Michael Shum

“I had been accumulating elements of a gambling story for as long as I can remember. One pivotal moment, although I could hardly have known it then, was when I saw an episode of the ABC show That’s Incredible in third or fourth grade. They had a blind dealer on as a guest, and his trick was that he could separate a 52-card deck into two smaller decks, one containing all the royal cards, and the other containing the rest, just from quickly feeling the weight of each card. The especially haunting aspect of his performance was the fact that he made one error—a ten, I believe—which is a card that has almost the same amount of ink imprinted upon it as a face card. I held many, many small experiences such as this in my subconscious that finally emerged when I was composing Queen of Spades.”
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