
Teller Reveals His Secrets (2012) - Tomte
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/teller-reveals-his-secrets-100744801/?all&no-ist
======
6stringmerc
Lovely article, quick, to the point, and actually applicable outside of Magic
as well. Think of some of the strategies employed in Magic as correlating to
Advertising. There are techniques in each to serve goals, and, fundamentally
speaking, they're both exercises in manipulation. As a Writer, these are the
tools of the trade when put into words (see also: O. Henry).

It took me a while to find it, but I loved reading this article in the New
Yorker about a pickpocket - goes great with this one!

> _“Come on,” Jillette said. “Steal something from me.”

Again, Robbins begged off, but he offered to do a trick instead. He instructed
Jillette to place a ring that he was wearing on a piece of paper and trace its
outline with a pen. By now, a small crowd had gathered. Jillette removed his
ring, put it down on the paper, unclipped a pen from his shirt, and leaned
forward, preparing to draw. After a moment, he froze and looked up. His face
was pale.

“Fuck. You,” he said, and slumped into a chair.

Robbins held up a thin, cylindrical object: the cartridge from Jillette’s
pen._

[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/07/a-pickpockets-t...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/07/a-pickpockets-
tale)

~~~
amygdyl
Edit to replace first sentence: This is what I feel I really need, having just
read your comment, and realised just how valuable is the filter here, to me
personally. This is what I want, and what I think many would come to find they
need:

Paid subscription to HN curated pay walled content.

Edit add:

This by no means has to dilute the HN culture or forum, because you can handle
a separate discussion system around the curated content, to keep a clear water
between HN proper, and HNdigest/talk.

I think the "brand" can handle it, out there in the wild world.

My background is in magazine publishing, incidentally. I'm professionally
confident could brand and sell a glossy tech + curated digest of the MSM. Even
newsstand.

I would gladly pay say twice or thrice what a newsstand glossy magazine costs,
so ten to fifteen pounds a month is not unreasonable.

Cannot someone figure out a deal WSJ, Conde Nast, Murdoch et.al, will accept?

Practically just how hard is it to have a different referrer and link to paid
articles, and authenticate against a HN login? If anyone is doing this or
similar, please please also develop a pdf bundle delivery / digest I can read
on my ride home from work. I cant help thinking how easy if would be to pitch
the adverts in that.

~~~
6stringmerc
I'm a top Writer on Medium for Music and Social Media. They are trying a pivot
into a subscription service and solicited me for an article pitch. If you like
the kind of work I do, I do it because I love it and I only hope that monetary
rewards can be tangential to the rewards I get from my work. Yeah it's high
minded but I got this far by myself in a lot of ways and I like to think I've
earned my standing.

HN is, like it or not, a sketchpad for me when it comes to thoughts and ideas
to test on a specific market. That's why my original comment went 80+ up.

Wise man once say, people read things and invest when they believe they can
learn something. Trust is earned.

~~~
amygdyl
I don't have a twitter account, so just re your script writing, this fellow
Martin Lewis (add a dot com) was friends with my late business partner, who
said Martin was a go to sounding board / interface, for selling early stage
scripts. I never met him, but my given appreciation was of a very open, if
busily scheduled, self styled imposter in Hollywood, who (at least for some
time) kept sharp at pitching movie treatments, in order to be able to start
warm on his own projects, or as agent. Anyone my late partner knew was both
super cool, tolerant (as said to me, of my fiercely artistically sensitive
friend, who also took a very difficult route to his success) and left field
enough to be always alert to the vivacity behind what may not be first
understood. All I can say, is i wish I'd met Martin, and could offer a warm
lead, but you know probably, almost certainly by now, just how to go in cold
with the right attitude, so I wish you the best luck in hunting, generally. I
just skimmed your relevant piece on Medium, and came right back, lest I
forget. If by off chance you think I myself ever could assist, please don't
hesitate to email. For myself, I claim nothing, but I apprenticed to a
extraordinary talent manager, and I'm always happy to try to squeeze out what
I absorbed.

------
grabcocque
Teller is possibly one of the greatest living historians of magic. Once got a
chance to speak to him at the bar of the Oxford Union once, and he has an
absolutely encyclopedic knowledge of almost every trick, turn, swindle,
deception, racket, illusion, con, prop and misdirection technique that mankind
has ever invented.

Absolutely astonishing when he's in full flow.

I did ask him if he ever saw a trick that he didn't immediately know how it
was pulled off, and he said yes: the first time he saw David Copperfield's
circular saw trick. Then apparently Penn Jillette got Copperfield so trashed
that he eventually gave the game away.

