Penn Jillette (Penn & Teller) Answers Magic Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED

hi this is Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller I'll be answering your questions from Twitter this is a magic support the magicians are not supposed to reveal their secrets how do you get new magicians it's a stupid rule we could not agree more we've been thrown out of the Magic Circle and the Magic Castle for giving away magic secrets giving away magic secrets or rather not giving away magic secrets is not a moral rule it's a compositional rule when you're starting out and you're doing the trick for somebody and afterwards they say how did you do that if you tell them the whole lusion crumbles it's not a good idea to tell them when you're a beginner when you become more professional sometimes giving away a little bit of a secret helps you sell another secret later down the line and certainly when you're teaching people like in our master class or our books you'll give away secrets that's the way people learn it's a stupid rule because it doesn't exist let's see what's next Chris Hastings how often dependent teller mess up a stage illusion happening sort to the hidden shadow sorcery to make sure no one notices you know the stuff we're doing often pretends to be dangerous it's often dealing with subjects that are dangerous and therefore would be immoral to have something be really dangerous you should not go to an entertainment expecting someone to get hurt so because we work with stuff that is apparently dangerous we have to be very very careful so very rarely do things screw up at that kind of monumental level and when they do we do not resort to the dark powers we take our lumps we take responsibility we just say we screw it up next Kevin Sokka how do magicians eat glass without injuring themselves that's not a magic trick it's a geek trick there are a few things that make it easier in terms of diet and preparation which I'm not going to tell you I'm afraid if I explain a little bit about eating glasses someone might try it and it's a very very dangerous trick even done properly so don't try it what's the etiquette when a magic tree doesn't should I pretend like it worked or should I be honest it depends on how it doesn't work a lot of times honesty is a good idea but if you part of it worked get away with it and if something accidental happens to happen then they should look good well don't be surprised just go on we were doing a seance at Steven Spielberg's bachelor party and there was this one moment when I had to do a force which means the spectator thinks they have a free choice but actually you're forcing a choice upon them if I wanted you to pick the three of spades for instance I could say just tell me when to stop and when to stop and I would say right about there okay you picked the three of spades now that's a sleight-of-hand way to do a force no I had a slight of hand weighted to a force of all these pictures we had and Spielberg decided to just grab a picture and say this is the one I want now that is a major screw-up if I say I'm gonna have you pick a card and you just go give me this one well I haven't had time to force it I'm completely screwed up but Steven Spielberg happened to pick the picture I was going to force so I got really really lucky and it turned out that that trick was impossible to explain just because he screwed it up what have we got next Anthony says a serious moral question of magicians when a sick kid asks you is magic real do you tell them the truth or lie that is a serious moral question is a serious moral answer there's no such thing as magic there's no such thing as a supernatural and I don't care if it's a sick child or a healthy adult you do not lie I never ever want to leave someone believing that magic is real that would be morally wrong Darrin Gendron is going to put to question for magicians when working with a card deck how many copies the deck do you like having to work with I guess it's how many copies of a trick deck would you like having to work with it's the same question with anything how many new guitar strings you want to have around when you're playing guitar seriously fencing how quickly they wear out now roughly you play and what gage stringer using same thing with the different cars than to what you're doing if you're doing simple stuff you know it's not gonna make any difference if you're doing heavy duty you know Pharoah shuffles and this kind of stuff you're gonna want a very very new deck they all go together very nicely question or magicians will technology eventually render levitation effects trivial no you're not going to get levitation out of technology for a really really long time that's my prediction also you do get levitation you get a very different kind of levitation I used to be magicians were on the forefront of technology because communication is so good now and everybody knows technology so well you can no longer sell sell magic with technology so even if technology is able to do limited levitations the long version the magic version I believe will still be interesting at least for a while at least for my lifetime but I'm wicked old Stephen Blair there's a name I can pronounce Stephen Blair this tweet will only make sense to a few people question egytian z-- do you file the size of your debt before using it this is for real advanced cardistry stuff for someone like Richard Turner who is a card wizard not only does it matter exactly how the sides are sanded or filed but he also needs to have them printed just right now Richard Turner is blind and does everything by touch and is exact what we call the work in the deck slight little bends on the corners that he can feel the work he does with those are so subtle that his cards have to be absolutely perfect so after you get to deck of cards he does a lot of rubbing on a surface all the surface to get all the little burrs off the edges to be able to do everything right and do all the fanning and I've never done anything that complicated I do a palm I do a pass into a few other moves but I'm not good so my decks of cards can be pretty much run out of the box but yeah we're to get into heavy-duty magic with cards or cardistry you have to be you have to have them just perfect of course we're doing card cheating you got to work with every gut and how does a magician know if their invisible ink pen is out of ink when they are writing all I will say there you misspelled there oh Jesus Christ Rai Bray where did we just get those little smoke bombs they throw down to disappear I'm gonna need a couple of those today it does bring up an interesting point in in the old Batman television show not the Batman that's all all conflicted but the Adam West's Batman of the 60s they would have villains but throw down a throw down something from a runaway that's just a movie magic trick that's not done in the real world sometimes smoke is used to obscure stuff but pretty much it's one of those things that if you can think of it it won't fool you and if rye bra can think of this it's not gonna fool anybody Penny Lane how does the magician pull a rabbit out of a hat who puts it in there is it hungry how does it fit in there does it have a girlfriend I can't sleep until I learn this okay let's take them magicians pull a rabbit out of a hat usually by not pulling out of the Hat usually loaded in right before it's usually in a bag it's usually hung inside you it fits in there usually a body load for not all the time usually a body loader than you you would show the Hat empty good cop it here load it in black bag open it up pulled it out the rabbits in the black bag for maybe 90 seconds and the rabbit is transferred in maybe two seconds we used to do that trick our rabbit would happily run into the back in like that little closed space yes they would have a girlfriend or a boyfriend or any sort of friend they wanted we would have a little little area for the rabbits where they were very comfortable and happy and Penny Lane I hope you sleep now TR MJ which is the real mrs. Jeffy just came across fool us with Penn Jillette and mr. teller I'm trying to figure out how do you even begin to fool them in magic well you know there are really good magicians and although teller and I have over a hundred years of magic experience between us there are people who are really clever and really really smart and really really well rehearsed and they fool the living out of us Daniel so now that I'm an uncle I should probably learn how to do a magic trick or something right yes you should you part of your job as an uncle is to do stupid magic tricks they don't have to be good you can take a ball like this you can say you know I'm gonna be able to show you this trick right here make it vanish and your little nephew and niece will just love it Amanda asks I need someone to tell me how magicians do the trick where they put phones inside glass bottles help me it's keeping me awake at night a lot of problems with insomnia on on Twitter as we see with our president phone inside the glass bottle I believe is a trick that's still being used professionally I did not develop it I did not invent it I believe it's still for sale I don't think it's within my rights to tell you how that's dumb but it's a wicked good trick oh and you're not going to sleep how do the magician swallow bunches of razor blades without hurting felt very very repulsive it's a form of sleight of hand don't think you can swallow razor blades would be okay you can't you will die don't do it Jeremy the sofa King I've always had a fear of cracking an egg open and having a baby shape and pop out like a magician how do magicians work past that what baby chicks do come out of eggs that's not magic that's nature oh man the rubberband up the nose magic tree didn't work I hit my wrist really really hard sorry Globo how does the magician entertain the magician with the magic yeah magicians would love to see magic you don't you know it's out as a guitar player entertain another guitar player by guitar playing musicians like music just as much as non musician and magicians like magic more than non logicians our whole show fool us is all about magicians doing magic for us and trying to fool us and we love it thank everybody on Twitter for your questions long try to hit one of the lens there we go

