Mailbag: E.D.A.S. Evolution

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We seem to be living in the golden age of decks of cards that are made to look like other things. Legos, magic eight balls, karaoke tunes, roulette, memory games, and so on and so on. 

Do you think you caused this with your EDAS concept, or is it just coincidence, or did you just so happen to hop on the bandwagon a little ahead of its curve?

I don’t recall there ever being such a fixation on making decks that masquerade as other things until very recently and now it’s like every other trick that comes out is exactly that. I’m not complaining, I like it and it’s great for EDAS, but I’m curious what you feel your involvement has been in this. —MH

One day I was telling a magician friend of mine that I think I’m the most widely read voice in magic. I mean, if you tallied the total number of words actually read, who else in the magic world comes close?

Then I took it a step further: “You know,” I said, “I’m probably the most widely read author in the history of magic.” Not because I have more readers than someone writing for a mainstream audience. But in the niche of writing for magicians—in that narrow little corner—there might be more minutes spent reading my stuff than anyone else, ever.

As I was patting myself on the back, my friend brought up a Facebook group devoted to magic. I don’t remember the name, but I think it’s the biggest one. Anyway, he was scrolling through it, and I was reading along over his shoulder. Each post was dumber than the last. Dumb people, performing or talking about dumb tricks, in dumb ways. The way they performed, and the things they valued, were exactly the same as they were 20, 50, even 100 years ago.

So, yeah—I don’t think I’ve had any real influence on magic. Other than probably shifting the conversation towards casual/social performing, which hardly anyone was writing about before I started this site. Before that, most people wrote like their audience was made up entirely of guys table-hopping at the Magic Castle.

(I do understand that—for some people—my writing has been incredibly influential in shaping their approach to magic. But that’s a small group.)

So, no—I don’t think the E.D.A.S. concept created the current glut of non-playing-card decks you see everywhere. That feels more like a byproduct of how easy it’s become to design and produce custom decks these days.

But that does bring me to a change—or, more accurately, a refinement—of the E.D.A.S. concept and philosophy.

An E.D.A.S. display should prioritize actual decks of playing cards.

Decks that each have a curious story behind them.

After that, I think it makes sense for your E.D.A.S. display to include other card games that aren’t standard playing cards.

And after that—and long after that—you might consider including decks that aren’t playing cards or card games at all.

Currently, I only have two of those in my display: Evoke by Craig Petty and SNAPS by David Jonathan and Dan Harlan. They kind of stand out as the exceptions. And I plan to never have more than three “non-game” decks on display.

Why?

Because having a collection of interesting playing cards makes sense.

Having a collection of playing cards and card games makes sense.

But if your collection includes things like a karaoke deck, a deck of Lego structures, one with movie posters, and one showing different Rubik’s Cube orientations… then what are you saying?

“I collect small, stackable, curated data rectangles, in unrelated thematic categories, printed on cardstock."

That doesn’t make much sense. And because it doesn’t make sense, it starts to feel like all these decks were custom-made for magic tricks. Which, of course, they were. But we don’t want to emphasize that.

While any of those tricks might be fine when introduced individually, I don’t think they work when you’ve got a whole shelf full of them. That’s not really in the spirit of an E.D.A.S. display. (You get to define the spirit when you’re the one who created the concept.)