Two of my favourite performers in the world are Penn & Teller. As I've written before, it's Teller's fault I'm in this line of work. Ever since I read an essay of his on The Cups & Balls in one of their books, magic has head a strange power over my mind. It's camped out in my brain and refuses to leave. Recently, The James Randi Educational Foundation uploaded an extended interview with Penn & Teller at The Amazing Meeting in 2012. While it's normally difficult to get me to sit through an entire YouTube video from beginning to end, I've been through this twice. While on stage, Teller doesn't talk and Penn talks like slightly upscale carney trash, in fact they are among the most profound thinkers in magic today. And in this interview, it shows!
I always struggle with the implications of building a career on deception. It's nice to know that someone else is thinking about these problems and it's useful for me to be able to draw on the thinking of those that have been thinking about it since before I was born.
So if you have an hour to spare, enjoy Penn & Teller, 38 years of Magic and Bullshit:
*May contain some inappropriate language and mature themes.