What Magic & Mind Reading Reveal About the Brain | Asi Wind

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Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science
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and science based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman,
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and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford
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School of Medicine. My guest today is Aci Wind. Aci
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Wind is one of the top magicians and mentalists in
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the world. Now, you may be asking yourself why would
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the Huberman Lab podcast host a magician mentalist, And the
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obvious answer perhaps would be that magicians and mentalists reveal
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to us where our gaps in perception reside, that is,
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where the human brain falters, such that magicians and mentalists
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can take advantage of that and give us the impression,
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the illusion that certain things happened when they didn't. However,
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during today's discussion, you will learn that Aci Wind's magic
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and mentalist work, which by the way, is absolutely astonishing.
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You can see examples of this in some of the
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links in the show note captions that will take you
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to YouTube clips in which Assi did some of these
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tricks and mentalist work on me directly in the studio,
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and there are other examples out there that we've linked
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to on the internet as well. That the work that
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Ac Wind does illustrates how we form memories, how we
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erase memories, and the specific things that we all can
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do in order to stamp down certain memories and to
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erase other memories. Indeed, much of what ac Win's work
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does is to use an understanding of how the brain
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works in order to create false memories, to erase recent memories,
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and indeed to use emotion and empathy and storytelling in
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order for you, the observer, to create a perception of
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something that happened that may or may not have actually happened. Indeed,
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what Ossi reveals to us today tells us not how
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a magician or mentalist fools us, but rather how we,
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with our own brains, lead ourselves to believe that certain
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things happened when in fact they may or may not
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have happened, and the way that we collaborate with others
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in order to create those either false or real perceptions.
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It's a discussion that I'm sure everyone, whether not you're
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a fan of magic or not, will find fascinating. Indeed,
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I learn so much from the discussion with Assi about
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neuroscience and about how the human brain constructs narratives of
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the past, present, in future that it informs not just
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my understanding of how the brain works, but indeed how
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to learn better, how to remember things better, and to
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consolidate that information, to really stamp it into your memory
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so that you never forget. So, while Asiwind is a
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magician and mentalist, today's discussion is really a discussion about
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the neuroscience of how to learn, how to forget, how
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to access creativity, and how art and storytelling, empathy and
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emotion all can allow us to access powers within us
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that make us far more effective in whatever pursuits we
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may be after. Before we begin, i'd like to emphasize
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that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research
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roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire
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and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about
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science and science related tools to the general public. And
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keeping with that theme, i'd like to thank the sponsors
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of today's podcast and now for my discussion with Assi Wind.
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Assi Wind, welcome.
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Thank you for having me.
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I can't tell you how excited I am to have
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you here today. I've seen you do your live shows twice,
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once in Los Angeles, once in New York, and both
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times there were three major effects. First of all. I
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was absolutely astonished. There's truly no hyperbole that can capture
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what you are capable of doing. Just by way of example, folks,
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prior to coming in here, OSSI agreed to do a trick.
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He let me select a card and ace of hearts
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from a deck of cards. I held it. There was
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another card, ace of diamonds. I also held that. I
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looked at them. I turned them over in my hands.
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He's not touching them. He asked somebody in the room
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for a number, number, number. Everyone provides a number. Then
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he ask me which person's number I would like to select.
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There's no prior agreements or communication here whatsoever. I selected
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the number seven. He says, turn over the cards that
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are still in my hands. He hasn't touched me. I
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turn over the cards, and now they are sevens, not aces. Unbelievable,
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and yet it happened. And that's but a minor example
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of the sorts of things that you do. So that's
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the first thing, absolutely astonishing. Two. You involve many of
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the senses, not just visual perception, memory, etc. But many
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of the senses and groups of people. You are able
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to somehow create perceptions in people or perhaps these perceptions
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are accurate, that certain things have happened, and everyone agrees
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that these things happen, so it's not just one person
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being quote unquote tricked. And then the third is that
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you and I both share a fascination with the human
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mind and perception, which is really one of the main
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reasons why you're here today, because you are a scientist
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who I believe understands how perception works, understands the gaps
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in perception and memory, and understands these things at a
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practical level that no neuroscientist, not I, nor anyone else
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who could tell you about the nuts and bolts of
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the brain and nervous system could ever approach. So welcome.
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I'm super excited for our conversation. And my first question
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is when you do a trick with one person, with
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many people, how confident are you that you're going to
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get the answer correct? Meaning are you always operating at
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the level of one hundred percent certainty that you're going
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to get it right? Or rather, is there a little
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bit of a gap? Are you running like a ninety
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percent probability? And the reason I start with this question
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is that I think it's a very different situation when
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the mentalist. The is certain it's going to work out,
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as opposed to when it's not. And I think it's
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the dynamic tension of the possibility that it might not
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work out that gets everyone so engrossed in what you do.
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Yes, so first of all, a lot of people think,
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do you ever fail? Do you ever get it wrong?
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And the truth is there's something they don't know. We're
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going to reveal some secrets here. A lot of people
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don't know that. We are very much like jazz musicians.
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I'm not a musician. I'm gonna probably butcher this analoge here,
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but we write the story as it goes. In other words,
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you might see me do a trick and think that's
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what I do every day, but I don't. So in
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other words, if something goes wrong, because every person is
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really unpredictable, I said, take any card. Maybe I'm trying
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to make you take a certain card. Maybe I'm trying
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to influence you and you're not going for it. I'm
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okay with making a little detour. You just don't know.
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I'm taking the detour and I'm improved, and then we'll
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go somewhere else and I'm okay with that. So a
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lot of the magic that I love to do. We
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call it jazzy magic is magic that literally gets written
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as we go, but I'm the only one who knows it,
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and you go, wow, it concluded beautiful.
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Right.
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So there's there's some times when I like after a
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show and I go, wow, this did not work and
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that didn't work, and people say, what do you mean
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everything worked perfect? They don't know. What I see is
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a little different than what you see. So in that sense,
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when you're an amateur magician, you're just starting out and
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you don't have, you know, the experience, you can literally
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just get stuck and go sorry, let's do it again,
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And it could happen. But for seasonal, you know, a
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season performer, someone does it again and again and again.
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I I'll borrow from a pendulate analogy that I love.
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It's like groundhog Day, the movie. We get to relive
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the same night again and again and again, and guess
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what people are very much alike. I'll hear the same hackling,
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I'll hear the same thing, or I start to see types.
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This person is going to be confrontational, this person is
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going to be is a person who believes, maybe in
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supernatural everybody has a vibe. And you know, even though
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I'm not a scientist, I'm not a psychologist. I don't
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have any degrees in any of those, but I'm a
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practitioner of psychology. I tried the centrick a million times,
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and I start to see patterns, behavioral patterns that I
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can use to my advantage. And like, for example, I
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noticed that it's easier to fool smart people as opposed
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to people are not so smart. Tell me that because
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you know, I'm relying on the bank of information you
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have in your head against you. It's taichi. I know
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what you know, and I know that whenever you view anything,
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you have to fill in the blanks with lots of information.
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I show you a couple of things and say, okay,
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this makes sense, this datata, and I know how you think.
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And the fact that I have an idea of what
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you know and what you don't know, I can use
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it against you. And that's a beautiful concept, right. But
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I suppose someone's not so educate, I don't know what
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he knows. And they tend to think very simple, and
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they're the ones to figure out magic the most because
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they don't fill in the blanks. They take it for
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what it is, you telling yourself a better story. You
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en reaching the experience based on all this, the wealth
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of information you have about psychology and how this works,
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and how perception works, and how memory works. For example,
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you just describe the trick I did for you. He
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did not describe the trick. You described your memory of
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that trick. So my job, you know, And I'm boring
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from my master, my estro Juanta Marith is my favorite
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magician of all time, and I consider him. We'll talk
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about him quite a bit now. He told me so much.
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But he talks a lot about memory like we are.
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First of all, whencoding the information, I give you something
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to encode. Then I'm asking you to store it either
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in short term memory, medium term, long term I don't
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know if it's even a real term, but a chemical
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memory right when it gets embedded in your memory, and
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then I'm trying to manipulate how you're going to recall
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the experience and what you did. You described my trick
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in a way that I could never do. I wish
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I could perform the trick you just described. I can't,
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but I was trying to create this the impression you
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recorded a feeling you had. You did not record what
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you saw and experienced. You recorded a feeling it felt
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so amazing that the feeling was quoted in the memory
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as well, And therefore you you were the co author
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of that trick. You you helped me fool you.
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I'm very curious about the role of emotion in the
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co authoring of these tricks. And by the way, folks,
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the conversation we're having today is not just about magic
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tricks and mentalists. This occurs at the level of interactions
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between people one to one. This occurs at the level
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of media to the general audience of the world. This
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stuff scales at every level and in every domain of life.
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We'll get to how that exactly that occurs. I wonder
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if I could ask you about the reverse engineering of
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a trick, a hypothetical trick. So tell me if this
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trick is possible, and if so, one of the possible
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ways that you would do this. I think I've seen
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you do something similar to this, or other mentalists do
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something similar to this. You're standing in a room full
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of people, let's say fifty people, and you have a
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piece of paper and a pen, and you say, Okay,
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I'm gonna write down a series of numbers, and you
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write them down, you fold it up, you put it
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on the table next to you, set the pen down,
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there's no contact with it anymore. And then you go
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around the room and you just ask people for numbers
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between one and twenty five. You ask a certain number
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of people, and then somehow you return to the paper,
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you open it up, and that's the sequence of numbers.
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It seems like a straightforward but astonishing trick.
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It's a classic, a classic, okay, classic of that.
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For people like me, we want to know at least
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one solution to that challenge. How does what's one way
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in which a magician could do that? Obviously we start
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to go to the physical explanation. Okay, somebody underneath the
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table that the piece of paper was on wrote down
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the numbers they heard and put it on the table.
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Another solution would be that there was a stack of
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papers up there with any number of different combinations. But
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then it's a very large number big stack of paper.
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Then it becomes hard to hide, and on and on,
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all going in the wrong direction. Of course, I can
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also think of the end product way of doing this,
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where the piece of paper that you show has the
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numbers that the people stated, but somehow we think it's
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those numbers when it's actually other numbers. Like there's some
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sort of visual illusion that we all agree on seeing.
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But here I'm just guessing. So how could one do
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that trick?
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Wow? We need two hours today, I say this one.
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So here's the deal. I just noticed something as you
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were going through all the options. Is someone I assume
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you're not a magician. No, I just realized that a
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quality of magic is that it ignites your imagination and
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your creativity. You just basically saw something that has no explanation.
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And you are a knowledgeable guy. You know a lot
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about a lot of things, and it in a weird
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in a good way. It bothers you. Why don't I
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know that?
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Is?
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I know so much about the mind and how we
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sleep and how we you know, how certain exercises affect
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our bodies and blah blah, But this series of number
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I don't know. And that drives you nuts a bit.
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But it's good because then your mind starts racing and
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thinking of everything you said is a wonderful exercise in
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problem solving, Right, how could be achieved? And then you
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slowly rule them out as too much paper, too much work,
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hiring somebody under the table to write maybe solution, but
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you have to pay somebody just to do that job.
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But it's nice because we're teasing the mind. We're challenging
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the mind in an era where it seems like all
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the information is out there. We have my smartphone can
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do you know, more than my first computer could right
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in my pocket. So we are we are up against
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And every time I tell you this, it's a bit
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of a tangent here. Every time technology advances, magicians get scared. Say, oh,
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people are when they can do all these marvelous things.
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I mean, now they're going to care about the number
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you spoke or or car changing in my hand. And
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I attribute that to again your desire to see something marvelous.
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With that, by the way, there's there are people that
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don't want to see magic. Like I do something that
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really seems impossible, and they go slight of hand. They
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come up with a very simple solution. They not need
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picking about exactly how you did it. They go, he's fast,
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he's fast with his hands, or you know, they come
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up with a very simple solution that I don't know
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why it satisfies them, but he does. And it's because
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they lack the desire to see magic.
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So to me.
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Again, and we're going back to the co authoring, I
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really need someone a partner whenever I do magic, that
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someone has this desire to see something that's beautiful, that's
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going to bend the rules of what we know is possible, right,
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and they're joining me. So to your question, how is
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it done? There's many many ways to achieve this effect.
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And because we don't possess I don't We can talk
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about this if you want about the supernatural. I don't
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believe that anybody possesses supernatural powers or even close to that.
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And because of that, we we have to cheat. We
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have to do some dirty work which I don't want
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you to know about. And so in ours, every trick
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that I do has a little scar and a moment
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I wish did not exist. And by the way, a magician,
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when they choose a trick like that, they need to say, oh,
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I can go this route or this route. They're going
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to pay a price with this version. Oh I cannot
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do it this way here. It's not as clean here,
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I cannot be as direct here. I have to choose
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maybe certain people in the audience. Again, I'm tiptoeing around it,
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so I don't reveal how it's done. But you're making
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a sacrifice with every choice you make. The goal is
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at the end to make somebody as smart as you go.
