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> I am certain I’ve seen Penn & Teller describe this trick, but can’t find a citation online. They wrote about a similar trick in their book How to Play In Traf

> I am certain I’ve seen Penn & Teller describe this trick, but can’t find a citation online. They wrote about a similar trick in their book How to Play In Traffic, but let me know if you know where they explain the “buried underground” version. I also remember watching Penn (I assume) explaining this concept and it's been living in my head ever since. Does anyone know the video?

DavidPiper 2y ago
I've definitely heard it too - the only place I can think of is an interview Penn did with Tim Ferriss (https://tim.blog/2020/01/09/penn-jillette/ https://tim.blog/2020/01/09/penn-jillette/) but my scratchings from that episode don't include this particular anecdote so maybe it wasn't that. The way I heard him describe it was "To any normal person this would seem like a totally unreasonable amount of time, EXCEPT to a magician [because that's their job]", or something like that. EDIT: Maybe it was actually an anecdote from his movie Tim's Vermeer? Been a long time since I saw it...
- jimmydddd 2y ago
  I think I recall reading about this concept in a magazine article written by Teller. He was describing a trick performed on a talk show (maybe Letterman?) that included releasing cockroaches. He described all the research and testing they did to find a type of cockroach that would move at the correct speed (not too fast or too slow). I think about this when I read about how tricks are done. Like when a girl is instantly teleported from a box on the stage to the upper balcony of a theater. It just never occurs to the average person that the magician would go through the trouble of hiring and paying twin (or even triplet) girls just to pull off that one trick in an act.
  - Jun8 2y ago
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/teller-reveals-his-secrets-100744801/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/teller-reveals-h...
empath75 2y ago
https://youtu.be/gnEGedfTrzc?si=bqbMx34WORfLWxac&t=143 https://youtu.be/gnEGedfTrzc?si=bqbMx34WORfLWxac&t=143 There's a version of that trick in this video.
aaron695 2y ago
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DavidPiper 2y ago

I've definitely heard it too - the only place I can think of is an interview Penn did with Tim Ferriss (https://tim.blog/2020/01/09/penn-jillette/ https://tim.blog/2020/01/09/penn-jillette/) but my scratchings from that episode don't include this particular anecdote so maybe it wasn't that. The way I heard him describe it was "To any normal person this would seem like a totally unreasonable amount of time, EXCEPT to a magician [because that's their job]", or something like that. EDIT: Maybe it was actually an anecdote from his movie Tim's Vermeer? Been a long time since I saw it...

jimmydddd 2y ago
I think I recall reading about this concept in a magazine article written by Teller. He was describing a trick performed on a talk show (maybe Letterman?) that included releasing cockroaches. He described all the research and testing they did to find a type of cockroach that would move at the correct speed (not too fast or too slow). I think about this when I read about how tricks are done. Like when a girl is instantly teleported from a box on the stage to the upper balcony of a theater. It just never occurs to the average person that the magician would go through the trouble of hiring and paying twin (or even triplet) girls just to pull off that one trick in an act.
- Jun8 2y ago
  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/teller-reveals-his-secrets-100744801/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/teller-reveals-h...

empath75 2y ago

https://youtu.be/gnEGedfTrzc?si=bqbMx34WORfLWxac&t=143 https://youtu.be/gnEGedfTrzc?si=bqbMx34WORfLWxac&t=143 There's a version of that trick in this video.

aaron695 2y ago

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