K.101
Die DoubletteThe Double Lift
“Show them the same card twice and it becomes two different truths.”
K. u. K. Akademie für Kartenkunst · Wien I. · Gegründet 1911
LEGERDEMAIN
An academy of sleight-of-hand, one flight above Café Miramar.
The coffee is downstairs. The truth is negotiable up here.
Auditions Thursdays at dusk · Admission by invitation, or by nerve
Über die Ethik der Täuschung
“We lie with our hands precisely so that we may lie about nothing else. The audience signs the contract at the door — deceive me beautifully, and tell me nothing false about how it felt — and for one hour everyone in the room is honest about being fooled. Nowhere else in Vienna is that arrangement available.”
— Rudolf Marek, „Der Uhrmacher“ · founding address, 11 November 1911
Erster Akt · The Standing Rehearsal
The deck rehearses nightly.
Four flourishes from the house repertoire, performed by fifty-two employees who are never paid and never tired. Call one.
Zweiter Akt · A Demonstration, Free of Charge
Das kleine Orakel
Twenty-one cards. Choose one in the privacy of your skull — don’t touch it, don’t name it, don’t tell the café below. I will ask three small questions; answer by touching a pile. Then I will tell you what you are thinking.
The table is being prepared.
The method is honest arithmetic; the feeling is not. That difference is the entire curriculum.
Dritter Akt · Lehrplan, Wintersemester 1911/12
Semester I. Three lies, taught slowly.
Enrolment is limited to twelve hands per course. The café below has agreed not to listen.
K.102
Die VolteThe Pass
“The cut heals itself so quietly that even your own thumbs are not invited.”
K.103
Das FaroThe Faro Shuffle
“Eight perfect shuffles return a deck to the order God dealt it. We stop at seven.”
Semester II — die Forcierung, das zweite Geben, das kalte Spiel.
Face down until you can find the Queen without our help.
Vierter Akt · Das Kollegium
The faculty keep their stage names.
Court cards age better than faces. Turn one over.
Der Uhrmacher
Rudolf Marek · Rektor
Studied watchmaking in Prague until the day he understood that a pass is only an escapement for the hands. Has not been seen shuffling since 1904 — decks simply arrive in the order he prefers. Teaches the Volte, and the ethics seminar, in that order, on purpose.
König ♠ · Rektor
Madame Coeur
Odile Brandt · Professorin für Nahsicht
Performed forty consecutive nights at the Ronacher without ever using the stage — table to table, sleeve to sleeve. Insists the double lift is a matter of breathing, not fingers. Grades kindly; deceives more kindly still.
Dame ♥ · Nahsicht
Der Kassier
Jakob Fenyö · Dozent, late of Budapest
Kept the books at a card room on Andrássy út until the mathematics became more interesting than the money. Can faro a borrowed deck while wearing gloves. Teaches shuffle theory, and the tram schedule of quiet exits.
Bube ♦ · Mathematik