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How it didn't start racing And at the end you
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reach a dead end. Hopefully it's magic. You excel and
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I enjoyed it, and and that's I want you to surrender.
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And and it's a good surrender. It's not you're not
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being defeated. You you you give into the to this
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place where magic could happen. You you make room for
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something that should not happen in this world to happen.
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And and that's why I love magic so much. It
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is a bit of a reminder that I'll tell you
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a story. There's a juggler. Oh it's not a magician's
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and I'm not going to mention names for a reason.
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So he joggles on the streets and you know, mix
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money on the streets. And one day he goes to
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see a magic show and the magician, a wonderful magician
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who does this wonderful act. It's the zip code act.
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He says to people tell me your zip code, and
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then he tells them where they live, tell me where
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you live, tells them the zip code, and then he
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describes places around them. Oh, you have a Starbucks there
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in the bubble, and like he describes, it's amazing. It's wonderful. Now,
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this juggler, not a magician, watches a magician who is
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doing a trick. There's a scientific explanation to how it's done.
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It's not anything beyond that. And again it's wonderful, and
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he goes, how did he do that? And then he
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comes up with the solution that the magician must have
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memorized all the zip codes in the world. Not the case,
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but that's the impression. He goes home and starts memorizing
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all the zip codes in America. First, he spends thousands
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of hours to memorize zip codes for real. He's doing
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the real version of what the magician did, and he
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performs it now all over the country. He is doing
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the zip code act for real. And the beauty of
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this story is that a false performance, artificial representation of
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a skill, inspired somebody to do something that is real
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and therefore push his limits is human, you know, realistic
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limits to a level that a lot of people go,
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that's not possible, right, And I think it's a beauty
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about this, and again goes back to your question how
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is it done? So maybe the solution you just came
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up with is better than what I do, but I
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dis ignited you to think about it. It's really a
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big reason, an important reason why I love magic so much.
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Staying with my question of how a trick like that
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is done, you really want to know, Well, I don't
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think you're actually going to tell me these specific order
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of operations to make it happen. I don't expect that.
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But I can think of two kind of endpoints for
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exploring this. One is, or at least two. One is
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to manipulate what's on the paper, right like. The other
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is to manipulate what people say or likely to say,
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perhaps by selecting people that are likely to say certain numbers,
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because you have some understanding of that. I don't know
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how that would happen. The other is to completely revise
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people's understanding of what just happened in a group. And
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I think that last possibility is the one that intrigues
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me and most people the most. The idea that even
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in the company of other rational well rested, sober meaning
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non inebriated or on drugs. People that sometimes it helps
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that there could be a collective perception that is not accurate,
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but everyone agrees to confabulate together. And the reason I
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ask this and I focus on this third possibility is
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that we know that the memory system is a confabulation system.
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A good example of this would be people who sadly
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have some form of dementia. They often will find themselves
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in a room doing something and if you ask them, hey,
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what were you doing, they don't say I don't know,
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They say, oh, you know, I came in here to
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do something, and they create these elaborate stories of what
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got them there, which may make sense to them, might not.
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But we all do this. We all confabulate false memories.
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Is a huge topic and to itself, but we all confabulate.
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Memory is not perfect. So I imagine this third possibility is
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one that you work with and that you massage. How
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does one think about memory in the context of these
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experiments that uh, I just called them experiments, these tricks
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that I love that way, right, And and here we
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agree that we're gonna talk about science today as we
378
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always do when whenever I see you. And in experiments,
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as people may or may not know, you ask a question,
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but you pose hypotheses. So you say, like how do
381
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we cure cancer? But then you pose a hypothesis, you say,
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I think it's going to be cured by doing blank, blank,
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and blank, and then you test that and you try
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and rule out your hypothesis. So it's a little bit
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of why I call it an experiment. So, for instance,
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is there a way that you can get people to
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believe that they saw the numbers, Let's make it very simple,
388
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three eight and seven, when in fact you held up
389
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a piece of paper that said something very different. Is that?
390
00:22:57.279 --> 00:22:58.400
Have you done that before?
391
00:22:58.799 --> 00:23:02.240
I see where're going with it, And I love to
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use the word experiments. One of my heroes, chant Canasta,
393
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was a psychologist who used psychology in his work as
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a magician, as a mentalist, and he didn't He never
395
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called these pieces tricks or magic. He called them experiments,
396
00:23:20.680 --> 00:23:23.839
and he was careful about it. It's not just an
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aesthetic choice. He wanted to plant this seed in their mind.
398
00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:34.960
Experiment means it could fail, okay, which is a very
399
00:23:35.039 --> 00:23:39.039
very good starting point for any dramatic uh because if
400
00:23:39.079 --> 00:23:42.799
something is going to work, but if there's something at stake,
401
00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:45.920
something could fail, people are more engaged. So I love
402
00:23:45.960 --> 00:23:49.519
the word. I sometimes use the word was there an experiment.
403
00:23:49.759 --> 00:23:52.839
It's like these crazy people that climb up the side
404
00:23:52.839 --> 00:23:55.759
of buildings with no ropes. I mean, we don't want
405
00:23:55.759 --> 00:23:57.880
to see them fall, but the possibility that they could
406
00:23:57.880 --> 00:24:01.559
fall is what's exciting. The movie Freeze Alex Hanold. We
407
00:24:01.599 --> 00:24:05.960
all know at the beginning he lives, he lives, and
408
00:24:06.039 --> 00:24:08.400
yet you want to see it in case he might
409
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not live. And even though you know he lives, in
410
00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:12.519
some ways, that's a magic tricken to itself.
411
00:24:12.680 --> 00:24:15.599
That's the brilliance of David Blaine, where I consider one
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of my dearest friend and one of my favorite magicians
413
00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:22.480
in the world. And what he does. I mean, we
414
00:24:22.519 --> 00:24:26.240
can talk about him at length, but you know, blending
415
00:24:26.559 --> 00:24:31.160
real stuff with magic, and it's almost sometimes it's hard
416
00:24:31.200 --> 00:24:33.680
to tell what is real and what's not. And I
417
00:24:33.720 --> 00:24:38.480
even love that aspect, and a lot of people don't
418
00:24:38.519 --> 00:24:41.559
know what all this stuff he does is real. When
419
00:24:41.599 --> 00:24:45.599
he's holding his breath night afternight now in Vegas at
420
00:24:45.599 --> 00:24:51.400
the wind ten minutes and you know, sitting in the
421
00:24:51.440 --> 00:24:56.559
audience watching David do that is so inspiring because I
422
00:24:56.599 --> 00:25:00.400
look at it symbolically is showing us because he was
423
00:25:00.440 --> 00:25:05.200
inspired by kid who survived being trapped under ice for
424
00:25:05.279 --> 00:25:10.240
a long time and recovered to full recovery. And he goes,
425
00:25:10.359 --> 00:25:14.000
if he can do it, then everybody could. And it's
426
00:25:14.039 --> 00:25:17.680
it's a beautiful to me. The message is so strong,
427
00:25:18.279 --> 00:25:20.720
just beautiful orient me. Again.
428
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The question as to the question is have you done
429
00:25:23.319 --> 00:25:25.480
or is it possible to get people to think that?
430
00:25:25.519 --> 00:25:27.599
You're holding up a piece of paper that says, now,
431
00:25:27.599 --> 00:25:30.279
I forget the numbers, my working memory wasn't engaged enough
432
00:25:30.319 --> 00:25:33.640
to do it whatever, three four eight. That's not what
433
00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:35.680
I said earlier, when in fact they are looking at
434
00:25:35.720 --> 00:25:38.079
a piece of paper that says something different. Is that
435
00:25:38.240 --> 00:25:39.799
Is that something that can be done?
436
00:25:39.920 --> 00:25:43.599
Absolutely? Absolutely, there's a there's actually a piece where you
437
00:25:43.599 --> 00:25:45.880
you have a piece of paper literally printed piece of paper,
438
00:25:46.400 --> 00:25:50.279
and you control someone's mind. You say, uh, I'm going
439
00:25:50.359 --> 00:25:54.160
to make you see things distorted. You're not going to
440
00:25:54.200 --> 00:25:56.559
see reality the way everybody in this room calling me
441
00:25:56.680 --> 00:26:00.279
will see it starting now. And it's little a piece
442
00:26:00.279 --> 00:26:04.680
of paper that says two plus two and everybody can
443
00:26:04.680 --> 00:26:06.839
see it. The entire audience can see it's two plus two,
444
00:26:07.279 --> 00:26:14.400
what's the answer, And he goes sixteen, okay, and trust
445
00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:17.720
something is there one plus one? He goes twenty four.
446
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And this guy is cognitically smart, sharp, he's not on drugs.
447
00:26:26.160 --> 00:26:31.680
It cannot answer those questions. It's an augmentation of reality
448
00:26:31.799 --> 00:26:35.960
and that manifests in many forms in magic. The idea
449
00:26:36.119 --> 00:26:40.720
of seeing something that is in a sort you know,
450
00:26:40.799 --> 00:26:44.200
in the optical illusion land of what you see is
451
00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:47.359
not what you see, and that's probably applicable to every
452
00:26:47.400 --> 00:26:49.359
trick you'll ever see. What you see, it's not what
453
00:26:49.440 --> 00:26:52.720
you see, it's what I want you to see. And
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I love that. And again, the the chank can ask
455
00:26:57.559 --> 00:27:00.839
the guy spoke to you about he would go. They
456
00:27:00.880 --> 00:27:03.799
will take three cards, let's say Ace of Hearts, King
457
00:27:03.880 --> 00:27:07.680
of Clubs, seven of spades, three cards. You'll go to
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a coffee shop and say choose one and they say
459
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King of Clubs, thank you. Go to another table and
460
00:27:16.680 --> 00:27:18.400
he will do it all night and people, what is
461
00:27:18.440 --> 00:27:21.519
he doing. He's not doing any magic, nothing, It's just
462
00:27:21.720 --> 00:27:26.680
surveying the audience to see how they think. Right, And
463
00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:31.000
this is information that we collect over the years, Like
464
00:27:31.039 --> 00:27:35.039
there's a something called I can influence you, let's say,
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00:27:35.039 --> 00:27:38.599
to take a specific card, but it has to be
466
00:27:38.680 --> 00:27:40.519
done in such way that it feels like it was
467
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a free choice. It was not a free choice. And
468
00:27:44.599 --> 00:27:47.319
the difference between a good or a great magician and
469
00:27:47.400 --> 00:27:50.759
a decent magician or an okay magician is that one
470
00:27:50.799 --> 00:27:53.640
makes you feel like, I chose this card. There is
471
00:27:53.720 --> 00:27:56.880
no way you made me pick this card. There is
472
00:27:56.920 --> 00:28:02.079
no way. And that's sort of a It's you feel
473
00:28:02.119 --> 00:28:05.880
like you have control and yet you don't, and you
474
00:28:05.880 --> 00:28:09.799
feel it with conviction. You could swear, are you sure
475
00:28:09.799 --> 00:28:14.519
that's the one? So there's a famous, famous thing that
476
00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:16.440
he used to do. He would say, I can make
477
00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:21.599
people change their mind or not. And he says it
478
00:28:21.759 --> 00:28:25.319
up front. He says, you're gonna choose a card, Okay,
479
00:28:25.359 --> 00:28:28.240
any card you like. I'll go to the audience, you
480
00:28:28.319 --> 00:28:31.240
point to any person you want. They'll choose another card.
481
00:28:31.480 --> 00:28:33.400
Whatever they choose will be the card you're thinking of.
482
00:28:34.799 --> 00:28:36.920
And then I'll give him ten seconds to change their mind,
483
00:28:37.119 --> 00:28:41.039
and if they do, it will still be correct. They
484
00:28:41.039 --> 00:28:43.079
can change their mind as many times as they want,
485
00:28:43.799 --> 00:28:46.319
and I don't care. Once they say that's it, that's
486
00:28:46.319 --> 00:28:47.920
the card that will be the card you're thinking of.
487
00:28:49.279 --> 00:28:50.000
How can that be?
