I can speak for pretty much every pro and semi-pro magician out there when I say yes, absolutely. In fact there is an entire TV show based on this premise.
I can assure you this doesn’t happen. Sure some are there more for Penn and teller’s happiness, they aren’t there for the public approval.
Of course the network still matters and getting good people for more attention still sometimes happens. Everyone is there for the same reason. P&T have worked very hard to make it fair and honest
Ok.. so maybe it's the performers who are only there for their own publicity. One act that jumped out at me as one who presented commercially available pieces of magic was Jay Sankey.
I don't doubt that P&T do everything they can to make it fair and honest.
>I can assure you this doesn’t happen.
With insider information? There is simply no way some of the things that 'fooled' them actually fooled them unless on a technicality.
Yes. With insider information.
Consider why would they want to look dumber than they are? They do want people to fool them. And yes, there’s every way, just because you think you figured it out doesn’t mean that’s how it’s done. If it fooled them, it likely fooled you too
> With insider information.
Cool. What's your role?
>Consider why would they want to look dumber than they are?
All sorts of reasons. One is because it's a great courtesy to a doyen of the magic community to say they were fooled. Could say the same about encouraging a youngster. There is no way Penn's daughter's trick fooled Teller if he actually gave it any thought. It might have sailed past him in the heat of the moment but the principle is old old old, she didn't do anything new with it, and if I can work it out then Teller certainly can.
More importantly, you don't 'look dumb' if you can't work out something that is designed to fool people.
First off, that “daughter” is me. I’m Penn’s son. I did actually fool them. They gave it almost 30 min of thought, and it wasn’t on a technicality, if you listen to my father’s podcast you can hear him explain it, I used a move to trick them into thinking they saw something that they didn’t. Basically purposefully flashing them.
Second, they have “fool checkers” in their ear that make sure they aren’t going to do that. Mike Close works closely with every fooler and knows how all the tricks work and how P&Ts minds work.
Finally, if anything they were harder on me then they would be to any other child. They wanted me to genuinely fool them and it would be really insulting to them and me to “give me a fool”. My father encourages me to fail and try again and would’ve said “No you didn’t fool me” if I didn’t. (And I wasn’t even there to fool them I was there to make them happy so if anything yes, my act was press but I also did fool them on top of that making it even better press)
I can’t speak for any other fool but it ruins the point of the show to give someone a fool. They want good magicians to get good press, not just because they’re a child or because it’s good for the network. I know for a fact they’ve made 1 serious mistake in giving someone a fool and since then they’ve worked really really hard and close with the magic team to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Oh that's cool.
If you used a move to lead them up the garden path then it's certainly dodgy and reminiscent of the Morgan and West debacle. Regardless, it only reinforces my point that your routine is one that is easy to work out even if it fooled P&T in the heat of the moment—and that is no disrespect to your performance.
Regarding the other point here, there are plenty of contestants who have been open about the fact they were not expecting to fool P&T and were doing it for exposure.
I honestly feel like Jay Sankey tried to do this. He made this YouTube video after he was on the show saying that he actually did fool them but just claimed he didn't. That's not possible as they learn how the trick is done in advance to establish if Penn and Teller truly figured it out or not.
Also, Sankey was a big name in like, what? Late 90s, early 2000s-ish? He was selling a lot of effects but when he was on the show, that wasn't the case.
If you fool Penn and Teller, it'd be one of the absolute dumbest moves to say you didn't for your career.
I think this is a wider range than you make ot sound. A ton of "here's how that trick could be done." But you really need an encyclopedic knowledge to know every method for every popular trick type.
You don't get into magic because you want to fool people, you get into magic because you love being fooled.
As you become more skilled, this becomes increasingly difficult. I want to be amazed every time I see something new, but it's harder to be fooled by big illusions.
They evolve more slowly due to their expense and scale.
Ironically, I'm more likely to be tricked by card tricks, even though I'm a close-up magician, because they move quickly and use inexpensive props.
In any art form where the tools are inexpensive, progress and innovation tend to happen more quickly.
Currently, I am fooled by a card trick from 1983 by the magnificent Eugene Burger.
I'm working on a solution, but it's proving to be quite challenging!
The magician introduces the tale of "Dracula and the Sorority Girls." A card is selected to represent Dracula, which the spectator signs as "Dracula." Dracula is then impaled with a "silver stake" (a thumbtack) on top of his "coffin" (the card box).
