Penn Jillette is a gifted and entertaining writer of things magic and otherwise. We have reviewed his written work on this unworthy magic web site in the past and we’ll have a review of his newest book, God, No! Signs You May Already be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales next week.
Mr. Jillette could probably write a pretty decent Magic for Beginners book and teach basic sleights effectively. But that’s not how he chooses to use his remarkable talent. Like his silent partner, Teller, Mr. Jillette uses magic as a device or tool to offer his unique and usually correct perspective (from our point o’ view) of the topic or issue he has chosen to explain.
His writing seems effortless and spontaneous. We would like to think that style is a result of thousands of drafts, re-writes, third-party editing, and gut-wrenching revisions.
We presume, however, his writing style reflects his true persona. We don’t have that gift. In fact, the sentence, “We don’t have that gift” took two and a half hours to craft. We began with “we not as good as he is at writing that way,” worked our way towards “he is better at writing than speaking and he is very good at speaking too,” and finally “We don’t have that same ability that he, Penn Jillette has.”
Our point? We like Penn Jillette’s writing.
In fact, we are not ashamed to say we would marry his writing if such a thing were possible. We don’t know if that makes us gay for wanting to marry the writing style of a man, but if it does, we’ll take those slings and arrows and make lemonade served in slings with arrows for stirrers. Continue reading Penn Jillette: Card Trick as Rhetorical Tool
That is the kind of question that piques our interest.
We follow magic closely and had noticed the former child star and now prominent force on stage, screen and television was appearing more frequently in magic related stories. The pattern we discerned over the last few years: when there was a magic related event in or around Los Angeles or Hollywood, Neil Patrick Harris was there.
It was starting to get eerie.
Our uncle was photographed at many suspicious building fires in and around the greater Mystic Hollow, Michigan area but that was because of his affection for “the glorious lover that is flame.” We were sure Neil Patrick Harris was not afflicted by the same sense of misguided and painful love as Roland “Flame” Hardy.
Perhaps he was working on a project that called for a magician’s touch. We dismissed this theory. Edward Norton (“The Illusionist”), Michael Cain (“The Prestige”), Anthony Hopkins (“Magic”) all starred in magic-oriented films but we never saw any of them attending functions usually reserved for the insiders.
His was one of the three individuals photographed for a 2009 article on The Magic Castle’s It’s Magic performance. (The other two were Lance Burton and Hannah Montana co-star Romi Dames). We don’t think the lovely Romi Dames is a magician so perhaps Neil Patrick Harris was appearing in his capacity as a star.
Neil Patrick Harris was also named in an article on the rededication of Houdini’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But again, he was not the focus of the story.
The mention comes about half-way through the Entertainment Today piece. “The bad boys of magic Penn and Teller were on hand for the ceremony, along with Neil Patrick Harris, Tippi Hedren, JoAnne Worley and Irene Larsen.”
Piff the Magic Dragon received a glowing review on the usually snarky Chortle, a British Comedy Hub. How snarky? Check out the last lines from a recent review of a Fringe Festival comic and his jokes about London:
“If, as a comic, you are relying on anecdotes with no real peril or no punchline you’re clearly in for a rough ride. … Rarely have I been so turned off by such a blatant bout of town or city bashing. He can add awareness of this to the various notes-to-self he ought to make.”
Ouch. That’s Snark to the E, as the kids say these days.
Given Chortle’s willingness to pull no punches (along with an occasional head-butt and knee to the groinal regions), we were impressed by their take on Piff the Magic Dragon.
The reviewer notes that Piff the Magic Dragon’s flat affect is rare in magic.
Deadpan isn’t much used in magic. David Blaine might be a miserable sod, but generally conjurers want to sprinkle some showbiz razzmatazz over everything they do. Not so much Piff, who’s depressed and lonely, bitter that his wife and assistant has left him, and grumpy about the amount he’s had to spend on every prop.It’s an appealing persona, even if he hasn’t quite nailed it yet.
Regarding (Cornflake the Clown) Justin Lane and his magic clone Magic Matt for making false and misleading claims on awards for publicity purposes.
The New Zealand Commerce Commission has concluded its investigation into this matter and has issued Cornflakes Magic World (Justin Lane) with a Compliance Advice Letter.
A Compliance Advice Letter informs the trader that the New Zealand Commerce Commission has received complaints, outlines the details of the complaint and informs the trader that the Commission is of
the opinion that they are at risk of breaching the Fair Trading Act 1986.
Justin has now complied with the Commerce Commissions requests and removed from all his websites, social media and promotional material items that were of concern and he also has apologised.
If you have similar problems with dishonest and misleading advertising by performers in your area or country then it is worthwhile looking at what legal channels you can pursue to have these false or misleading advertising claims removed.
Dr. Vincent Sacco of Queen’s University’s Department of Sociology is the go-to guy when it comes to criminology, the deviant mind, the suspicious motives and what sociologists would call “other.”
So of course, the first words out of his mouth upon meeting a reporter for Kingston EMC would be “Want to see a magic trick?”
The esteemed professor believes there is a similarity of method — if not motive — between magicians and their evil counterparts in the non-magic world, politicians and advertising executives.
“The basic principles of how a magician fools you are the same ones that the advertiser and the politician use to fool you,” said Dr. Sacco.
Penn Jillette is a gifted and entertaining writer of things magic and otherwise. We have reviewed his written work on this unworthy magic web site in the past and we’ll have a review of his newest book, God, No! Signs You May Already be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales next week.
Recent Comments