488
00:28:50.519 --> 00:28:52.680
So the truth is, and I'll reveal a little bit
489
00:28:52.680 --> 00:28:56.480
about that. There is no trickery here as far as
490
00:28:56.599 --> 00:29:00.359
you know, sleight of hand or anything like that. Literally
491
00:29:00.480 --> 00:29:05.119
was a master. It's making people either want to stick
492
00:29:05.160 --> 00:29:10.680
to a decision or change it. He would basically manipulate
493
00:29:10.799 --> 00:29:16.599
their insecurity, their ego, something about them to either resist
494
00:29:17.119 --> 00:29:22.200
changing what to really want to change and to me
495
00:29:23.480 --> 00:29:27.880
and I have a conflict a dilemma about this, because
496
00:29:29.119 --> 00:29:32.640
my whole fullest act which we can talk about, is
497
00:29:32.680 --> 00:29:36.920
really based on this conflict or this problem I have.
498
00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:43.720
Sometimes the method is way more beautiful than the effect itself.
499
00:29:44.920 --> 00:29:47.119
So that's why I have no problem telling the Chen
500
00:29:47.240 --> 00:29:53.000
did that. Chen found a way with using specific you know,
501
00:29:53.119 --> 00:29:57.680
language or gestures or whatnot, not revealing too much to
502
00:29:57.799 --> 00:30:01.440
make somebody either stick to the choice or change their mind.
503
00:30:01.680 --> 00:30:05.200
He could literally control their bias toward one or the other. Yes,
504
00:30:05.920 --> 00:30:10.680
does it involve touching their body in any particular way? Maybe? Yeah.
505
00:30:10.839 --> 00:30:14.960
Many many times in your performances and the performances of
506
00:30:14.960 --> 00:30:18.440
other mentalists and magicians, they will say, you know, pick
507
00:30:18.440 --> 00:30:21.519
a number or pick a card and then right before
508
00:30:21.559 --> 00:30:23.400
the trick is about to advance, they'll say are you
509
00:30:23.440 --> 00:30:27.319
sure okay, Oh that's a big one, and they'll say yes,
510
00:30:27.359 --> 00:30:31.640
I'm sure, or no, I'm gonna switch okay. And based
511
00:30:31.680 --> 00:30:34.799
on what you've told us already, it's clear that the
512
00:30:35.039 --> 00:30:39.319
skilled mentalists or magician can work with either scenario. Maybe
513
00:30:39.319 --> 00:30:42.359
it's a bit of a it's the improvisation. But what
514
00:30:42.480 --> 00:30:45.000
I want to know is when you look at somebody's
515
00:30:45.079 --> 00:30:50.319
physical body, how they sit, their shape and other features,
516
00:30:50.319 --> 00:30:53.839
maybe how they dress, how they stand, maybe something about
517
00:30:53.839 --> 00:30:58.079
their eyes or their face, can you make better predictions
518
00:30:58.079 --> 00:31:00.480
as to what sorts of numbers they'll pay, whether or
519
00:31:00.519 --> 00:31:03.079
they're going to stick to their choice or change their choice. Okay,
520
00:31:03.200 --> 00:31:04.680
I think there's a lot of interest in this, and
521
00:31:04.720 --> 00:31:07.799
maybe you could since we're talking in generic terms and
522
00:31:07.799 --> 00:31:09.400
we're not presenting you with a line of people and
523
00:31:09.440 --> 00:31:14.119
asking you which person would do what, would you be
524
00:31:14.160 --> 00:31:16.920
willing to share what some of those cues are. So
525
00:31:17.079 --> 00:31:20.319
I'm you know me, I wear this black shirt and
526
00:31:20.400 --> 00:31:22.839
I have other shirts, but I don't wear them one camera.
527
00:31:23.200 --> 00:31:26.400
And you know I call my hair a certain way.
528
00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:29.160
I said a certain way. I mean, what sorts of
529
00:31:29.240 --> 00:31:32.400
predictions emerge from that or am I striking on the
530
00:31:32.440 --> 00:31:33.599
wrong variables?
531
00:31:33.759 --> 00:31:36.720
So it's not the big things that will reveal to me.
532
00:31:36.960 --> 00:31:39.799
What because I do kind of like profile a little
533
00:31:39.799 --> 00:31:42.799
bit for the magic purposes. What kind of trick I
534
00:31:42.839 --> 00:31:44.960
will do with you? And what I can't do with you?
535
00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:46.720
What I will do with this guy or that guy? Right,
536
00:31:48.920 --> 00:31:51.359
And it's not the shirt, it's not how you wear
537
00:31:51.400 --> 00:31:57.000
your hair. It's really small things. And I can talk
538
00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:00.359
about many people that influence me oufter. The Accentric is
539
00:32:00.559 --> 00:32:01.920
one of my favorite performers.
540
00:32:03.079 --> 00:32:04.720
His name is literally the Eccentric.
541
00:32:05.440 --> 00:32:08.359
It's a different name, but he goes by Outlard Accentric
542
00:32:08.720 --> 00:32:13.119
and he's a wonderful performer. It's even hard to categorize
543
00:32:13.119 --> 00:32:17.599
what he does. But he's I'm doing disservice, a clown,
544
00:32:17.720 --> 00:32:22.519
a mind, a joggler, a magician, And I've never seen
545
00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:27.759
someone who's better at what we call audience management. Something
546
00:32:27.759 --> 00:32:31.720
we call audience management is how do you interact with people?
547
00:32:32.920 --> 00:32:40.200
And he's able to get again, I'm butchering is is
548
00:32:40.319 --> 00:32:43.640
class to something very simple. But he gets three s's
549
00:32:43.640 --> 00:32:49.119
from a person, meaning I can ask you non verbally
550
00:32:50.079 --> 00:32:53.640
to agree to participate with something I want you to do,
551
00:32:54.920 --> 00:32:58.400
and he will do small things like just a little gesture,
552
00:32:58.440 --> 00:33:01.480
and he can see if they go for it. He
553
00:33:01.599 --> 00:33:06.319
sees if there's that dance, can we is that person
554
00:33:06.839 --> 00:33:11.759
complying to something very small or is it resisting? And
555
00:33:11.799 --> 00:33:14.240
then easily I can go to the next person. So
556
00:33:14.440 --> 00:33:17.640
and he is a master, a master at doing that.
557
00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:23.079
Even breathing. If I breathe a certain way when I
558
00:33:23.319 --> 00:33:25.160
this is I blew my mind when I first learned
559
00:33:25.200 --> 00:33:28.079
from Ovner. It's like when you walk into a place
560
00:33:28.880 --> 00:33:31.640
so you don't see me. I'm behind a curtain something,
561
00:33:31.680 --> 00:33:33.200
and I walk in and the first thing I do
562
00:33:33.319 --> 00:33:39.839
is or as opposed to do, I take the breath
563
00:33:39.880 --> 00:33:42.519
in or out when I the first step I take
564
00:33:42.599 --> 00:33:47.119
on stage, and the audience in a weird way, mimics that.
565
00:33:47.880 --> 00:33:54.319
Really yeah, So if I go, you feel you kinnot
566
00:33:54.400 --> 00:33:58.279
tend to relax with me. Now, if you want a
567
00:33:58.359 --> 00:34:02.519
more exaggerated example of that, if you watch a movie
568
00:34:02.559 --> 00:34:05.680
and it's really tense and there's tension, you will start
569
00:34:05.680 --> 00:34:10.079
feeling tension. Right. We're kind of like empathy is a big,
570
00:34:10.199 --> 00:34:14.239
big part of what we do. That's why one of
571
00:34:14.320 --> 00:34:16.280
the things I choose to do in my show when
572
00:34:16.280 --> 00:34:18.000
I first start is not to start with the most
573
00:34:18.039 --> 00:34:20.800
amazing magic to blow your mind. Oh my god, is amazing.
574
00:34:21.639 --> 00:34:27.079
It's more I gear the first pieces towards connecting with you.
575
00:34:27.639 --> 00:34:31.840
I'd rather say something really endearing, funny, connecting, truthful, honest
576
00:34:32.400 --> 00:34:36.000
before I start trying to blow your mind. Why I
577
00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:39.320
want to connect with you first, so we you know,
578
00:34:40.440 --> 00:34:43.960
a mother will be proud of our son's playing guitar
579
00:34:44.039 --> 00:34:46.000
and much more forgiving if he makes a little mistake
580
00:34:46.119 --> 00:34:48.840
or something, but every little achievement you'll make, she will
581
00:34:48.840 --> 00:34:51.760
be so proud of him because she has empathy. She
582
00:34:52.039 --> 00:34:55.159
wants him to succeed, she wants him to do well.
583
00:34:55.960 --> 00:34:58.119
So I want you to adopt me. I want you
584
00:34:58.199 --> 00:35:00.519
to to feel empathy towards me. I want you to
585
00:35:00.559 --> 00:35:01.800
be I'm rooting for you.
586
00:35:02.639 --> 00:35:06.480
This makes a lot of sense. I do some live events,
587
00:35:06.519 --> 00:35:08.559
and I don't think about whether or not I exhale
588
00:35:08.599 --> 00:35:11.079
or inhale when I get out there. But I definitely
589
00:35:11.199 --> 00:35:12.440
try and get out there and just kind of take
590
00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:16.559
it all in and relax and we have what I
591
00:35:16.559 --> 00:35:19.800
hope is a relaxing, interesting conversation and you kind of
592
00:35:20.079 --> 00:35:22.559
work with the amplitude of excitement, and I'm not thinking
593
00:35:22.559 --> 00:35:24.639
about it in any kind of conscious way, but this
594
00:35:24.679 --> 00:35:26.800
is actually a wonderful tool that I hope everyone will
595
00:35:26.800 --> 00:35:28.840
export from this conversation, which is, if you ever need
596
00:35:28.880 --> 00:35:33.840
to do public speaking, you have probably a good long exhale.
597
00:35:33.840 --> 00:35:36.519
As you get out, there will be great. Everyone will relax.
598
00:35:36.599 --> 00:35:40.880
It's also tough for me to see live theater because
599
00:35:41.039 --> 00:35:43.880
oftentimes if it's not going well for them, I feel
600
00:35:43.880 --> 00:35:47.039
embarrassed for them. I think people vary, however, in terms
601
00:35:47.079 --> 00:35:50.159
of their levels of empathic atonement. Some people are very
602
00:35:50.400 --> 00:35:53.119
tuned into the emotional states of others, yes, and some
603
00:35:53.199 --> 00:35:57.519
are not. So are there people in audiences, assuming a
604
00:35:57.639 --> 00:36:02.199
relatively random array of people that are fairly rigid like
605
00:36:02.280 --> 00:36:04.480
you wouldn't want to you wouldn't call them up to
606
00:36:04.679 --> 00:36:08.360
the table. Okay, So when you select someone to come
607
00:36:08.440 --> 00:36:12.480
up in front of the crowd, are you basing that
608
00:36:12.639 --> 00:36:15.679
on some level of empathic and toonment that they're they're
609
00:36:15.760 --> 00:36:17.159
they're in sync with you?
610
00:36:17.679 --> 00:36:20.880
Absolutely? So it starts with the first thing. Look, you
611
00:36:20.960 --> 00:36:24.400
come in cold the audience, as you said the first
612
00:36:24.559 --> 00:36:26.760
I'm quoting after here. The first thing they do is
613
00:36:26.760 --> 00:36:29.679
to say, I hope this doesn't suck, and also the
614
00:36:29.719 --> 00:36:32.719
performer says, I hope it doesn't it's not gonna suck.
615
00:36:33.920 --> 00:36:37.400
The starting point is it depends the expectation. Could very
616
00:36:37.440 --> 00:36:39.280
you know if them is really hyped and go, oh,
617
00:36:39.320 --> 00:36:40.760
this is going to be great, or you've seen the
618
00:36:40.880 --> 00:36:43.480
artists and you trust them. But if you come in cold,
619
00:36:44.199 --> 00:36:46.440
you don't know the person, You don't know if it's
620
00:36:46.440 --> 00:36:48.119
going to be great or not. It just happened to
621
00:36:48.119 --> 00:36:50.519
be there and there's a magic show, let's check it out.
622
00:36:51.039 --> 00:36:58.039
There's there's tension, there's almost like they're auditioning. You wonder
623
00:36:58.079 --> 00:37:00.880
if it's gonna be worth my time so so, and
624
00:37:00.920 --> 00:37:02.679
I don't care if people bought a ticket to see
625
00:37:02.719 --> 00:37:05.920
my off Broadway show or not. The first ten to
626
00:37:06.039 --> 00:37:12.719
fifteen minutes, it's really about telling them in so many words,
627
00:37:12.719 --> 00:37:16.119
but telling them I'm here for you, I'm here to
628
00:37:16.159 --> 00:37:20.119
connect with you, and I'm here to create this some
629
00:37:20.679 --> 00:37:24.000
wonderful thing that we're going to feel together. I wanted
630
00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:24.639
to feel that.
631
00:37:24.960 --> 00:37:27.559
It's like an intimacy, yes, and that to me.
