There were a lot of things this year that we've been weirdly attracted to: the pictures of Nick Jonas after he repeatedly lost his shirt; Pharrell's giant beige hat (don't lie—you've thought about it), and now, just under the year-end wire, is a man who performs mesmerizing moves with playing cards. After watching it, I'm not even sure who I am anymore. He calls it "cardistry," and I think it's the closest I've ever come to wanting to marry 52 inanimate objects at once.
I googled it for all of us to make sure this was a thing, and it is. In fact, there even exists a cardistry Reddit, which describes the hobby as "the non-magical, artistic manipulation of playing cards." It also appears to be the first non-magical, artistic manipulation of my heart, which is only further tantalized by the vaguely soft core porn soundtrack in the background of this video. Seriously, though, the things that this mysterious person does in the video (half of the allure is the mystery of never actually seeing their face) will completely hypnotize you. I would argue that this is more relaxing than Netflix, and that is the thing I value most in this world.
Whoever this mysterious card manipulator is, he's been at it at least five years, and very infrequently posts videos. This must just be an early Christmas present to the internet. I hope, in the meantime, that he is using his powers for good and not evil, because we have seen a magician using his talents to get out of a speeding ticket even in this last month. I'm guessing that if this guy wanted to, he could use his cardistry talent to get out of just about anything:
Image: YouTube