~~~
trevyn
Penn & Teller do have a show called "Fool Us" where a magician performs a
trick for them, and then P&T try to guess how the trick is done, immediately
confirming their accuracy with the magician. They're quite good, but they're
also "fooled" reasonably often.

Although maybe that just makes for better television... ;)

~~~
zwily
Well according to the rules, if their first guess is wrong, they are
considered fooled. I'm pretty sure they have the right guess for all of them
somewhere on their list of possibilities. There have been a couple where they
very convincingly look fooled though.

~~~
tzs
A very good and memorable one where they were very fooled was Shin Lim's card
act [1]. As is common with card acts that have someone from the audience pick
a card, he has them sign their card. Before moving on with the amazing card
manipulation, he makes the pen disappear. According to Teller (as reported by
Penn), "We didn't even know how you vanished the motherfucking marker".

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAN-
PwRfJcA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAN-PwRfJcA)

~~~
btym
That may be the most impressive magic performance I've ever seen.

~~~
tormeh
Yeah, sitting here rewinding dozens of times on Youtube I can see a couple of
his tricks. But they all require insane dexterity and coordination. We see in
the intro that he's capable of that, which I guess he could have skipped if he
wanted to conceal that for us. And that vest of his is clearly not ordinary at
all. But I think almost getting it makes it even more impressive really, which
is why I think he hints at some of it. It's pretty beautiful.

~~~
sytelus
Can you elaborate on some secrets you found?

~~~
tormeh
Every time he's making the marker disappear he's making small movements with
lots of energy in them - he's clearly throwing the marker, and he's throwing
the marker so that it's path is obscured by his hands. I'm speculating that it
lands inside his vest. That must have taken an insane amount of practice.

He's also moving a card from one side of his body to another. Later he's
moving a card back the other way. My bet is that his vest has some sort of
mechanism for moving cards. He moves very awkwardly while doing it, so he's
certainly doing some complicated procedure we can't see. He could of course be
throwing the card, deflecting it with the insides of his hands or otherwise
creating a very curved path, but that's just barely plausible.

Anyway, this guy's Dex score is insane.

------
apeace
Great article.

If you find magic interesting, I highly recommend you search YouTube for Penn
& Teller's material. There are not only a lot of tricks to be seen, but also
plenty of speaking appearances where they talk about their philosophies and
their art (and yes, some where Teller speaks!).[0]

One thing that is special about their approach is that they like to make the
audience aware that it is a _trick_. In fact, in some instances, they repeat a
trick two times, revealing how the trick was done in the second go-around[1].
My very favorite P&T trick actually shows how the trick is done the first
time![2]

What's amazing is, the second time you watch it is no less fun. And they know
that. They have the firm belief that magic is entertaining because it is an
intellectual exercise. It's not that you think magic is real. Rather, you know
you're being tricked, but you can't quite figure out how they've done it.
Showing how some tricks are done keeps that awareness alive.

This is in contrast to some magicians--David Blaine being a famous example--
who believe it is their job to convince the audience _they are actually doing
impossible things_. If you watch some of the P&T talks, you'll see that they
discuss that quite often.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5siSa4A9M_Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5siSa4A9M_Q)

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PoDhuIp3I0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PoDhuIp3I0)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbDYjAeXMK4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbDYjAeXMK4)

~~~
Fezzik
Adding to that, if you like card tricks (magic?) you should check out the
movie Ricky Jay and his 52 Assistants. It's on Youtube, and is one of the most
mind-blowing bits of slight-of-hand I have ever seen. It helps that Ricky Jay
is also a stupendous performer, and _very_ well versed in the history of card
tricks.

I think I first heard of the movie from someone here on HN, and I have shared
it with all my friends, who all agree it is amazing. Even people who have no
(initial) interest in magic are captivated.

~~~
rhizome
There's also a good Ricky Jay documentary called "Deceptive Practice" that
used to stream on Netflix, but now is DVD only, Amazon, etc.

[http://www.rickyjaymovie.com/#see-film-
page](http://www.rickyjaymovie.com/#see-film-page)

------
js2
Perhaps not known by the younger audience, but Penn & Teller helped Dennis
Ritchie and Rob Pike perform a practical joke at Bell Labs:

[https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/labscam.html](https://www.bell-
labs.com/usr/dmr/www/labscam.html)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxMKuv0A6z4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxMKuv0A6z4)

------
Tomte
Teller illustrates some of these principles in this video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5x14AwElOk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5x14AwElOk)

Bonus: He speaks!

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
I refuse to seem him speak. He's made some sort of otherworldly bargain, I
just know it. Like Odin trading his eye for wisdom, Teller traded his voice
for magic. Or maybe Penn traded Teller's voice for magic. I could see that.