632
00:37:27.559 --> 00:37:30.559
By the way, it's way more important than me fooling people,
633
00:37:30.639 --> 00:37:33.199
Like if somebody came to me after the show and said,
634
00:37:33.239 --> 00:37:35.800
oh wow, your magic is unbelievable. I have no idea
635
00:37:35.840 --> 00:37:38.559
how you did it. That's the lowest compliment I can get,
636
00:37:39.719 --> 00:37:45.920
and thankfully and gratefully often I get. The most common
637
00:37:45.960 --> 00:37:47.760
one is say, you know, the magic was great, but
638
00:37:49.599 --> 00:37:51.239
you react to you.
639
00:37:51.880 --> 00:37:53.400
They feel connected to you, and.
640
00:37:53.320 --> 00:37:56.639
I love that because to me, the magic is important.
641
00:37:57.239 --> 00:37:59.800
I wanted to be really deceptive, I wanted to be
642
00:38:00.079 --> 00:38:03.760
you know, impossible and beautiful and whatnot. But to me,
643
00:38:04.039 --> 00:38:07.000
it's also a vehicle to connect with people, because at
644
00:38:07.000 --> 00:38:08.159
the end of the day, that's what it is. And
645
00:38:08.199 --> 00:38:10.840
that's the only difference I can have. Because there's a
646
00:38:10.840 --> 00:38:13.039
lot of magicians, a lot of people can do magic.
647
00:38:13.119 --> 00:38:16.159
That's that you can't figure out. That's the lowest bar.
648
00:38:16.800 --> 00:38:22.320
You fool me, good magician, make me feel magic higher
649
00:38:22.960 --> 00:38:27.239
and maybe feel magic and connect. It's like if somebody
650
00:38:27.280 --> 00:38:29.159
cannot even explain what I did in my show and
651
00:38:29.239 --> 00:38:32.440
goes you had to be there. That's something Steve Martin's
652
00:38:32.480 --> 00:38:35.000
the other time, you had to be there. I can't
653
00:38:35.039 --> 00:38:37.920
tell you with words what it's like to see his show.
654
00:38:38.239 --> 00:38:40.920
You have to see it in person. That to me
655
00:38:41.039 --> 00:38:46.719
is a very high goal of like I wanted to
656
00:38:46.800 --> 00:38:50.840
remember the experience and the feeling rather than particularly oh.
657
00:38:51.840 --> 00:38:58.119
I wanted to to care about what the experienced emotionally.
658
00:38:58.639 --> 00:39:00.840
That's how I recall the trick that you did. Outside.
659
00:39:01.360 --> 00:39:06.440
The person who initially connected us just absolutely terrific what
660
00:39:06.480 --> 00:39:10.440
I call close contact. Card magician Franco Pascali here in
661
00:39:10.480 --> 00:39:16.239
Los Angeles. He has amazing card skills. He does something
662
00:39:16.239 --> 00:39:19.159
with his card tricks. I noticed. I'll go to the
663
00:39:19.199 --> 00:39:21.320
Magic Castle as often as possible, and I just watch
664
00:39:21.320 --> 00:39:22.519
and like to take this in and I try and
665
00:39:22.519 --> 00:39:24.920
think about the neuroscience behind it, as you can tell.
666
00:39:25.400 --> 00:39:30.360
And when he lands a trick, meaning when the person
667
00:39:30.400 --> 00:39:32.159
takes the card and says, oh, my goodness, you know,
668
00:39:32.199 --> 00:39:34.880
like how did you know? Or it's like the switches
669
00:39:34.880 --> 00:39:38.559
the card, whatever it is, Franco also acts surprised. He
670
00:39:38.760 --> 00:39:42.840
joins you as an audience member. Momentarily he goes oh,
671
00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:46.559
and then and then he goes back to being the magician.
672
00:39:46.920 --> 00:39:50.559
And I find that especially important for people to understand,
673
00:39:50.679 --> 00:39:53.599
because you do the same. And I always say, having
674
00:39:53.639 --> 00:39:58.519
studied the lectures of many, many spectacular scientists and lectures,
675
00:39:59.039 --> 00:40:03.079
that the best lect in the classroom obviously are teaching
676
00:40:03.119 --> 00:40:05.840
the material from a place of deep understanding of the material,
677
00:40:06.159 --> 00:40:09.559
one would hope, right, So they have mastery of the material,
678
00:40:09.599 --> 00:40:13.039
in some case virtuosity with the material. But as they're
679
00:40:13.079 --> 00:40:15.599
presenting the material to people who know nothing about it,
680
00:40:16.920 --> 00:40:20.360
they themselves are showing their delight in the material as
681
00:40:20.400 --> 00:40:22.360
if it's the first time they've ever seen it. And
682
00:40:22.440 --> 00:40:24.880
so they are both student and teacher at the same time,
683
00:40:25.039 --> 00:40:28.320
and you feel immense resonance with them. And it reminds
684
00:40:28.320 --> 00:40:31.559
me of the experience of seeing you do magic or
685
00:40:31.599 --> 00:40:34.800
mentalist work. Sure, I'm yet to see you go oh
686
00:40:34.840 --> 00:40:39.320
my goodness, but I think it's the sense that you're
687
00:40:39.519 --> 00:40:44.039
collaborating in something and there's this giving over of self,
688
00:40:44.119 --> 00:40:47.760
like I trust us to take me some place with this.
689
00:40:47.920 --> 00:40:51.000
So the resistant people the people that sort of like,
690
00:40:51.079 --> 00:40:52.639
I'm not going to let him fool me.
691
00:40:53.239 --> 00:40:53.360
Right.
692
00:40:53.639 --> 00:40:56.239
What's so amazing is that in your shows oftentimes those
693
00:40:56.280 --> 00:40:58.960
people are the ones that are the ones walking out
694
00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:00.880
just shaking their heads. I know because I've brought some
695
00:41:00.920 --> 00:41:04.360
of them along to your shows, going there's no way,
696
00:41:04.840 --> 00:41:08.320
there's no way, and yet you got them. So do
697
00:41:08.400 --> 00:41:10.559
the resistant people serve a role even if they're not
698
00:41:10.639 --> 00:41:13.880
called off course, Yeah, what role do skeptics play in
699
00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:16.920
convincing other people that something happened that didn't really happen.
700
00:41:17.360 --> 00:41:21.360
So first of all, the transformation. Somebody is a believer
701
00:41:21.480 --> 00:41:24.480
and you show him magic and nice, it's wonderful, we
702
00:41:24.519 --> 00:41:29.599
can celebrate magic together. But somebody is a skeptic, really skeptical,
703
00:41:29.639 --> 00:41:33.480
and I've had really I and I sense that I
704
00:41:33.519 --> 00:41:37.440
could convert them, I could transform them. And the audience
705
00:41:37.519 --> 00:41:40.440
watches this transformation. So we're going from here to here.
706
00:41:40.920 --> 00:41:44.320
That's a wonderful thing. So every now and then I
707
00:41:44.320 --> 00:41:48.000
will recognize the person who's like and he slowly start
708
00:41:48.079 --> 00:41:50.480
to see him milt and softens.
709
00:41:50.639 --> 00:41:52.920
It's almost like a musician at a wedding. You know,
710
00:41:52.920 --> 00:41:55.159
they're the people that jump up and dance immediately. But
711
00:41:55.199 --> 00:41:57.679
if you're a skilled musician, you get that person that
712
00:41:57.920 --> 00:42:00.000
you know their their wife is saying, come on, let's dandy.
713
00:42:00.880 --> 00:42:03.800
Won't move And then maybe you hit a certain motif
714
00:42:03.800 --> 00:42:05.440
in the music and the person taps their foot a
715
00:42:05.480 --> 00:42:07.960
little bit, moves their head. And then there's certain people
716
00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:10.480
that they won't dance at all unless their song comes up,
717
00:42:10.519 --> 00:42:12.400
and then they like dart to the dance floor. Sounds
718
00:42:12.440 --> 00:42:14.519
a little bit like that. And you've captured them. You've
719
00:42:14.519 --> 00:42:17.280
captured their emotion, you've captured their willingness, you've captured their
720
00:42:17.320 --> 00:42:22.199
whole body willingness to participate in some things that a
721
00:42:22.280 --> 00:42:25.400
minute before they were either too embarrassed, too stubborn, or
722
00:42:25.440 --> 00:42:26.599
too tired to engage in.
723
00:42:27.360 --> 00:42:32.400
So here's the deal. Magic could be and often is intimidating.
724
00:42:33.320 --> 00:42:37.840
I'm basically challenging your intellect in some people. If they
725
00:42:37.840 --> 00:42:42.199
take it the wrong way, what they hear is you're
726
00:42:42.239 --> 00:42:45.159
telling me that you're smarter than me. You're told me
727
00:42:45.199 --> 00:42:47.400
you know things I don't know, and I'm not even
728
00:42:47.480 --> 00:42:53.159
close to knowing, so screw you. And they will reject
729
00:42:53.239 --> 00:43:00.840
it aggressively like I've had. Thankfully, it's a percent a
730
00:43:00.880 --> 00:43:02.679
time when I, you know, we do walk around magic
731
00:43:02.719 --> 00:43:04.599
and I go and some people as soon as they
732
00:43:04.639 --> 00:43:07.400
see me, no, no, no, nothing, they don't want to
733
00:43:07.400 --> 00:43:11.079
see it. And I to me that that drove me,
734
00:43:11.199 --> 00:43:13.280
not like why don't they want to They don't even
735
00:43:13.320 --> 00:43:14.400
know what I'm about to offer.
736
00:43:14.559 --> 00:43:17.840
You're going to violate their sense of self trust. That's
737
00:43:17.920 --> 00:43:18.840
I think the fear.
738
00:43:18.800 --> 00:43:24.440
Absolutely And and as a magician or as an artist,
739
00:43:24.440 --> 00:43:28.760
if I if I use that, but my goal is
740
00:43:29.000 --> 00:43:32.079
to also educate them as I do the magic, that
741
00:43:32.760 --> 00:43:36.760
we're creating this safe space where these things could happen.
742
00:43:37.440 --> 00:43:41.199
And it's clear that I'm using it for your own good.
743
00:43:41.440 --> 00:43:43.800
I I you know, I did a whole fullest act
744
00:43:44.360 --> 00:43:48.320
exactly about knowing and not knowing. So I'm not going
745
00:43:48.400 --> 00:43:49.920
to spoil too much. If people want to see it,
746
00:43:49.960 --> 00:43:53.679
they can see it. I'll tell you a backstory on
747
00:43:53.719 --> 00:43:56.559
this if you don't mind, so tell me. The three
748
00:43:56.639 --> 00:44:03.280
major heroes of magic are Tamari, Tommy Wander and Chan Canasta.
749
00:44:03.760 --> 00:44:04.760
Are they alive? Still?
750
00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.400
Chin is not not and Tommy passed. Juan is still
751
00:44:09.599 --> 00:44:10.920
kicking butt in Madrid.
752
00:44:11.440 --> 00:44:14.039
I think I saw him at the castle. He's very yes,
753
00:44:14.599 --> 00:44:17.920
very yeahs.
754
00:44:17.119 --> 00:44:22.320
So he's a hero and uh, I'm a student. So
755
00:44:22.880 --> 00:44:25.239
but let's talk about Tommy for a sec. So Tommy,
756
00:44:26.440 --> 00:44:30.599
for a long time he did magic that the magicians
757
00:44:30.639 --> 00:44:32.360
did not know how it works. It's it was so
758
00:44:32.480 --> 00:44:35.000
devious that even magicians did not know how it works.
759
00:44:35.280 --> 00:44:38.719
And at some point he released some DVDs that teach
760
00:44:38.880 --> 00:44:42.400
his magic. And the trick is is very simple. He
761
00:44:42.440 --> 00:44:47.000
bore someone's watch it disappears and there's a table right
762
00:44:47.039 --> 00:44:49.119
next to him with a little box in the ribbon,
763
00:44:49.639 --> 00:44:53.280
and he literally grabs the ribbon so he never touches
764
00:44:53.280 --> 00:44:57.039
the box, lifts the box, gives it to somebody, he
765
00:44:57.159 --> 00:45:01.199
opens it. Inside there's an alarm clock, the unscrewed the
766
00:45:01.239 --> 00:45:03.239
alarm clock, and inside is their watch.
767
00:45:03.400 --> 00:45:07.880
No, I mean yes, yes, but even.