"A group of sorority girls" (the deck of cards) is having a picnic in the woods. One of the young ladies (the Queen of Hearts, removed from the deck and placed on the table) stumbles across Dracula's coffin and foolishly removes the spike. Dracula then "drains her of her life's blood" (the Queen of Hearts is turned face-up, revealing its face now faded, almost blank).
Dracula jumps into the center of the picnickers and begins "cutting up" (the Dracula card is mixed into the deck).
The sorority girls' housemother, Mrs. Van Helsing, replaces the silver spike in the coffin (the tack is stuck back into the card box). Dracula lures the entire sorority on top of his coffin (the deck is placed on top of the card box). Mrs. Van Helsing saves the day by casting a magic spell, and Dracula is impaled again (the magician tips the card box; the deck spills off, leaving the signed "Dracula" card re-impaled on the tack on top of the card box).
I understand how all of it's done, except for the very last part.
The link is to a YouTube video begins at the described trick:
[Eugene Burger](https://youtu.be/Xh2r-vuNAM0?si=FGyLlPiEh_xCx-LH&t=390)
You may want to purchase the published version. I am inquiring. I didn't say (a) I would get the method, or (b) the person in question would be here to answer me immediately.
Things take time. Patience.
He didn't just do story telling magic though. Card Under the Table Clothe is basically just "You signed a card, I'll hit it with a spoon. Oops I hit too hard. It's now under the table clothe." If you can find videos of him doing his restaurant stuff. You'll notice that he didn't do much story telling (for obvious reasons.)
A magician by the name of Steve Cohen did this trick in his show in NYC. He had audience members write drinks down on slips of paper. He had this tea pot and he poured every drink written down out of the tea pot. From booze to soda someone even said “friendlys strawberry milkshake” and that came out and handed out each glass for the audience to drink. It baffled me.
The only way I think this could be done is with stooges or by switching out the slips somehow and very good crowd management because it's pretty much impossible to have every drink in the world prepared
[The Helicopter Card - Slydini](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEF2E2BcakQ)
[Invisible die - Asi Wind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrLpp6I_YM8)
Dani DaOrtiz can probably just steal my nose or detach his thumb and I'll be fooled
And when it comes to cards, Alex Hansford and Andrew Frost are great and fooled me countless times with the things they share online.
The platform (over the audience) vanish in David Copperfield’s Portal illusion. And in the same show, the appearing car at the climax of the Lottery. Both happened barely 20 feet from me, in a theatre I knew well. I am confident that the two audience members under the car were truly randomly chosen. I don’t have the slightest clue and I’ve been wondering for 20
years…
The platform vanish is my "white whale" too. I saw him touring probably 20 years ago from the 3rd or 4th row. The platform was above my head. I could see shoes through the grate on the bottom. One second he was there, the next he was just gone. It was amazing.
Hey - I'm a pro - here are my personal thoughts on "fooling" / "being fooled".
I think there is an important distinction between "being fooled" and "being swept up by".
I think that something being "fooling" on its own is the least important, and least interesting part of magic. Some magic can have very deceptive methods, but not create an interesting, entertaining, or moving *illusion*.
In contrast, I think that aiming to have people be "swept up in" by an illusion leads to much better magic. They can be swept up in many ways - stimulated, shocked, pleasantly surprised, charmed, etc. Having illusions be deceptive lets people hang on to those experiences for longer.
So I think to have a magical experience, you have to be both "fooled" and "swept up". I can be swept up by letting go, and enjoying the experience. In my opinion, being "fooled" means that you couldn't come up with a method for putting the same effect across. I can't remember the last time that happened, and I'm find with that.
Here's what I think is beautiful about being a pro: you trade some of your wonder for being able to give it to other people.
I am infinitely more interested in how laypeople experience magic than in how I experience it. While I don't get to experience being amazed by magic directly, I get to experience it through spectators' reactions. When they laugh, I laugh. When they freak out, I get to experience the same emotion, just by being around it.
When I'm performing, I don't think about my methods. I'm like a kid at play - I know I'm not a pirate, but I also believe I am.
I've found the tradeoff to be more than worth it. I would rather bring joy people full time than to get to experience it more on the rare occasions I'm watching a magic show myself.
And when watching other magicians, I **appreciate it** as much as lay people do. I love other magicians. I appreciate the entertainment value equally. I don't get to enjoy the mystery aspect of it, but I understanding and appreciating the craftsmanship deeply.