------
explorigin
FTA: When I cut the cards, I let you glimpse a few different faces. You
conclude the deck contains 52 different cards (No. 1—Pattern recognition). You
think you’ve made a choice, just as when you choose between two candidates
preselected by entrenched political parties (No. 7—Choice is not freedom).

Subtlety is good here. He's teaching us neuroscience and politics at the same
time. :-)

~~~
emodendroket
Well... subtle isn't the word I'd use.

------
Twirrim
> Every night in Las Vegas, I make a children’s ball come to life like a
> trained dog. My method—the thing that fools your eye—is to puppeteer the
> ball with a thread too fine to be seen from the audience. But during the
> routine, the ball jumps through a wooden hoop several times, and that seems
> to rule out the possibility of a thread

The trick in question:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhnATlPdG6A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhnATlPdG6A)

For this trick, Penn tells you at the _outset_ that it's done with thread.
Which naturally adds to your belief that it isn't done with thread, especially
when combined with the hoop trick. After reading what Teller wrote, part of me
is still suspicious that he's lying even there.

------
unabst
> just as when you choose between two candidates preselected by entrenched
> political parties (No. 7—Choice is not freedom).

This. This and gerrymandering. Politics is run by magicians.

> Nothing fools you better than the lie you tell yourself.

We are still far from a true democracy, yet have told ourselves we are already
there.

> When a magician lets you notice something on your own, his lie becomes
> impenetrable.

Looking grim :(

------
amelius
> Then I manufacture an entire deck out of duplicates of those three cards.
> That takes 18 decks, which is costly and tedious.

Ok, so far so good.

> When I cut the cards, I let you glimpse a few different faces. You conclude
> the deck contains 52 different cards.

Well, you'd have to cut the cards very precisely then, and you can only show
three cards. I'd say the subject would sense something is fishy here.

> You think you’ve made a choice, just as when you choose between two
> candidates preselected by entrenched political parties.

Really? This is getting interesting. But where is this trick explained?

~~~
dheelus
I believe the cards are face down when you choose them (which gives the
impression that the magician doesn't know which cards you are picking).

What is not explained is how the magician determines which of the 3 cards was
actually picked.

~~~
JoshCole
You tell him. The trick is that the has your card in his wallet or his shoe
etc.

------
sjclemmy
Whenever I hear a magician explain a trick I can't help but think it's another
misdirection.

Misdirection all the way down...

~~~
happimess
I saw Penn and Teller live when I was much younger. At one point in the show,
they announced that they were famous debunkers, and were therefor going to
explain exactly how the next trick was performed. They went through it step by
step, with Penn talking and Teller demonstrating. Then, of course, they ran
through it again, repeating the patter and performing all of the same apparent
motions but with wildly different magical outcomes. It was phenomenally well
executed, and really left me reeling at how completely they were in control of
the experience.

If you can see them live, I highly recommend it.

~~~
lisper
A really good magician will make it look like magic even if you know how it's
done. And a really really good magician will make it look like magic even if
you can _see_ how it's done. P&T do the venerable cups-and-balls with
transparent cups so you can see exactly how it's done, and it still looks like
magic. Or at least like a ballet.

------
firefoxd
"Nobody thinks that magicians will work this hard to fool you." \- Jamy Ian
Swiss

[https://vimeo.com/81764932](https://vimeo.com/81764932)

What I find fascinating is that it doesn't matter if you know the trick, you
will still get fooled.

"The method is not the trick" — Jamy Ian Swiss

------
dboreham
I was thinking this would be about thermonuclear weapons. Had my coffee poured
and all..

~~~
gjkood
Yes, I was wondering the same. What were Edward Teller's secrets?

This reminds me to finally finish reading "Dark Sun" by Richard Rhodes.

I think "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" was one of the best non-fiction books
I have ever read.

------
Jimmy
>7\. If you are given a choice, you believe you have acted freely.

Video game designers especially should take note of this one!

~~~
r_smart
Your choice is: Press X or have to do the QTE again. Be happy we gave you that
much.

------
coldcode
If he ever runs for political office we will have no idea whats about to
happen.

~~~
CharlesW
Ah, so like Trump then.*

(*Regardless of my personal feelings, I'm not even being judgemental. His
campaign effectively kept the media and opponents on their heels during his
campaign.)

------
jason_pomerleau
> 7\. If you are given a choice, you believe you have acted freely.

Dan Ariely has a great talk on "decision illusions"(1) that goes into more
depth on this topic. He starts off with visual illusion as a metaphor for
rationality:

"So if we have these repeatable and predictable mistakes with vision, which we
are so good at, what's the chance we don't make even more mistakes with
something we're not as good at?"