768
00:45:07.719 --> 00:45:10.679
Magicians who saw that, they go, I have no idea
769
00:45:10.679 --> 00:45:15.039
how it's done, no idea. And then I remember watching
770
00:45:15.039 --> 00:45:19.800
the explanation for the first time, and I was thinking
771
00:45:20.039 --> 00:45:26.360
that the method was by far more interesting, intriguing, revealing,
772
00:45:28.360 --> 00:45:32.880
just beautiful. It made the trick less. Like I said,
773
00:45:33.039 --> 00:45:35.840
you should perform the explanation, don't perform the trick, perform,
774
00:45:36.760 --> 00:45:41.480
and I broke the rules of magic. Like my non
775
00:45:41.519 --> 00:45:43.719
magician friends will come over and say, let me share something,
776
00:45:43.760 --> 00:45:44.920
and I show them the trick and they go, oh,
777
00:45:44.960 --> 00:45:48.199
it's amazing. Let me show the explanation, and their mind
778
00:45:48.519 --> 00:45:49.079
was blown.
779
00:45:49.400 --> 00:45:50.840
Are you willing to share a little bit of what
780
00:45:50.880 --> 00:45:52.239
the explanation is? Or is that not?
781
00:45:52.440 --> 00:45:55.719
No? Okay, but I will explain a little bit. So
782
00:45:55.760 --> 00:45:57.960
the I don't know what the expansion was that it
783
00:45:58.079 --> 00:46:01.599
revealed that he's an engineer that he can build props
784
00:46:01.599 --> 00:46:07.199
that are like ingenious in some point, again, I'm going
785
00:46:07.239 --> 00:46:10.400
around it, but at some point, the person who opens
786
00:46:10.440 --> 00:46:13.440
the box, he's doing part of the trick and he
787
00:46:13.480 --> 00:46:16.519
doesn't know it. He's creating the trick, but he doesn't
788
00:46:16.559 --> 00:46:22.400
know he's contributing something to it. And it's just beautiful metaphorically, symbolically.
789
00:46:22.440 --> 00:46:25.440
It hit so many levels at least, and I planted
790
00:46:25.440 --> 00:46:28.599
the citty in my mind. I want to create an
791
00:46:28.599 --> 00:46:32.159
effect that the method is prettier than the trick itself.
792
00:46:32.920 --> 00:46:36.440
So I worked for five years to create an explanation,
793
00:46:36.559 --> 00:46:41.039
a pseudo explanation to a trick that was just beautiful.
794
00:46:41.639 --> 00:46:44.960
And it was an opportunity to I don't know, have
795
00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:45.360
you seen it.
796
00:46:45.360 --> 00:46:49.159
I don't know if it's the Pelly Yeah. You can
797
00:46:49.159 --> 00:46:51.239
describe it or I can describe it. I mean, let's
798
00:46:51.239 --> 00:46:54.599
see how I remember it, right. I have more interest
799
00:46:54.639 --> 00:46:58.000
in listening than speaking, But I'll tell you how I
800
00:46:58.039 --> 00:47:00.639
remember it. You're in a very You're in front of
801
00:47:00.639 --> 00:47:05.679
a very large audience that includes the scientist slash show
802
00:47:05.760 --> 00:47:08.519
guys at the Pennin Teller who basically debunks stuff. They're
803
00:47:08.559 --> 00:47:09.960
kind of trying to figure it out. They try and
804
00:47:09.960 --> 00:47:15.320
figure stuff out. Some they are asked to pick someone
805
00:47:15.320 --> 00:47:18.199
in the audience. They pick a guy, as I would
806
00:47:18.199 --> 00:47:19.960
call you, wore a green and white sweater.
807
00:47:20.239 --> 00:47:21.639
Wow, you have a good memory.
808
00:47:21.679 --> 00:47:26.559
Yeah, he stands up and ask him to pick a card.
809
00:47:27.199 --> 00:47:30.000
I think I forget what it is, Jack of Clubs. Perhaps,
810
00:47:30.760 --> 00:47:33.119
let's just say, for sake of example, jacko Clubs. You said,
811
00:47:33.159 --> 00:47:35.719
are you sure you're now on stage? Mind you, there
812
00:47:35.719 --> 00:47:38.079
are hundreds of people in the audience, maybe more, And
813
00:47:38.119 --> 00:47:40.719
you say are you sure? And he goes yeah. And
814
00:47:40.719 --> 00:47:42.239
then he goes and you say, you're very short, and
815
00:47:42.280 --> 00:47:45.199
he said, no, I'm gonna switch. So now, first of all,
816
00:47:45.199 --> 00:47:49.280
you have a good memory that perhaps perhaps I've been
817
00:47:49.400 --> 00:47:51.280
I've been accused of. I have a little bit of
818
00:47:51.280 --> 00:47:55.639
an audiographic memory for certain things, but not a visual memory.
819
00:47:55.639 --> 00:47:58.440
That's perfect. They're sort of adjacent. We could talk about
820
00:47:58.440 --> 00:48:00.639
that sometime, and something helps you. If you need to
821
00:48:00.719 --> 00:48:03.840
learn neuroanatomy, that's about it. It can be cultivated. Okay,
822
00:48:03.920 --> 00:48:07.719
So then he switches the card. Let's just call it,
823
00:48:09.320 --> 00:48:13.840
I don't know, Jack of Spades, right, okay, or King
824
00:48:14.119 --> 00:48:16.880
King of Spades. Let's say Jack of spades, and then
825
00:48:18.639 --> 00:48:21.559
next to you on the table up on the stage
826
00:48:21.719 --> 00:48:26.599
is a table, a round table with a plexiglass box,
827
00:48:26.679 --> 00:48:28.119
cigar box, cigar box.
828
00:48:28.199 --> 00:48:32.239
It's clear, no, no, not yet, later later, Okay. First
829
00:48:32.280 --> 00:48:35.280
it's just a wooden wood box, that's right, and a mug,
830
00:48:35.800 --> 00:48:37.840
a white mug, not unlike the mug I have here,
831
00:48:37.840 --> 00:48:40.880
except white. You take a sip from that mug, and
832
00:48:40.920 --> 00:48:44.599
then at some point during this exchange, and then you
833
00:48:45.880 --> 00:48:49.360
open the box and you pull from the box, of
834
00:48:49.360 --> 00:48:54.199
course the card that he selected, and everyone goes, oh,
835
00:48:54.239 --> 00:48:58.599
my goodness, how could that possibly be, because obviously anyone
836
00:48:58.599 --> 00:49:01.440
couldn't select in the audience, he switched his choice, et cetera.
837
00:49:02.760 --> 00:49:06.039
But then you reveal how the trick is done, or
838
00:49:06.079 --> 00:49:08.880
at least seemingly reveal it, which is that beneath the
839
00:49:08.880 --> 00:49:12.280
box there's some a bunch of different decks of cards
840
00:49:12.280 --> 00:49:15.159
on fifty two on a turnstyle, so within each one
841
00:49:15.519 --> 00:49:18.039
a right, and I missed a piece of it. You
842
00:49:18.239 --> 00:49:19.760
pull out the whole deck and only one card.
843
00:49:19.639 --> 00:49:21.599
Is turnverse, and all the other cards are blank.
844
00:49:21.719 --> 00:49:23.840
All the other cards are blank, right, So there's more
845
00:49:23.880 --> 00:49:25.519
to it. So then it turns out that there are
846
00:49:25.519 --> 00:49:28.280
fifty two different decks underneath the table, and it's on
847
00:49:28.320 --> 00:49:30.199
a turnstyle, so you can actually dial it in.
848
00:49:30.280 --> 00:49:32.840
And let's let's keep the ending surprise right, So there's
849
00:49:33.039 --> 00:49:35.000
there's not a surprise ending to it, right.
850
00:49:34.920 --> 00:49:38.840
So then it at least seemingly makes sense as to
851
00:49:39.119 --> 00:49:42.280
how Aussi did this. He has all the different option
852
00:49:42.599 --> 00:49:46.079
possible options available to him physically, but the audience doesn't
853
00:49:46.119 --> 00:49:49.039
realize that. Also that the mug by the way engages
854
00:49:49.039 --> 00:49:52.440
a magnet system that allows him to dial the deck
855
00:49:52.480 --> 00:49:54.559
of cards to the correct one that allows him to
856
00:49:54.599 --> 00:49:58.079
match the choice. So it truly could be any card
857
00:49:58.079 --> 00:50:01.599
in the deck. Remember, meaning it's all So the straightforward
858
00:50:01.639 --> 00:50:05.119
explanation is it's all physical trickery by way of props.
859
00:50:05.280 --> 00:50:09.079
Correct. So here's the deal. What I tried to achieve
860
00:50:09.239 --> 00:50:13.079
with this piece is first to make people feel magic.
861
00:50:13.360 --> 00:50:15.480
So the trick, it's a good trick. You known name
862
00:50:15.519 --> 00:50:19.760
any card. The card he named was reversed and then
863
00:50:19.760 --> 00:50:21.960
it was the only blue card in the deck, and
864
00:50:21.960 --> 00:50:25.199
then all the other cars were blank, so it's clearly
865
00:50:25.320 --> 00:50:27.760
the only card he could have named. And he did switches,
866
00:50:28.079 --> 00:50:30.719
which is amazing detail that you remembered. He did switch
867
00:50:30.760 --> 00:50:32.679
from the king of clubs to the king of space
868
00:50:32.760 --> 00:50:39.280
or risers. Now, so people felt what it's like to
869
00:50:39.320 --> 00:50:42.880
see a good card trick, all right, and then I
870
00:50:42.920 --> 00:50:47.159
wanted to feel what it's like to know. And the
871
00:50:47.280 --> 00:50:51.559
lesson here is, you know, you could satisfy your curiosity.
872
00:50:51.559 --> 00:50:53.480
Oh that's how it's done, and you can go on
873
00:50:53.559 --> 00:50:57.199
with your life. And that's it. And that's what happens
874
00:50:57.239 --> 00:50:59.800
to a magician when you first learned the secrets to
875
00:51:00.400 --> 00:51:04.639
you know, somedeny that fooled you, there's disappointment. I remember
876
00:51:04.719 --> 00:51:08.239
the first trek that was revealed to me. It was
877
00:51:08.519 --> 00:51:13.000
a little red handkerchief stuffed into the hand that's gone,
878
00:51:14.599 --> 00:51:18.079
and I'm like, what do it again? And he did
879
00:51:18.119 --> 00:51:22.760
it again. He did ten times in a row. I could.
880
00:51:23.079 --> 00:51:26.360
And then he explained to me how it's done. And
881
00:51:26.559 --> 00:51:32.599
the secret was so simple and stupid. No that you
882
00:51:32.599 --> 00:51:35.960
share with us, No, no, no, but I got you.
883
00:51:36.079 --> 00:51:39.400
It was primitive, it was simple, and in the moment
884
00:51:39.480 --> 00:51:43.440
he revealed the gimmick that caused the handkerchief to disappear,
885
00:51:44.760 --> 00:51:47.760
I could not see the trick again. Every time he
886
00:51:47.880 --> 00:51:49.639
is it's this, Yeah.
887
00:51:50.199 --> 00:51:53.840
It's like falling out of love something like that. That's
888
00:51:54.119 --> 00:51:57.199
really I mean. A previous guest on the podcast, Carl
889
00:51:57.239 --> 00:52:00.119
dice Roth, one of the best bioengineers or scientists and
890
00:52:00.159 --> 00:52:04.159
psychiatrists in the world, went on Lex Friedman podcast and
891
00:52:04.159 --> 00:52:07.280
they were talking about love and Carl said something interesting
892
00:52:07.320 --> 00:52:12.480
that's very relevant here. He said, he's a collagubeon at Stanford.
893
00:52:12.639 --> 00:52:17.559
Very poetic guy. He said, you know, love between two people,
894
00:52:18.679 --> 00:52:21.519
romantic love, that is, is one of the few things
895
00:52:22.320 --> 00:52:26.800
in life that we collaborate with someone to story something
896
00:52:26.840 --> 00:52:30.239
into the future. You know, this is different than the
897
00:52:30.239 --> 00:52:32.039
love of a child or a sibling, or a parent,
898
00:52:32.159 --> 00:52:35.239
or a pet et cetera, or a friend. Right, You're
899
00:52:35.280 --> 00:52:38.199
creating a story that's based on real experience of past
900
00:52:38.239 --> 00:52:43.159
and present. But there's this storying forward of love that's great,
901
00:52:43.320 --> 00:52:46.440
and falling out of love involves that, of course, the
902
00:52:46.519 --> 00:52:49.880
ending of the story moving forward, but also a in
903
00:52:49.920 --> 00:52:55.360
some cases sadly, a revision of the events of the past.
