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For Penn & Teller’s Magical Partnership, The Trick Is Telling The Truth..

For Penn & Teller’s Magical Partnership, The Trick Is Telling The Truth..

If you’re Penn and Teller, you play Broadway. Thirty years after they first played New York, the duo are back with a new show. And it’s no quiet celebration, either. In the course of a single performance, they make a cellphone ring inside a dead fish, swallowboth needles and fire — and make a rare African spotted pygmy elephant disappear.

Over the past four decades, Teller has directed Macbeth, they’ve both individually written best-selling books and the pair’s taken a starring turn in a Katy Perry video. Oh, and they’ve also got a couple of TV shows running right now — Penn & Teller: Fool Us and Wizard Wars — as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

They joined NPR’s Scott Simon for a conversation on magic, danger and the remarkable endurance of their partnership — and they did it one at a time. Read more and listen to the interview..

http://www.npr.org/2015/08/01/428169268/for-penn-tellers-magical-partnership-the-trick-is-telling-the-truth

How Do Magicians Manufacture Reality?

How Do Magicians Manufacture Reality?

A TED report, broadcast by NPR on WUNC..

The power of the placebo has been consistently proven in medicine. Magician Eric Mead extends that idea to magic, pulling off a gruesome trick that’s so convincing, you’ll cringe.

About Eric Mead

Eric Mead is a magician, mentalist and comedian. He’s the author of Tangled Web, a collection of magic and mentalism taken from his personal repertoire.

Transcript:

GUY RAZ, HOST:

Do you think you’re a good liar?

ERIC MEAD: I’m a great liar.

RAZ: This is Eric Mead and he’s a magician.

MEAD: The most important skill of good magic is not sleight-of-hand or misdirection, it is the ability to lie convincingly…

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For Artistic Criminal, Breaking Rules Is Key To ‘Creativity’..

For Artistic Criminal, Breaking Rules Is Key To ‘Creativity’..

Compiled by the NPR staff..

Philippe Petit says he hates books on creativity.

So his new book, Creativity: The Perfect Crime, isn’t a compilation of ideas from great philosophers or creators.

The wirewalker, magician, street performer and artist breaks that mold with a book full of sketches and personal dialogue that captures his personal creative process.

And because it’s so personal, he says, it will be more useful. “I’m not doing any rules. This is not a thesis on creativity. This is a kind of an outlaw confession,” he tells NPR’s Arun Rath.

The “Man on Wire” says he has broken rules and made his own path throughout his life — most notably on Aug. 7, 1974, when he walked on a thin cable between the towers of the World Trade Center in New York.

Read the article and Listen to the NPR broadcast  HERE