise and establish it into an emerging artform.
The “traitor” who sold the most popular cardistry forum to the money chasing Goliath “theory11”, splitting the community up and dooming it to never have another forum where it would gather.
Ok, maybe I’m over-dramatising, but it was an interesting point of view Noel had.
Cardistry has been through a lot of waves. In comparison to magic from which it emerged, it has always had a fairly small following, but a big enough one to end up pushing card printing companies to make cardistry-only playing cards, to have cardists appear on TV, or to have multiple annual gatherings (CC, CXP, CC ASIA).
Because the community is smaller, when a new figure or team appears on the scene, it can really influence the whole community. We’ve seen it happen with the Buck Twins, The Virts, the Danes and the Fontaine Fam. And it’s moments like these that make everyone in the community feel like they’re inside of the beating heart of the artform.
And while I have been here since the late stages of Decknique, Kevin Ho has witnessed, been one of the reasons why and has actively participated in the development and spread of the artform, inspiring many through his work with the Buck Twins, changing the artform together with the rest of The Virts and still continuously creating projects that help the community come together and flourish.
WE SHUFFLE LIKE THAT
With the loss of Decknique, the reddit sub-forum has become the only place where cardists gather. Sadly, most of the community was not there, but rather on Instagram or hanging out in smaller groups on Tinychat or Skribbl.
Every growing art form needs a place to gather and comment, express themselves and critique, praise and build together. It’s essential to have a platform where everyone - from veteran to newcomer - can browse and find information. And Kevin has tried to fill this gap with two projects : WHO SHUFFLES LIKE THAT and STEAL LIKE A CARDIST.
I remember reading through WSLT back in 2015 when it popped up. Since Kevin is Kevin, he managed to pull in key people from inside the community and have them write up articles for the website. I’ve always thought cardistry was lacking in theoretical material. Of course, we had “Hold My Brain While I’m Shuffling” by Dimitri Arleri and “Exploded Process” by Matthew Beaudoin (both French), but both of those are physical books, which makes it hard if not impossible for future generations of cardists to have access to this material.
So, when I saw the website go incognito and heard from Kevin that he had lost his domain, I was really put down. If there was someone that could unite the whole community and create a place where we could all gather, then Kevin was that person. And, at that point, the dream of seeing this happen felt less and less possible.
YOU SHUFFLE LIKE THAT
MUSIC ROLLS IN: Uplifting, pumped up, motivational
PAN OVER TO KEVIN: Close up on his face, like really close-up. He is smiling.
But Kevin did not give up, and over the following years he has continuously brought the community together through projects such as the website “Steal Like A Cardist”, the cardistry applet “Showoff” or his YouTube interview series where he talks with veterans of cardistry about the early stages of the art form.
Now, after a decade, the marbles have been thrown, and Kevin is giving us another chance at bringing the community together under one umbrella where we can each put in the shoulder to try and create a place where future generation of cardistry can come back to and learn about their art and about the people that were part of it over the years.
So send us your thoughts. Write an article. Put together a video essay. Tell us your hot takes. And let’s build something amazing together!
About the author, Biz:
Biz. 30. 18 yrs a cardist. Doesn’t collect decks. Uses Tally’s and Bikes. Makes projects with people. Writes poetry. Follow him on Instagram @namesbiz and @bizandfriends