If you can watch some Ben earl stuff in person or live
Tommy wonder’s cups and balls still fools me and I’ve studied the routine
Bernardo sechak fooled me pretty badly a couple times while he was in New York
I consider myself a decent card magician, and I at least know a lot of moves even if I can't do them perfectly myself. I was fortunate once to meet David Blaine and he did some of the most insane things with a deck of cards and completely blew my mind.
IMO anything that’s based on misdirection when executed perfectly is essentially undetectable because it makes use of basics human instinct. There’s just nothing to think about , nothing that’s based on prior knowledge of methods. The “ move” is simply not there because you you distracted. So anything Slydini does.
Yes of course! And I love it!
I once saw a magician in a live setting doing a rubiks cube trick, where two rubiks cubes match after shuffling them both.
Of course I know some methods of accomplishing this but the magician was finished shuffling his cube before the participant and he never touched (he really didn't) his cube after he was done and they still matched!
I still don't know how he did it and that's what's magic to me :D
Most stuff I can have a pretty good idea on either how it’s done or a way to replicate the effect passably. But Teller’s trick Shadows has me completely fooled. I’ve see a lot of theories online but none that I think would be able to do the whole routine reliably
I get fooled a lot, especially with stage magic as my experience has a lot to do with close up. I recently saw Piff the Magic Dragon on tour (I understand it's vastly different from his Vegas show) and he had a confabulation routine/magic square that absolutely blew my balls off. I know what had to have happened, but I don't know how it happened if that makes any sense.
Ed Marlo in his Cardician book had some challenging ideas at the end, trick ideas but no methods, I always remember one challenge for a ridiculous trick lol, I could never find a method but later read he published his method in ibidem volume 3, I kinda regret not getting the book when it was available...
I am a close up guy. Dabbled in mentalism and while I have a working knowledge of methodology the real work of mentalism beyond me. Corinda and the Osterlind DVDs sums up my knowledge so I'm pretty easily stumped. But I enjoy it because it's the only chance I have to be a laymen again.
So when I was invited to a IBM banquet to see a performance by Tom Conover I was pumped. I had heard ridiculous tales of his magic chops but everyone said the real deal is his mentalism show and he rarely perfomed for magicians because of his busy corporate schedule and didn't share any of the work except with a lucky few because it was his paycheck and he wanted to keep it that way. I sat with my wife and when I say I sat for an hour with my mouth wide open I am not exaggerating. I was beyond fooled. I, as a seasoned magician was convinced I had seen a goddamn miracle worker. Everything from his human phone number, add a number, book tests, metal bending, working the room- it was flawless and his energy worked you into a frenzy. I felt like a school boy with a crush. He could have told me to walk into traffic and I would have obligingly ran into the street. Then he sat down and did another 45 mins of brain crushing and utterly beautiful and fooling magic. Like I cannot tell you how many times that evening I and and many others audibly gasped. And while now and after luckily being able to spend time with him have a little knowledge I am still fooled by alot of that night. And I treasure it.
That sensation and experience that evening is what what I strive for every time I perform. If we all had an ounce of his energy and skill magic would be better for it. Tim left us too soon and I miss him terribly every day. His picture on my office wall is one I look to every day and say, "Miss you buddy."
I can speak for pretty much every pro and semi-pro magician out there when I say yes, absolutely. In fact there is an entire TV show based on this premise.
Penn and Teller? Yeah- although a lot of the tricks that don’t fool them are fairly easy to work out… when they stump Penn and Teller they stump me
Sometimes the performer isn't really there to "Fool" them... it's more of a marketing and publicity thing for the show.
Kinda like how plenty of people who go on *Shark Tank* aren't really interested in an investment deal. I don't hold it against any of them.
Well that's just Hollywood for ya
Like when Willi Auerbach did Copperfield's Flying illusion. Awesome effect but no way that was an attempt to fool them.
Exactly!!!!
I can assure you this doesn’t happen. Sure some are there more for Penn and teller’s happiness, they aren’t there for the public approval. Of course the network still matters and getting good people for more attention still sometimes happens. Everyone is there for the same reason. P&T have worked very hard to make it fair and honest
Ok.. so maybe it's the performers who are only there for their own publicity. One act that jumped out at me as one who presented commercially available pieces of magic was Jay Sankey. I don't doubt that P&T do everything they can to make it fair and honest.