904
00:52:56.320 --> 00:53:02.320
And it's great. It's very close. It's very close to
905
00:53:02.480 --> 00:53:05.360
the feeling you have as a magician the first time
906
00:53:05.400 --> 00:53:12.840
you trigger exposed, right, it disappoints you because you have
907
00:53:12.880 --> 00:53:17.679
a desire for it to be real, the desire of
908
00:53:18.039 --> 00:53:20.000
a young magician is when I see something like that,
909
00:53:20.239 --> 00:53:23.920
is that it's a supernatural power. And the first thing
910
00:53:23.960 --> 00:53:28.199
you understand is that it's not supernatural, that it's quite
911
00:53:28.239 --> 00:53:32.599
simple and primitive, and it foolds you because of all
912
00:53:32.639 --> 00:53:35.719
the psychology and the desire. Like everything we spoke about
913
00:53:35.800 --> 00:53:39.519
my desire to be to see magic, the fact of
914
00:53:39.679 --> 00:53:42.519
the idea of misdirection, which we can talk about at length.
915
00:53:43.840 --> 00:53:49.639
Misdirection means I provide something very interesting for you to follow,
916
00:53:51.039 --> 00:53:53.800
and you will follow that path because it's the most
917
00:53:53.800 --> 00:53:58.199
interesting at the moment to follow. And in the background,
918
00:53:59.280 --> 00:54:04.920
in the shading of life, some dirty stuff happen, but
919
00:54:04.960 --> 00:54:07.440
you don't pay attention because I don't feature it. It's
920
00:54:07.480 --> 00:54:10.679
not important, and I make you render it as not important.
921
00:54:11.880 --> 00:54:16.400
So it does that right, and it's disappointment. But there's
922
00:54:16.440 --> 00:54:19.440
good news if you keep up with magic and you
923
00:54:19.480 --> 00:54:23.000
start to understand that to do a trick, the secret,
924
00:54:24.400 --> 00:54:28.360
the actual how you did it, is one percent of
925
00:54:28.639 --> 00:54:33.119
the whole procedure, and there's much more to doing that
926
00:54:33.199 --> 00:54:40.559
trick effectively, which is storytelling, connecting, doing it in such
927
00:54:40.639 --> 00:54:44.599
way that somebody cares about it, and that is a
928
00:54:44.639 --> 00:54:52.440
lifetime of pondering and contemplation, so you have maybe you
929
00:54:52.519 --> 00:54:55.400
find analogy with love again. I don't know. There's also
930
00:54:55.800 --> 00:54:59.079
this time when you start appreciating it again, appreciate the
931
00:54:59.119 --> 00:55:03.639
secret again because you understand the nuance, You understand the
932
00:55:03.760 --> 00:55:08.599
complexity of this simple thing. And that's what happened to me.
933
00:55:09.280 --> 00:55:12.880
So in some magic, which is the exception is the
934
00:55:12.920 --> 00:55:14.920
table that we spoke about that I didn't fool us,
935
00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:19.639
or Tommy Wander's table where the effect is so so
936
00:55:20.199 --> 00:55:23.559
magnificent that you do appreciate it immediately, But those are rare.
937
00:55:24.159 --> 00:55:28.840
Most magic is simple, dirty and to the point, but
938
00:55:29.360 --> 00:55:32.760
it achieves something it looks very complex.
939
00:55:34.920 --> 00:55:37.559
Perhaps now would be the appropriate time for you to
940
00:55:37.639 --> 00:55:42.440
reveal the non reveal of the explanation of the trick,
941
00:55:42.760 --> 00:55:46.679
because one of the amazing things about the trick that
942
00:55:46.719 --> 00:55:49.840
you did with selecting the card that the gentleman in
943
00:55:49.880 --> 00:55:52.840
the audience of Penn and Teller had mentally and verbally
944
00:55:53.199 --> 00:55:58.239
selected is that at the very end, after everyone believes
945
00:55:58.239 --> 00:56:01.800
they now understand how the trick is on the turnfoul table,
946
00:56:01.800 --> 00:56:06.519
the magnet, the coffee mug, you proceed to strip away
947
00:56:06.679 --> 00:56:09.599
the curtain, the curtain around the table and pull out
948
00:56:10.400 --> 00:56:13.760
a piece of paper, not fifty two decks of cards.
949
00:56:13.840 --> 00:56:16.440
It's a picture of It's a picture, which means that
950
00:56:16.519 --> 00:56:21.400
the explanation that they got, while entirely plausible, if that's
951
00:56:21.440 --> 00:56:23.639
actually what it happened, is not at all what had happened.
952
00:56:23.639 --> 00:56:26.800
In other words, you pop out at the end that
953
00:56:26.960 --> 00:56:29.440
they don't actually know how it's done. You know how
954
00:56:29.480 --> 00:56:31.440
it's done, and I'm not even going to bother to
955
00:56:31.480 --> 00:56:33.480
ask you how it's done, because you're not going to
956
00:56:33.519 --> 00:56:36.360
reveal it. In other words, people were misdirected into thinking
957
00:56:36.400 --> 00:56:39.800
they understood the trick, and therefore kind of there's a
958
00:56:39.800 --> 00:56:44.639
bit of a let down. It's interesting, but it's just mechanics, magnets,
959
00:56:44.679 --> 00:56:49.280
and then you reveal that their understanding is actually not real.
960
00:56:50.159 --> 00:56:54.199
Yes, And the reason I wanted to go there so
961
00:56:54.519 --> 00:56:57.119
I wanted them to feel magic, then to feel what
962
00:56:57.159 --> 00:57:00.880
it's like to know something in the fact that it's irreversible.
963
00:57:01.920 --> 00:57:04.159
You can't unno a trick once you know how it's done.
964
00:57:05.039 --> 00:57:07.480
And then what I said, look, I made a choice.
965
00:57:07.559 --> 00:57:09.679
I chose to learn the secrets to magic, and I'm
966
00:57:09.719 --> 00:57:11.880
paying a price for it. I cannot see magic the
967
00:57:11.920 --> 00:57:16.119
way you can. I cannot enjoy the way my audience can.
968
00:57:16.360 --> 00:57:18.639
And in a weird way, I'm experienced magic only through
969
00:57:18.679 --> 00:57:22.400
their eyes. When I see somebody goes wow. Through you,
970
00:57:22.519 --> 00:57:27.079
I can experience it, but that's it. I cannot firsthand
971
00:57:27.679 --> 00:57:31.280
experience magic the way you can. So I said, I'm
972
00:57:31.280 --> 00:57:33.039
not here to make that choice for you. So let
973
00:57:33.119 --> 00:57:36.239
me bring you back to safety, to the police you
974
00:57:36.280 --> 00:57:41.400
were at. It's a place I envy to mystery. And
975
00:57:41.440 --> 00:57:44.760
then I revealed that the whole expansion was bogis. The
976
00:57:44.800 --> 00:57:48.320
whole thing was just another lie. And I'm establishing another
977
00:57:48.360 --> 00:57:51.480
thing that as a magician, I have a license to
978
00:57:51.519 --> 00:57:55.079
lie to you, and it's okay because that's my job,
979
00:57:55.480 --> 00:57:56.719
and therefore it makes it honest.
980
00:57:57.000 --> 00:57:59.440
And we're collaborating in that to some extent because when
981
00:57:59.440 --> 00:58:02.280
people go to a magic show, they understand that. Another
982
00:58:02.280 --> 00:58:05.920
former guest on the podcast, Rick Rubin, who needs no
983
00:58:06.000 --> 00:58:09.159
introduction but by the way, he's a big fan of magic,
984
00:58:09.800 --> 00:58:14.519
has said to me before that there are only two
985
00:58:14.519 --> 00:58:18.360
things in life that are absolutely true. One is nature right,
986
00:58:18.400 --> 00:58:21.199
they're real truths, they're real laws and rules of nature.
987
00:58:21.880 --> 00:58:26.280
And the other is for him, professional wrestling. Because Rick
988
00:58:26.360 --> 00:58:28.760
Love is professional wrestling. He's a lifetime member of the
989
00:58:28.800 --> 00:58:32.320
AW and the WWE. I have gone to see wrestling
990
00:58:32.400 --> 00:58:34.440
with him. And the reason he believes it's one of
991
00:58:34.519 --> 00:58:37.519
the few things that's real is that everyone knows it's
992
00:58:37.559 --> 00:58:40.679
not real, and so everyone agrees to collaborate in this story,
993
00:58:40.719 --> 00:58:43.639
this theater of these guys hate each other, this woman
994
00:58:43.639 --> 00:58:46.480
and this woman are now friends. They are collaborators, and
995
00:58:46.519 --> 00:58:49.440
so unlike everything else, which is completely made up and
996
00:58:49.480 --> 00:58:53.360
you're not sure what's real and what's fake, with professional
997
00:58:53.400 --> 00:58:56.519
wrestling and with nature, it's a real truth. I would
998
00:58:56.519 --> 00:58:59.880
add to that magic because when we go to see magic,
999
00:59:00.159 --> 00:59:06.239
we want to be astonished, most people do. We want
1000
00:59:06.239 --> 00:59:11.400
our perceptions to be violated, right, what we believe is
1001
00:59:11.440 --> 00:59:16.119
theirs and there, et cetera. And yet we are doing
1002
00:59:16.199 --> 00:59:19.480
this consensually. We're doing this, and so we're agreeing, like,
1003
00:59:19.559 --> 00:59:22.159
let's collaborate in a in a lie. That there's this
1004
00:59:22.159 --> 00:59:25.599
thing called magic, I guess, and that's a pretty ill
1005
00:59:25.639 --> 00:59:27.480
defined term in its own right, where you know, this
1006
00:59:27.599 --> 00:59:30.639
idea that physical objects can be made to disappear violate
1007
00:59:30.679 --> 00:59:34.960
the rules of nature of physics, and unless you're of
1008
00:59:35.000 --> 00:59:37.599
a certain ilk out there in the world, that simply
1009
00:59:37.679 --> 00:59:40.079
is not the case. The laws of nature hold.
1010
00:59:40.559 --> 00:59:45.159
So maybe there's another analogy there, because we know that
1011
00:59:45.639 --> 00:59:50.199
professional wrestlers are faking it, and we know a magician
1012
00:59:50.239 --> 00:59:52.840
fakes it too, it fakes supernatural powers.
1013
00:59:53.159 --> 00:59:55.440
Right, they're doing real things in wrestling, but they're not
1014
00:59:55.559 --> 00:59:59.760
actually trying to harm one another, correct, Right, They're collaborating.
1015
00:59:59.639 --> 01:00:01.480
But it's almost a choreographed fight.
1016
01:00:01.559 --> 01:00:04.400
Right. Yes, I think there's some My understanding is based
1017
01:00:04.440 --> 01:00:08.599
on discussions with Rick and professional wrestlers that Rick has
1018
01:00:08.599 --> 01:00:12.000
introduced me to, is that there's some room for improvisation,
1019
01:00:12.199 --> 01:00:16.280
and occasionally people will hurt one another accidentally. Sometimes there
1020
01:00:16.280 --> 01:00:19.519
are real conflicts that are created. Just like in the theater,
1021
01:00:19.719 --> 01:00:22.360
people will have relationships off stage, et cetera, and it
1022
01:00:22.360 --> 01:00:25.119
creates conflict on stage. And that's the where the theater
1023
01:00:25.199 --> 01:00:27.840
of life meets the theater the stage, and vice versa.
1024
01:00:28.239 --> 01:00:30.960
So I would add to that, maybe maybe I'm wrong
1025
01:00:31.679 --> 01:00:35.960
that you do a magic show and you know an
1026
01:00:36.079 --> 01:00:38.400
educated person and a smart person who knows that what
1027
01:00:38.440 --> 01:00:44.079
I do is trickery conjuring. But every now and then
1028
01:00:44.079 --> 01:00:48.400
they might ask, I wonder if that was real? That
1029
01:00:48.599 --> 01:00:51.719
little part he just did? Maybe that was real? So
1030
01:00:51.760 --> 01:00:55.599
there's there's a moment I think in magic where even
1031
01:00:55.599 --> 01:00:58.079
the smartest guy who knows I do tricks to go,
1032
01:00:59.000 --> 01:01:01.679
yeah this is old tricks. But maybe what he just did, Now,
1033
01:01:02.599 --> 01:01:03.679
maybe that was real.
1034
01:01:03.800 --> 01:01:05.519
Like make it. When you say real, you mean mean
1035
01:01:05.639 --> 01:01:09.920
real violence, rules physics. So taking a card, holding it up,
1036
01:01:10.000 --> 01:01:12.639
clinching your fists, making it disappear. I'm giving simplest kind of.
1037
01:01:12.880 --> 01:01:16.159
Mind reading or or is They say, maybe he's able
1038
01:01:16.199 --> 01:01:20.159
to do those things psychologically or whatnot right, and maybe
1039
01:01:20.159 --> 01:01:22.840
that happens also in wrestling they say, yay, it's fake,
1040
01:01:22.880 --> 01:01:25.800
but I think that moment was real. So there's an
1041
01:01:25.920 --> 01:01:29.599
inkling or moments where because I think you to create
1042
01:01:29.639 --> 01:01:33.199
this drama and to me that that exists in magic?
