Continuing the discussion from Rick Lax: How I fooled Penn and Teller:
I liked the post; I was also disappointed that the “how” was not actually answered, but that’s a minor quibble, right?
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Maybe people kept giving the trick away.
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Like Penn and Teller tell their stage-workers, “If you’re going to give away a trick to anyone, make sure you at least get something for it. Don’t just hand it away for free.”
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That’s… exactly what some of us were hoping for?
It’s frustrating when people try to decide for you that there’s only one right way to enjoy magic. I like having it all explained.
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I find magician annoying as a rule because of just that. I hate stories that are unfinished, and a magic show is that over and over again. They show the start of the story, the trick, and then leave out the ending, which is the explanation.
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Some stories are Neverending. Deal with it.
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You might find a Penn & Teller show entertaining, if you manage to watch a full show to the end.
They frequently state at the start that they intend to fool you, and later show how they did it.
Oh, touche sir or madam! Touche!
The story is the performance. The trick is just a puzzle that the story is built around, and the thing about puzzles is that they’re not satisfying if the solution’s just handed out.
You sometimes need to accept that you couldn’t figure it out. If you can’t leave it at that, in some cases (like this one) you can give the creator something for their work, and they’ll give you the explanation in return.
For myself, even though I figured it out shortly after seeing it, I went ahead and chipped in the money to see if I was right. I did still learn a few small techniques I hadn’t thought of, so it was still worthwhile.
That’s not allowed? I got a notification about a reply to a post in which I guessed how the trick worked, but the reply disappeared before I could see it and now I can’t see my original post, either.
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