(1) [https://youtu.be/9X68dm92HVI](https://youtu.be/9X68dm92HVI)

------
ctdonath
I was lucky enough to personally inspect, on stage, their "double bullet
catch" trick. Chatted quietly with Teller in the process, inspected the gear,
marked the bullet & case, watched Teller fire it, and had Penn spit the bullet
back into my hand. I know guns & magic, and don't know how they did it.
[http://www.donath.org/Rants/PennTellerBulletTrick/](http://www.donath.org/Rants/PennTellerBulletTrick/)

------
nmjenkins
I remember reading this article a while back, and this phrase in particular
stuck with me:

> You will be fooled by a trick if it involves more time, money and practice
> than you (or any other sane onlooker) would be willing to invest.

There's a strong analogy here I think with how computers are essentially
magic: CPUs do very simple things just insanely fast, essentially investing
way more "time" than you as a human could consider putting into a task.

------
tetraodonpuffer
Besides misdirection there is also a lot of plain training, if you are into
card tricks you will find this video quite entertaining

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK_O8G5V_Tc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK_O8G5V_Tc)

it is amazing how he can just say "I am picking up X cards" or "you put card
in position Y", that must've taken a LOT of time to learn how to do...

~~~
munchbunny
I spent a few hours trying to learn how to gracefully lift two cards off the
top of a deck as if I took only one card. A few hours later, I was just
starting to be able to tell the difference between one card, two cards, and
three cards against my thumb without looking. My conclusion was that I was at
least many more hours away from being able to consistently lift two cards and
yet more hours away from making it look like one.

After trying to learn this one single trick for so many hours, I have nothing
but respect for people who can do it on stage.

------
penpapersw
> _" We often follow a secret move immediately with a joke. A viewer has only
> so much attention to give, and if he’s laughing, his mind is too busy with
> the joke to backtrack rationally."_

I've seen this same trick used a lot, by self-serving people who want to
convince others of a lie when it's especially not in their favor. It seems
very manipulative and wrong.

~~~
duncan_bayne
Which I guess is the point of magic. Manipulative, but delightfully right :)

------
Nadya
The final explanation doesn't entirely follow with "more effort than it is
worth". There should be three decks - each with one card removed - and you cop
the "proper" deck with the chosen card removed. Don't want an attentive
observer to realize _three_ cards are missing from the deck and not just their
chosen card. It would be more difficult to hide two additional decks of cards
but it gives the trickee one less way of spotting the trick.

I'm heavily interested in trying to 'spot' magic tricks. So I'm always looking
for the sleight of hand or what contraption could have been built to 'fake' a
trick. P&T are masters of the craft because they really take the "more effort
than it would be worth" to heart. The things they do are usually things I'd
never have even thought of - or dismissed because I think it would be too
difficult!

Which is why some of David Blaine's "tricks" are so amazing to me [0] [1].
Because there is no trick some of the time. He is actually swallowing frogs
and keeping them in his esophagus and then regurgitating them back up.
Something I intuitively think is _impossible_ , even if I'm aware of
'regurgitation magic'.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0fylxoxC_o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0fylxoxC_o)

[1] Explanation:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPE928xUKL4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPE928xUKL4)

~~~
ctdonath
David Blane is more about straining the limits of human endurance under
strikingly abnormal conditions. His TED talk was interesting, and when he
talked at length about how various stunts had the risk of brain damage ... you
could tell.

------
mabbo
Shook his hand after a show in Vegas one time years ago. He's genuinely a
super friendly guy. And such a damn good showman.

------
acjohnson55
Clever! In sort of a weird way, it kind of reminds me of cryptography. There
are so many subtle assumptions that can fool you.

------
dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3632821](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3632821).

------
Animats
Once you get the basic principles, it's not hard to figure out most magic
tricks you can see more than once. Video has made being a magician much
tougher. One of the key concepts is that there are often two misdirections, so
that the obvious assumptions don't work.

I once saw a magic show at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, done on their stage
in in the sand in brilliant sunlight. The poor guy did a classic levitation,
and in that light it was painfully obvious.

------
BackwardSpy
I really enjoy watching Teller at work, and it's fascinating to read this
'behind-the-scenes' stuff.

------
legopelle
Are there any good resources (apart from Art of Misdirection) for explaining
tricks of modern performers?

------
rfz
> 7\. If you are given a choice, you believe you have acted freely.

Applicable to so many things unrelated to magic.

------
theprop
Yes, fun read...BUT do not read this if you're an entrepreneur!! Do not try to
"fake" or "trick" your users with your product!!

------
badosu
> If you are given a choice, you believe you have acted freely.

Also known as the Democracy misdirection.

~~~
emodendroket
Yes, he makes the same observation in the article a bit further down.

~~~
badosu
Thanks for pointing out, I did not notice.