1043
01:01:33.840 --> 01:01:36.440
Is he real? Easy? Fake? Did I figure it out?
1044
01:01:36.480 --> 01:01:38.000
Or did I not figure it out? Am I clos
1045
01:01:38.119 --> 01:01:40.840
or am I not? There's constant conflict in a magic
1046
01:01:40.880 --> 01:01:42.400
show that you go in and out of, and I
1047
01:01:42.440 --> 01:01:45.119
wonder if that happens in wrestling as well, where you
1048
01:01:45.119 --> 01:01:47.920
you know it's fake, but maybe there's something that was
1049
01:01:47.960 --> 01:01:51.239
real or this happened and that was not planned. So
1050
01:01:51.280 --> 01:01:56.280
I think that this just thinking the fact that you
1051
01:01:56.400 --> 01:02:02.000
invested into thinking what Israel, and what is not is intriguing.
1052
01:02:02.639 --> 01:02:05.000
I think there's a much larger theme here that we're
1053
01:02:05.039 --> 01:02:08.159
veering toward. And I'm getting excited because this has to
1054
01:02:08.199 --> 01:02:10.840
do with how the brain works and it and there
1055
01:02:10.840 --> 01:02:13.519
are examples in different domains. But to come to mind now,
1056
01:02:13.840 --> 01:02:17.079
Rick and I sometimes hang out here in Los Angeles
1057
01:02:17.119 --> 01:02:19.159
and there's a place where we do sauna and cold
1058
01:02:19.199 --> 01:02:23.000
that looks out on the ocean. And Rick once turned
1059
01:02:23.000 --> 01:02:26.760
to me and said, you know, isn't it interesting. You know,
1060
01:02:26.800 --> 01:02:28.840
we know that there are all these animals under the water,
1061
01:02:29.159 --> 01:02:33.239
dolphins and whales and all this stuff, sharks, But when
1062
01:02:33.239 --> 01:02:37.519
we see a dolphin or a group of dolphins where
1063
01:02:37.559 --> 01:02:42.480
we see a whale breach, it's like people are just delighted.
1064
01:02:42.519 --> 01:02:45.119
Now they're beautiful animals. But oftentimes it's just a tail
1065
01:02:46.039 --> 01:02:48.639
slapping this. And I think, and he said, I wonder
1066
01:02:48.719 --> 01:02:51.519
if it's because it reminds us of how much is
1067
01:02:51.559 --> 01:02:55.440
going on there underneath the surface. And I love that
1068
01:02:55.599 --> 01:02:58.199
because I think, A he's right. You know, I've done
1069
01:02:58.199 --> 01:03:00.480
some snorkeling, some scuba diving. You see a lot of stuff,
1070
01:03:00.519 --> 01:03:03.199
and it's a brilliant experience to see all that and
1071
01:03:03.199 --> 01:03:05.320
to be a fish of sorts and be breathing underwater.
1072
01:03:05.400 --> 01:03:10.239
But there is something magnificent about seeing an aquatic animal
1073
01:03:10.239 --> 01:03:13.920
breach the surface, and it goes beyond just seeing the animal.
1074
01:03:14.079 --> 01:03:15.960
It's like a reminder of all these other things that
1075
01:03:16.000 --> 01:03:19.599
are likely happening that are outside our usual perception. And
1076
01:03:19.639 --> 01:03:22.519
so that's what comes to mind there. And then I
1077
01:03:22.559 --> 01:03:26.480
had another example, but I can't think of it now where.
1078
01:03:26.719 --> 01:03:29.320
Oh it's in sports, you know, I always think of
1079
01:03:29.360 --> 01:03:33.880
there's unskilled skilled mastery and virtuosity and virtuosity and music
1080
01:03:34.079 --> 01:03:38.119
like yo yo ma, or in sport I don't know,
1081
01:03:38.199 --> 01:03:40.360
pick up, I don't know, Michael Jordan, whatever, favorite sport.
1082
01:03:40.800 --> 01:03:43.119
This idea that maybe they don't even know what they're
1083
01:03:43.119 --> 01:03:45.880
going to do next, that there's some improvisation at the
1084
01:03:45.960 --> 01:03:50.519
level of extreme mastery where you're going to see something
1085
01:03:50.519 --> 01:03:54.119
you've never seen before. And I think that's what delights people.
1086
01:03:54.119 --> 01:03:55.719
It's not just about getting the ball into the end
1087
01:03:55.800 --> 01:03:57.599
zone or the ball into the basket or playing a
1088
01:03:57.599 --> 01:03:59.679
piece of music. It's the idea of something happening for
1089
01:03:59.719 --> 01:04:02.400
the first time. And maybe again, as with the earlier example,
1090
01:04:02.559 --> 01:04:07.039
that the person performing, the athlete, the musician, etc. The magician,
1091
01:04:07.239 --> 01:04:12.199
the mentalists, they themselves are delighted by what just happened.
1092
01:04:12.239 --> 01:04:14.119
They didn't even realize it was going to happen. And
1093
01:04:14.159 --> 01:04:18.519
you collaborate in this like wow, life holds far more
1094
01:04:18.559 --> 01:04:24.239
than I experience on my daily perceptual kind of framework. Yeah,
1095
01:04:24.639 --> 01:04:26.440
very well, could be, and I think your shows bring
1096
01:04:26.480 --> 01:04:29.679
people to that. I want to return to a couple
1097
01:04:29.719 --> 01:04:31.559
of ideas. First of all, we've been talking about emotion
1098
01:04:31.679 --> 01:04:35.400
and collaboration a lot. We've had a guest on the podcast,
1099
01:04:35.519 --> 01:04:38.199
David Spiegel. He's our associate chaff psychiatry at Stanford who
1100
01:04:38.320 --> 01:04:42.239
does clinical hypnosis, which it brings people into a state
1101
01:04:42.239 --> 01:04:45.480
of calm plus a very constrained context where they're more
1102
01:04:45.599 --> 01:04:48.440
likely to think about certain things than others. How much
1103
01:04:48.480 --> 01:04:51.840
of what you do with an individual or group of
1104
01:04:51.880 --> 01:04:57.920
people in your craft involves hypnosis constraining the context, in
1105
01:04:57.960 --> 01:05:02.159
other words, eliminating certain patterns of thinking to make other
1106
01:05:02.199 --> 01:05:06.159
certain patterns of thinking more likely. Is that like a storytelling,
1107
01:05:06.199 --> 01:05:08.039
Like you start telling me a story, a horror story
1108
01:05:08.119 --> 01:05:10.880
or a mystery or a comedy story, I'm shutting down
1109
01:05:10.960 --> 01:05:13.960
whatever you're not talking about. Is that something that you do?
1110
01:05:14.480 --> 01:05:18.000
Yeah? So first of all, we have theatrical hypnosis people
1111
01:05:18.000 --> 01:05:20.920
that do shows where they get they gather about twenty
1112
01:05:20.960 --> 01:05:24.039
people on stage and they start making them dance like chickens.
1113
01:05:24.119 --> 01:05:24.280
Right.
1114
01:05:26.320 --> 01:05:30.760
I've never been full on with this type of performances
1115
01:05:31.079 --> 01:05:34.880
for various reasons. Just to me, that's not the best
1116
01:05:34.920 --> 01:05:37.719
way for me to engage with an audience or or
1117
01:05:39.360 --> 01:05:43.719
to manipulate them. However, there's some there's certain things that
1118
01:05:43.760 --> 01:05:48.199
we do in magic that if you say certain things
1119
01:05:49.000 --> 01:05:53.079
in a certain way, it will produce a certain answer.
1120
01:05:54.800 --> 01:05:59.239
And it amazes me too. I like there's some second
1121
01:05:59.239 --> 01:06:02.800
we call them cycle logical forces that you you see
1122
01:06:04.199 --> 01:06:07.559
a string of words in a certain order and it
1123
01:06:07.599 --> 01:06:12.960
will produce with with with high percentage a yes or no,
1124
01:06:13.440 --> 01:06:15.719
or I want this and not that, and.
1125
01:06:16.360 --> 01:06:18.719
Like would you you want to pick the this deck
1126
01:06:18.800 --> 01:06:20.199
of cards or that deck of cards?
1127
01:06:20.239 --> 01:06:23.239
Type leading that could that could be the simplest of
1128
01:06:23.280 --> 01:06:25.079
the of the idea, but it could it could be
1129
01:06:25.119 --> 01:06:29.679
even more complex than that. And it amazes me because
1130
01:06:29.719 --> 01:06:32.199
it's almost like a recipe. You follow the recipe put
1131
01:06:32.239 --> 01:06:36.960
in the oven boon, Okay, you know, But there's in
1132
01:06:37.039 --> 01:06:40.960
magic when I say certain certain things, there's a moment
1133
01:06:40.960 --> 01:06:43.880
when I'm waiting for you to say something and I
1134
01:06:44.559 --> 01:06:47.079
don't know if you're going to follow what I just did,
1135
01:06:47.440 --> 01:06:50.199
and then I hear it and I go, there's a joy.
1136
01:06:50.880 --> 01:06:52.639
It's like, yes, it works, And.
1137
01:06:52.519 --> 01:06:55.000
This reveals something fundamental about the brain. First, as I
1138
01:06:55.000 --> 01:06:57.119
could imagine, if we have two mugs in front of
1139
01:06:57.119 --> 01:06:59.800
me for those listening, if I hover my finger on
1140
01:06:59.800 --> 01:07:01.679
one of them longer than others, and I say, would
1141
01:07:01.679 --> 01:07:03.840
you like to drink from this mug and keep it
1142
01:07:03.880 --> 01:07:07.039
there for ten seconds or this one and I just
1143
01:07:07.079 --> 01:07:09.280
tap the other one briefly, do you think you bias
1144
01:07:09.360 --> 01:07:11.320
the probability of which one somebody will pick?
1145
01:07:11.440 --> 01:07:17.480
Okay, So, because and that's a great example, I could
1146
01:07:17.559 --> 01:07:19.480
It depends on my character. First, I need to know
1147
01:07:19.679 --> 01:07:22.599
who I'm doing it to. Are you the challenger? Are
1148
01:07:22.639 --> 01:07:24.079
you the guy who's going to go with anything?
1149
01:07:24.079 --> 01:07:25.960
Okay, let's say it's the guy will go with anything.
1150
01:07:26.239 --> 01:07:27.760
Well, I think there's a light of beevity, will go
1151
01:07:27.760 --> 01:07:29.960
with the one you touched longer. But if it's the challenger,
1152
01:07:30.000 --> 01:07:33.920
he will say, oh, I see what's happening here. Andrew
1153
01:07:34.039 --> 01:07:36.360
is trying to make me take this one, and therefore
1154
01:07:36.719 --> 01:07:40.280
I'm going to take that one. So and that's the
1155
01:07:40.360 --> 01:07:42.880
simplest idea of challenges.
1156
01:07:43.000 --> 01:07:45.519
And I could challenge you again and say with doubt,
1157
01:07:45.559 --> 01:07:47.039
And then I could say, are you sure you want
1158
01:07:47.039 --> 01:07:49.000
the one that I tapped just briefly. I'm not telling
1159
01:07:49.039 --> 01:07:50.920
you it that way, but I'd say are you sure?
1160
01:07:50.960 --> 01:07:54.679
And if you say yes, you're challenging me again. And
1161
01:07:54.719 --> 01:07:57.320
now I'm certain you're a challenger. So you're collecting data,
1162
01:07:57.360 --> 01:07:58.559
basically collecting data.
1163
01:07:58.760 --> 01:08:02.440
And because I've done it thousands of times, I do
1164
01:08:02.519 --> 01:08:06.199
the exact same spell, the same you know, order events,
1165
01:08:06.800 --> 01:08:08.719
and I and I and I get to try it,
1166
01:08:08.760 --> 01:08:11.280
and sometimes I say, okay, let's phrase it differently. You know,
1167
01:08:11.360 --> 01:08:13.599
there's routines where I do when I need someone to
1168
01:08:13.599 --> 01:08:18.560
say certain something, and and I don't just rely on
1169
01:08:18.640 --> 01:08:22.600
the psychological force. I have other tools in my arsenal
1170
01:08:22.600 --> 01:08:29.840
of tools. And but it surprises me the the percentage,
1171
01:08:30.720 --> 01:08:35.039
the rate. Ah. And that's what Chane did a lot.