Channel: WIRED

Views: 2,526,385

Rating: 4.9241948 out of 5

Keywords: magic, magician, magic penn jillette, penn and teller, penn and teller tech support, magic questions, penn jillette magic, penn jillette magician, penn jillette magic support, magic support penn jillette, penn jillette twitter tech support, penn jillette tech support, penn jillette interview, penn jillette tech support wired, penn jillette wired, how is magic done, magic tricks revelead, penn jillette magic tricks, magic questions answered, wired

Id: rKFMa-GH0bQ

Length: 10min 55sec (655 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 13 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/SlimyGopher]

Man he is intelligent and well spoken

[u/Classified0]

Man, he's lost so much weight. Good for him.

[u/SidekicksnFlykicks]

Magician here- I just wanted to elaborate on the "moral" issue of telling secrets. I think at times it IS a moral issue and you can even see Penn holding himself to that later in the video. There are some things that are considered almost like "public domain" sleights (or building blocks of tricks) or whole routines that have no specific name attached to them, like the cups and balls that they are famous for teaching, are fair game. But there is also a very large business that is built around the development and sale of new tricks or sleights.

Revealing a routine to a large audience (ie on YouTube) is generally considered pretty shitty because its basically the same thing as burning an album and hosting it on your site (only from someone likely far less wealthy). That is what people tend to get pissed about in the community (insert Gob Bluth joke).

Older magicians tend to get a bit more upset about classic tricks being revealed to laymen. But that is mostly because they don't want the trick they have been performing for the last 40 years to no longer be effective and refuse to learn new material.

My personal take, for those who care, I am kind of ok with tricks not generally being revealed to laymen. It DOES ruin most tricks for most people. But magicians have no problems revealing tricks to other magicians. We appreciate magic for entirely different reasons than most. I think it is a good idea to have SOME kind of barrier of entry. Allow those that are actually willing to dedicate themselves to learning the art and aren't looking for a solution to a problem they couldnt solve the last time they were fooled.

TL;DR- Selling tricks is how new magicians get into magic. The sale acts as a barrier of entry so that the people that want to learn can do so, and the people just looking for a secret will not.

[u/Kaoulombre]

Lots of problems with insomnia on twitter as we see .. with our president

[u/SaleYvale2]

Such a wholesome guy. Smarter than the average person and he is not a dick about it

[u/gregariousfortune]

Penn and Teller are brilliant for many many reasons, but one of my favorite things they've done with their careers is showing that even if you find out how the trick is done it doesn't take away from the experience, and in fact always adds more enjoyment. EG the upside-down Letterman performance or the clear cups and balls trick.

[u/dooit]

I'm so excited to see them next week!

[u/Zerobeastly]

I remember watching one of their older performances and young Penn is cute af.