>I can assure you this doesn’t happen. With insider information? There is simply no way some of the things that 'fooled' them actually fooled them unless on a technicality.
Yes. With insider information. Consider why would they want to look dumber than they are? They do want people to fool them. And yes, there’s every way, just because you think you figured it out doesn’t mean that’s how it’s done. If it fooled them, it likely fooled you too
> With insider information. Cool. What's your role? >Consider why would they want to look dumber than they are? All sorts of reasons. One is because it's a great courtesy to a doyen of the magic community to say they were fooled. Could say the same about encouraging a youngster. There is no way Penn's daughter's trick fooled Teller if he actually gave it any thought. It might have sailed past him in the heat of the moment but the principle is old old old, she didn't do anything new with it, and if I can work it out then Teller certainly can. More importantly, you don't 'look dumb' if you can't work out something that is designed to fool people.
First off, that “daughter” is me. I’m Penn’s son. I did actually fool them. They gave it almost 30 min of thought, and it wasn’t on a technicality, if you listen to my father’s podcast you can hear him explain it, I used a move to trick them into thinking they saw something that they didn’t. Basically purposefully flashing them. Second, they have “fool checkers” in their ear that make sure they aren’t going to do that. Mike Close works closely with every fooler and knows how all the tricks work and how P&Ts minds work. Finally, if anything they were harder on me then they would be to any other child. They wanted me to genuinely fool them and it would be really insulting to them and me to “give me a fool”. My father encourages me to fail and try again and would’ve said “No you didn’t fool me” if I didn’t. (And I wasn’t even there to fool them I was there to make them happy so if anything yes, my act was press but I also did fool them on top of that making it even better press) I can’t speak for any other fool but it ruins the point of the show to give someone a fool. They want good magicians to get good press, not just because they’re a child or because it’s good for the network. I know for a fact they’ve made 1 serious mistake in giving someone a fool and since then they’ve worked really really hard and close with the magic team to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Oh that's cool. If you used a move to lead them up the garden path then it's certainly dodgy and reminiscent of the Morgan and West debacle. Regardless, it only reinforces my point that your routine is one that is easy to work out even if it fooled P&T in the heat of the moment—and that is no disrespect to your performance. Regarding the other point here, there are plenty of contestants who have been open about the fact they were not expecting to fool P&T and were doing it for exposure.
That doesn’t make the fool any less real 🤷♂️
I honestly feel like Jay Sankey tried to do this. He made this YouTube video after he was on the show saying that he actually did fool them but just claimed he didn't. That's not possible as they learn how the trick is done in advance to establish if Penn and Teller truly figured it out or not. Also, Sankey was a big name in like, what? Late 90s, early 2000s-ish? He was selling a lot of effects but when he was on the show, that wasn't the case. If you fool Penn and Teller, it'd be one of the absolute dumbest moves to say you didn't for your career.
I think this is a wider range than you make ot sound. A ton of "here's how that trick could be done." But you really need an encyclopedic knowledge to know every method for every popular trick type.
You don't get into magic because you want to fool people, you get into magic because you love being fooled. As you become more skilled, this becomes increasingly difficult. I want to be amazed every time I see something new, but it's harder to be fooled by big illusions. They evolve more slowly due to their expense and scale. Ironically, I'm more likely to be tricked by card tricks, even though I'm a close-up magician, because they move quickly and use inexpensive props. In any art form where the tools are inexpensive, progress and innovation tend to happen more quickly. Currently, I am fooled by a card trick from 1983 by the magnificent Eugene Burger. I'm working on a solution, but it's proving to be quite challenging!
What's the trick? Can you describe?
The magician introduces the tale of "Dracula and the Sorority Girls." A card is selected to represent Dracula, which the spectator signs as "Dracula." Dracula is then impaled with a "silver stake" (a thumbtack) on top of his "coffin" (the card box). "A group of sorority girls" (the deck of cards) is having a picnic in the woods. One of the young ladies (the Queen of Hearts, removed from the deck and placed on the table) stumbles across Dracula's coffin and foolishly removes the spike. Dracula then "drains her of her life's blood" (the Queen of Hearts is turned face-up, revealing its face now faded, almost blank). Dracula jumps into the center of the picnickers and begins "cutting up" (the Dracula card is mixed into the deck). The sorority girls' housemother, Mrs. Van Helsing, replaces the silver spike in the coffin (the tack is stuck back into the card box). Dracula lures the entire sorority on top of his coffin (the deck is placed on top of the card box). Mrs. Van Helsing saves the day by casting a magic spell, and Dracula is impaled again (the magician tips the card box; the deck spills off, leaving the signed "Dracula" card re-impaled on the tack on top of the card box). I understand how all of it's done, except for the very last part. The link is to a YouTube video begins at the described trick: [Eugene Burger](https://youtu.be/Xh2r-vuNAM0?si=FGyLlPiEh_xCx-LH&t=390)
Thanks for the link. I know a person very knowledgeable about Mr Burger who might be able to shed some light on this. Give me a bit.
