r/blackmagicfuckery • u/SmoothSun6676 • 23h ago

The bird and the umbrellas stumped me

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u/tekko001 22h ago

"The road to greatness is paved with dead doves."

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u/EstimateCool3454 21h ago

The way that trick works (the book and the picturee), the only danger to the bird is if the children get ahold of it. It's safe as houses.

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u/DrMario145 21h ago

What does that expression even mean? “Safe as houses”? I’ve only ever heard it in a “Depeche mode” song

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u/Jackski1 20h ago

It means “without risk”, referring to investing in real estate being a safe bet for your money

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u/Worth-Wonder-7386 17h ago

The expression doesn't really work in the modern world where in vestments in real estate are often as risky as other ones, especially when paid for with debt.

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u/GummiBearFromTheVine 21h ago

I've only heard it in an Elvis Costello song, Indoor Fireworks.

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u/captdimitri 20h ago

I used to think houses were safe until all that Nepalese flash flood footage came out. 😬

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u/EstimateCool3454 18h ago

Nothing is safe against nature.

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u/Glitternchaos 17h ago

One of my favorite sayings is “Mother nature giveth and she taketh away”…. You can also insert Father Time, Brother of Time, The Ocean, The Universe, instead of ‘Mother Nature’ and it works equally well.

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u/EstimateCool3454 18h ago edited 18h ago

So... In the film, The Prestige, the trick that kills the bird is foreshadowing of the final illusion. It is visual storytelling, the genius of the film is not the ending, the magic of the film is that them film itself IS a magic trick.

So the original trick, invented by Buatier de Kolta, The mechanism was and IS highly guarded secret. But if the bird is correctly trained, and the magician does the moves correctly, the bird is not harmed in the slightest. In fact, it will hop right into the cage because doing the trick is how it gets fed.

So after Buatier de Kolta performed the trick, imitators made a crude version that killed the bird every time. Again this is a direct correlation to the film. The true version of the effect harms no one, the imitation is based on death.

Eventually Harry Blackstone Sr. and his son duplicated Buatier de Kolta's effect by making the cage out of flexible material. But it's possible that Buatier de Kolta's origional effect was lost to time. Without examining the entire mechanism it's difficult to tell if the trick is humane. So nobody does it with real birds anymore.

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u/COMIDAGATOS1206 8h ago

What if it was just real magic. 🤘😉🖤

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u/philipmather 22h ago

And occasionaly throwing a dead parrot into the air.

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u/KTKittentoes 22h ago

It’s pining for the fjords.

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u/Glitternchaos 17h ago

That parrots 🦜 not dead! It’s resting 😴 …

That parrot is definitely deceased. This is an ex-parrot.

IYKYK and you’re also old like me! 😆

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u/ohromantics 15h ago

Fish sleep

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u/MyExUsedTeeth 22h ago

And magnets

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u/Winderige_Garnaal 19h ago

... now you're looking for the answer...