Teller talks!

TellerTranscript

Transcript of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5x14AwElOk
jsyang ~ 7:19 PM 7/10/2011

Teller is part of the Penn and Teller duo that's playing at the Rio right now, 

which is quite excellent. And he has 32 years in magic that he's going to 

summarize in just a few minutes.

[Teller speaks]

...

A couple of small ideas. One thing that magicians do is take advantage of our 

natural inclination to study something that we see done over and over again and 

think that we're learning something. Because, in real life, if you see something 

done again and again, you study it and you gradually pick up a pattern. If you do 

that with a magician, it's sometimes a big mistake since magicians expect you to 

look for that sort of stuff. Here's my little example.

[Coin trick]

...

That's a little routine. Now, your natural inclination, as an observer, is to 

assume whatever I'm doing is the same thing over and over again. And I will now 

tell you exactly what I did, so that you can see how p/b___us (simple, basic) we 

are when you think about it.

The beginning of this, I started off with five of these things (coins), just held 

in my hand. I deliberately held the paper beforehand so that I could put that 

down, because you, as observers, assume that if somebody's holding something and 

they put it down what's left is nothing.

Then I came out and produced this first coin, which is just putting it into view. 

Now, what I'm trying to do is build a question in your mind, "Where are these 

coming from?", and "Are they at all coming out of his hand?" Now you're really 

saying "Oh, he's just got them in his hand." So, at this moment, I take this one 

(a coin) and check it (bites down on coin). Well, of course, you don't see that 

one hidden right there. A very clean production, just a bit of juggling. But now 

everybody who's been thinking, "They're all just hidden in his hand," is now faced 

with this image (holds coin out so that the palm is exposed, coin pinched between 

thumb and index finger). This doesn't look like something's been hidden in my 

hand. At the same time, you've all become accustomed to the assumption that every 

time you hear a clink in this bucket the coin is being dropped into this bucket.

So, at that moment, I look down and see this gentleman's hair. At that moment, I 

hide this coin in my hand, pretending to throw it into the bucket, but in fact, 

drop one from my other hand (the one holding the bucket). [coin drop sound] Like 

that. 

Going over this gentleman here now (a different one). Because I did that casually, 

allowing you to notice it in the way that Randy (introducer) just talked about. 

Allowing you to notice it, as if all my attention was going towards this 

gentleman's hair (back to the first one), with a little sleight of hand, produces 

this coin from there (the hair).

Now you've really got a puzzle, right? You've seen them all, you've said that, 

"they're in his hand!" Now you've said, "they're not in his hand!" Now you've seen 

this go away (apparently puts coin in the bucket with clinking noise).

So I'm just shifting every time you think you know what is happening. I'm changing 

the method on you. Now, you've gotten accustomed to hearing coins drop into that 

bucket, so there's kind of nothing too wild of me of taking these glasses and 

doing that. (drops coins into bucket from glasses, one for each lens, then stirs 

the bucket to emphasize the sound of coins inside the bucket)

Except that it's a good joke and that's a big part of magic. It's the sort of joke 

sense of things. When you get into the logic of the trick, and then suddenly that 

logic becomes physical, you begin to participate, you aid in the event of the 

trick. Because now you kind of like the idea so you're going along with it. And 

then, of course, I've got a bunch of coins in this hand (hand holding the bucket, 

switches hands holding the bucket), so that when I borrow that person's bag, I 

just simply drop them out of that hand. But again, you've now become complicit in 

this. And I've been bringing all of these things to your attention. Every coin is 

a new little burst and it's happening too fast for you to think, "Oh! He's 

shifting methods." So that's the example of repetition and that's something I'd 

think would interest you guys because that's a phenomenon we do in everyday life. 

We take for granted that a repetition is a real repetition, when it's sometimes 

not. 

That's one of my two little points. My second little point is this, Randy just 

talked about this-
(apparently drops the ball and it rolls around, he runs to retrieve it)
(picks up the dagger with one hand, ball in the other, and inserts the dagger into 

the ball hand apparently stabbing it)
(ball comes out of the hand holding the dagger)

What's rarely talked about is something that's been taken for granted, was 

something like that, but of course that was a repetition. But this repetition- 

(fumbles the ball)

Let's do that again. I have a ball, pretended it's gone, but it's still hidden. 

What I want to say is this: if you as a human being, watch other people to see if 

you can find their intentions... If you're walking along the street, you look at 

the way people are moving, you automatically navigate by seeing what you think are 

their intentions. Now in this case, before the show, I just placed these two 

things on my right hand side (wand/dagger and the red ball). In real life, if you 

were to pick up this ball, you could pick it up with the hand it's going to 

disappear in, then I need to pick it up with the other hand, so that I can do the 

needed transfer. This makes it inconvenient to reach the table. It's a bit of a 

reach to go over the table (from his left arm). And now I have an excuse for 

transferring, provided I bring out the wand. The wand gives me a motive for 

reaching over to the table. 

You are seeing my intention. My intention is to get that wand. That's why I have 

to transfer the ball. So the intention there is what's deceiving. That's my whole 

point, that in magic, one of the best ways to conceal secret stuff is to make the 

intention so overpowering so that people will really follow that instead of 

looking at the sleight of hand.

Thank you.