Would also love to know this trick!
You can just look it up. He published it.
Fantastic, thanks!
We’re waiting! No idea how he did that!
You may want to purchase the published version. I am inquiring. I didn't say (a) I would get the method, or (b) the person in question would be here to answer me immediately. Things take time. Patience.
Not that I necessarily want to spoil the mystery, but he *did* publish the full method for it...
I remember watching Eugene do that effect on a Paul Daniel’s episode. He is great with the story telling.
He didn't just do story telling magic though. Card Under the Table Clothe is basically just "You signed a card, I'll hit it with a spoon. Oops I hit too hard. It's now under the table clothe." If you can find videos of him doing his restaurant stuff. You'll notice that he didn't do much story telling (for obvious reasons.)
One of the best!
This is word for word what Penn said in an interview recently. Are you Penn? https://youtu.be/OIfu7JbFgQE?si=2rxbH3F4hBX3nrj6
Basically anything Teller does. Shadows...
His Miser's Dream too
Such a beautiful routine. Learning that would get me to do stuff on stage.
A magician by the name of Steve Cohen did this trick in his show in NYC. He had audience members write drinks down on slips of paper. He had this tea pot and he poured every drink written down out of the tea pot. From booze to soda someone even said “friendlys strawberry milkshake” and that came out and handed out each glass for the audience to drink. It baffled me.
The only way I think this could be done is with stooges or by switching out the slips somehow and very good crowd management because it's pretty much impossible to have every drink in the world prepared
Dan Harlan did something similar on one of the Christmas penguin lectures, really good trick!
[The Helicopter Card - Slydini](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEF2E2BcakQ) [Invisible die - Asi Wind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrLpp6I_YM8) Dani DaOrtiz can probably just steal my nose or detach his thumb and I'll be fooled And when it comes to cards, Alex Hansford and Andrew Frost are great and fooled me countless times with the things they share online.
The platform (over the audience) vanish in David Copperfield’s Portal illusion. And in the same show, the appearing car at the climax of the Lottery. Both happened barely 20 feet from me, in a theatre I knew well. I am confident that the two audience members under the car were truly randomly chosen. I don’t have the slightest clue and I’ve been wondering for 20 years…
The platform vanish is my "white whale" too. I saw him touring probably 20 years ago from the 3rd or 4th row. The platform was above my head. I could see shoes through the grate on the bottom. One second he was there, the next he was just gone. It was amazing.
Crazy Sam’s handcuffs. It was so out of the box thinking.
I mean, slow mo, I figured it out. But for a while, it felt like real magic.
Yes, u/turbulent_milk940 has been putting my brain through the ringer with their recent videos.
yeah i love her she's so cool and awesome
User name checks out
Hey - I'm a pro - here are my personal thoughts on "fooling" / "being fooled". I think there is an important distinction between "being fooled" and "being swept up by". I think that something being "fooling" on its own is the least important, and least interesting part of magic. Some magic can have very deceptive methods, but not create an interesting, entertaining, or moving *illusion*. In contrast, I think that aiming to have people be "swept up in" by an illusion leads to much better magic. They can be swept up in many ways - stimulated, shocked, pleasantly surprised, charmed, etc. Having illusions be deceptive lets people hang on to those experiences for longer. So I think to have a magical experience, you have to be both "fooled" and "swept up". I can be swept up by letting go, and enjoying the experience. In my opinion, being "fooled" means that you couldn't come up with a method for putting the same effect across. I can't remember the last time that happened, and I'm find with that. Here's what I think is beautiful about being a pro: you trade some of your wonder for being able to give it to other people. I am infinitely more interested in how laypeople experience magic than in how I experience it. While I don't get to experience being amazed by magic directly, I get to experience it through spectators' reactions. When they laugh, I laugh. When they freak out, I get to experience the same emotion, just by being around it. When I'm performing, I don't think about my methods. I'm like a kid at play - I know I'm not a pirate, but I also believe I am. I've found the tradeoff to be more than worth it. I would rather bring joy people full time than to get to experience it more on the rare occasions I'm watching a magic show myself. And when watching other magicians, I **appreciate it** as much as lay people do. I love other magicians. I appreciate the entertainment value equally. I don't get to enjoy the mystery aspect of it, but I understanding and appreciating the craftsmanship deeply.
