Every morning when Harry Milas wakes up, he sits at his desk and picks up a pack of playing cards. He starts every day by dealing “seconds” – dealing out the second card in the deck, rather than the top card – then “thirds” and “bottoms” (just what it sounds like), over and over. He practises shuffling and cutting the deck, too. If he doesn’t do this for up to an hour every morning, he’ll be “in a mood” all day. He even takes his cards on holidays. “It’s the opposite of riding a bicycle – it’s a knife that I have to sharpen every day,” he says.
Milas is a professional magician, and, at 32, a bona fide sleight of hand expert. There are no rabbits in hats or doves up sleeves; no Gob Bluth-style pizzazz. Instead, his magic generally involves cards, dice, coins and rubber bands: small tricks he can perform both up close with one person, or in front of thousands from a stage. He also performs mentalism, or “mind-reading”: a preternatural ability to read body language and speech that usually leaves people giddy and suspicious.