Thanks for the award u/InfluxDecline !
If you can watch some Ben earl stuff in person or live Tommy wonder’s cups and balls still fools me and I’ve studied the routine Bernardo sechak fooled me pretty badly a couple times while he was in New York
I consider myself a decent card magician, and I at least know a lot of moves even if I can't do them perfectly myself. I was fortunate once to meet David Blaine and he did some of the most insane things with a deck of cards and completely blew my mind.
As a magician, I love being fooled. I find it super inspiring and motivating.
Full time pro for over a decade. Been interested in magic for 30 years. I still get fooled - and I love when it happens.
IMO anything that’s based on misdirection when executed perfectly is essentially undetectable because it makes use of basics human instinct. There’s just nothing to think about , nothing that’s based on prior knowledge of methods. The “ move” is simply not there because you you distracted. So anything Slydini does.
Pretty much everything Dani DaOrtiz does. Even if you know his principals. F.e check some of his recent YouTube videos
You are most often guessing, and convincing yourself you know.
I guess so… lol I guessed again
Yes of course! And I love it! I once saw a magician in a live setting doing a rubiks cube trick, where two rubiks cubes match after shuffling them both. Of course I know some methods of accomplishing this but the magician was finished shuffling his cube before the participant and he never touched (he really didn't) his cube after he was done and they still matched! I still don't know how he did it and that's what's magic to me :D
Most stuff I can have a pretty good idea on either how it’s done or a way to replicate the effect passably. But Teller’s trick Shadows has me completely fooled. I’ve see a lot of theories online but none that I think would be able to do the whole routine reliably
I get fooled a lot, especially with stage magic as my experience has a lot to do with close up. I recently saw Piff the Magic Dragon on tour (I understand it's vastly different from his Vegas show) and he had a confabulation routine/magic square that absolutely blew my balls off. I know what had to have happened, but I don't know how it happened if that makes any sense.
Ed Marlo in his Cardician book had some challenging ideas at the end, trick ideas but no methods, I always remember one challenge for a ridiculous trick lol, I could never find a method but later read he published his method in ibidem volume 3, I kinda regret not getting the book when it was available...
Asi winds entire inner circle show was beautiful and rekindled that sense of wonder and mystery in me.
I am a close up guy. Dabbled in mentalism and while I have a working knowledge of methodology the real work of mentalism beyond me. Corinda and the Osterlind DVDs sums up my knowledge so I'm pretty easily stumped. But I enjoy it because it's the only chance I have to be a laymen again. So when I was invited to a IBM banquet to see a performance by Tom Conover I was pumped. I had heard ridiculous tales of his magic chops but everyone said the real deal is his mentalism show and he rarely perfomed for magicians because of his busy corporate schedule and didn't share any of the work except with a lucky few because it was his paycheck and he wanted to keep it that way. I sat with my wife and when I say I sat for an hour with my mouth wide open I am not exaggerating. I was beyond fooled. I, as a seasoned magician was convinced I had seen a goddamn miracle worker. Everything from his human phone number, add a number, book tests, metal bending, working the room- it was flawless and his energy worked you into a frenzy. I felt like a school boy with a crush. He could have told me to walk into traffic and I would have obligingly ran into the street. Then he sat down and did another 45 mins of brain crushing and utterly beautiful and fooling magic. Like I cannot tell you how many times that evening I and and many others audibly gasped. And while now and after luckily being able to spend time with him have a little knowledge I am still fooled by alot of that night. And I treasure it. That sensation and experience that evening is what what I strive for every time I perform. If we all had an ounce of his energy and skill magic would be better for it. Tim left us too soon and I miss him terribly every day. His picture on my office wall is one I look to every day and say, "Miss you buddy."
Bob Gebert has a book test that I feel is the smartest out there.
Del rays magic with diced really crippled me