1172
01:08:35.640 --> 01:08:38.680
He understood the idea that if people feel challenged, they
1173
01:08:38.720 --> 01:08:42.399
do this, If they feel like maybe you're desperate for
1174
01:08:42.479 --> 01:08:45.399
them to change, they'll act a different way. And again
1175
01:08:45.479 --> 01:08:48.560
I'm tiptoeing again because I don't want to do mystify
1176
01:08:48.680 --> 01:08:51.319
matchic Here, I'm trying to say that there's a real
1177
01:08:51.399 --> 01:08:55.960
way for and and you know Daniel Kahnman and Amos
1178
01:08:56.279 --> 01:08:59.479
Tversky they talk about it in their work, you know,
1179
01:08:59.560 --> 01:09:02.199
the thing looking Fast and Slow for example, which which
1180
01:09:02.319 --> 01:09:05.159
to us is a magic book. How people make decisions.
1181
01:09:06.000 --> 01:09:08.840
And they often say if you you phrase a question
1182
01:09:08.960 --> 01:09:12.760
one way versus another way, and even though the same
1183
01:09:12.800 --> 01:09:16.479
thing is at stake, it's the same equation. If you
1184
01:09:16.520 --> 01:09:19.079
phrase it this way, they'll prefer that. If you phrase
1185
01:09:19.119 --> 01:09:21.800
it that way, they prefer the other one. And it
1186
01:09:21.880 --> 01:09:24.880
makes no sense because that's a demmb line is like
1187
01:09:24.920 --> 01:09:25.720
which one do you want?
1188
01:09:26.000 --> 01:09:31.000
Well, I think the brain runs algorithms, and some of
1189
01:09:31.039 --> 01:09:34.560
it's historical and how we are raised. I give an example.
1190
01:09:34.640 --> 01:09:38.119
A friend of mine has twins, and I said, how's
1191
01:09:38.159 --> 01:09:42.800
it going with the twins? Describe their personalities and how
1192
01:09:42.840 --> 01:09:45.079
they differ. And he said that one of his twin daughters,
1193
01:09:46.000 --> 01:09:48.479
no matter what you tell her, she says, no, she
1194
01:09:48.640 --> 01:09:51.600
challenges you, but not as a way to disengage, as
1195
01:09:51.640 --> 01:09:52.600
a way to engage.
1196
01:09:53.039 --> 01:09:53.319
Nice.
1197
01:09:53.640 --> 01:10:00.399
Interesting, yeah, interesting, And the other one is very willing
1198
01:10:00.439 --> 01:10:03.920
to engage in things, doesn't challenge, but engages through you know,
1199
01:10:04.079 --> 01:10:08.279
active collaboration. When we had Chris Voss, a former FBI
1200
01:10:08.359 --> 01:10:10.359
negotiator here on the podcast, he said, one way to
1201
01:10:10.359 --> 01:10:14.039
get information from people in these scenarios he used to
1202
01:10:14.079 --> 01:10:16.159
do before, is instead of asking them a question, you
1203
01:10:16.199 --> 01:10:20.640
give a hypothesis. You keep your hair really, you know nice,
1204
01:10:20.680 --> 01:10:24.399
you got great hair. You must like spend a lot
1205
01:10:24.399 --> 01:10:28.359
of money on clothes. Now people will respond, he tells me,
1206
01:10:29.199 --> 01:10:33.239
by either agreeing yes or no. I don't really spend
1207
01:10:33.239 --> 01:10:34.920
a lot of money. You just got information, But you're
1208
01:10:34.920 --> 01:10:36.640
not asking do you spend a lot of money on clothes.
1209
01:10:36.640 --> 01:10:40.119
You basically stayed a hypothesis, and then they are either
1210
01:10:40.199 --> 01:10:45.119
going to accept or refute your hypothesis. And people almost
1211
01:10:45.119 --> 01:10:49.920
reflexively respond to hypotheses about them from others by wanting
1212
01:10:50.000 --> 01:10:53.399
to defend the truth. And that's a way that FBI
1213
01:10:53.479 --> 01:10:56.399
negotiators and others get information. Rather than ask questions, give
1214
01:10:56.399 --> 01:10:58.720
them hypotheses, and people will defend their truth to the
1215
01:10:58.720 --> 01:11:00.760
point of giving up information. Wouldn't otherwise.
1216
01:11:01.000 --> 01:11:04.039
Yeah, and if you want to, I know you're here
1217
01:11:04.319 --> 01:11:07.000
for me to reveal my tricks, so I'll reveal something.
1218
01:11:08.520 --> 01:11:10.960
Hymns is they do this quite a bit, and it's
1219
01:11:11.000 --> 01:11:14.479
a beautiful strategy of doing it. They'll make a few
1220
01:11:14.520 --> 01:11:18.840
statements and there are simple statements they are accurate there.
1221
01:11:18.880 --> 01:11:22.159
You can argue with those statements the the ring true
1222
01:11:22.720 --> 01:11:25.279
and you believe them, and then maybe the last thing
1223
01:11:25.439 --> 01:11:30.800
they're going to say is not quite true. But because
1224
01:11:30.800 --> 01:11:34.399
of you average the information and you go, okay, it's
1225
01:11:34.479 --> 01:11:37.439
he's speaking the truth. Now he's telling us the truth.
1226
01:11:38.039 --> 01:11:42.880
But in between those statements, there's some inaccuracies there that
1227
01:11:43.079 --> 01:11:47.840
are starting to manipulate you. But they are half truth
1228
01:11:48.479 --> 01:11:51.399
like it's it's like, for example, I say this, this
1229
01:11:51.560 --> 01:11:54.239
is a round table, right, and and you feel you
1230
01:11:54.239 --> 01:11:56.720
can feel the light right, even if you close your eyes,
1231
01:11:56.840 --> 01:11:59.159
you could feel the light. And you can even feel
1232
01:11:59.560 --> 01:12:01.680
that even if you didn't know that this is a
1233
01:12:01.720 --> 01:12:05.159
bigger light than this one because of the heat. Now,
1234
01:12:05.159 --> 01:12:08.079
this might be a false statement, but it makes sense.
1235
01:12:08.319 --> 01:12:10.520
And you can start to feel heat on one and you.
1236
01:12:10.479 --> 01:12:15.960
Start to go, yeah, it's logical, it's very sensical. Therefore
1237
01:12:16.119 --> 01:12:19.439
it's true. But it's a half truth. Maybe if we
1238
01:12:19.560 --> 01:12:22.279
measure that this is a stronger light. Who knows, But
1239
01:12:22.800 --> 01:12:24.439
I say, you know, and you feel there's a bit
1240
01:12:24.479 --> 01:12:29.000
of a hum here. And the more you focus on it,
1241
01:12:28.800 --> 01:12:33.399
and it's getting louder. Now because you're paying attention to it,
1242
01:12:33.399 --> 01:12:36.520
it's getting louder. It's not getting louder, you know.
1243
01:12:36.680 --> 01:12:39.199
Actually you're guid but I.
1244
01:12:39.239 --> 01:12:44.159
Guy exactly, I'm I'm directing your attention to the things
1245
01:12:44.159 --> 01:12:49.279
I want you to. You heard the plane. It's an illusion, No,
1246
01:12:49.399 --> 01:12:53.720
it's you know, but this is something that hippenses do
1247
01:12:53.960 --> 01:12:57.159
very well, you know, guiding you, you know, going to
1248
01:12:57.279 --> 01:12:59.439
end up and all that. It's all related the idea
1249
01:12:59.479 --> 01:13:05.239
of like sounding like they're telling you things that should
1250
01:13:05.239 --> 01:13:10.279
make sense, they're accurate, they're not. They're sort of accurate,
1251
01:13:10.880 --> 01:13:12.880
and it becomes more and more ridiculous until the tail
1252
01:13:12.920 --> 01:13:15.039
you desk like a chicken, and then you diss like
1253
01:13:15.079 --> 01:13:15.479
a chicken.
1254
01:13:15.960 --> 01:13:22.239
Yeah, it's so interesting because perception obviously is governed by
1255
01:13:22.279 --> 01:13:24.399
the brain, at least in part brain and body but
1256
01:13:24.439 --> 01:13:31.279
nervous system. And we have essentially two attentional spotlights, meaning
1257
01:13:31.279 --> 01:13:33.199
we can pay attention to two things at the same time,
1258
01:13:33.239 --> 01:13:36.359
but probably not five. And we can merge those spotlights
1259
01:13:36.399 --> 01:13:38.479
and we can make the more intense so to speak,
1260
01:13:38.640 --> 01:13:40.439
where we can dim them and make them more diffuse.
1261
01:13:40.479 --> 01:13:41.600
You know, there's a bunch of things that we can
1262
01:13:41.600 --> 01:13:44.399
do with attentional spotlighting. What you're talking about here is
1263
01:13:44.880 --> 01:13:49.279
attentional spotlighting bringing people's perception to real things that are happening,
1264
01:13:49.840 --> 01:13:53.199
but heightening one's perception of though, so getting more granularity
1265
01:13:53.239 --> 01:13:56.199
on what's happening. Like right now, I'm in contact with
1266
01:13:56.359 --> 01:13:58.079
physical contact with a pen in my hand, but I
1267
01:13:58.079 --> 01:14:00.960
wasn't thinking about how it feels. I put all of
1268
01:14:01.000 --> 01:14:04.119
my perception that close my eyes and really think about it.
1269
01:14:04.159 --> 01:14:07.319
The whole nature of the perception changes. The physical object
1270
01:14:07.399 --> 01:14:09.800
hasn't changed, nothing else in the room has changed. But
1271
01:14:10.119 --> 01:14:15.279
that driving of attentional spotlighting and intensity is essentially what
1272
01:14:15.359 --> 01:14:18.760
governs our whole reality. I think of everything we're talking
1273
01:14:18.760 --> 01:14:22.039
about here, and I can't help but think about like media,
1274
01:14:22.239 --> 01:14:26.199
social media, politics, you know, very like third rail issues,
1275
01:14:26.600 --> 01:14:29.239
things that are top very third rail topics, right, And
1276
01:14:29.359 --> 01:14:32.760
yet this is essentially what we do the brain. People
1277
01:14:32.840 --> 01:14:35.840
want a shorthand way of navigating a very complex world,
1278
01:14:36.239 --> 01:14:40.359
and media marketing, et cetera is in large part designed
1279
01:14:40.359 --> 01:14:43.600
to capture people's attention then funnel it towards some specific endpoint.
1280
01:14:43.680 --> 01:14:46.960
Vote this way, by this way, don't vote that way
1281
01:14:47.359 --> 01:14:50.840
or don't vote that way. And it's I feel like,
1282
01:14:52.479 --> 01:14:55.119
given our discussion, one has to wonder to what extent
1283
01:14:55.319 --> 01:14:57.840
we are all living in that what I guess people
1284
01:14:57.840 --> 01:14:59.760
call it a simulation. It's not a simulation, it's a
1285
01:15:00.119 --> 01:15:05.239
we are all being biased by these external forces. Do
1286
01:15:05.319 --> 01:15:09.000
you see examples of quote unquote magic and mentalist work
1287
01:15:09.039 --> 01:15:12.680
at the level of media, at the level of politics
1288
01:15:12.840 --> 01:15:16.119
without talking about sides or centers, you know, yeah, of course.
1289
01:15:16.720 --> 01:15:19.399
First of all, I feel like social media has changed
1290
01:15:19.439 --> 01:15:21.520
the way audience behaves in the theater.
1291
01:15:22.000 --> 01:15:22.920
Tell any more about that.
1292
01:15:23.239 --> 01:15:25.439
So first of all, you know, now you have TikTok
1293
01:15:25.479 --> 01:15:31.920
and Instagram and it's really short clips of information and
1294
01:15:32.159 --> 01:15:35.680
people go through them really quickly. So the stimulation, they
1295
01:15:35.720 --> 01:15:40.079
need to be stimulated way more often than they used to.
1296
01:15:40.640 --> 01:15:43.439
So I can do a routine now that really drags
1297
01:15:43.479 --> 01:15:48.840
with long monologues and it's slow. The speed changed, and
1298
01:15:50.279 --> 01:15:53.000
the fact that you know, and I think about this
1299
01:15:53.079 --> 01:15:57.319
a lot. I mean, there's a blackout when I did
1300
01:15:57.319 --> 01:16:00.520
Inner Circle, there's a blackout before I appear, so I
1301
01:16:00.880 --> 01:16:03.119
come in and I can still see people to the
1302
01:16:03.239 --> 01:16:06.680
very last minute on their phones, and I'm like, wow,
1303
01:16:07.079 --> 01:16:11.720
it's going from one stimulation to a real stimulation with
1304
01:16:11.920 --> 01:16:15.760
almost no gap. There's not even a second a buffer
1305
01:16:15.920 --> 01:16:20.800
between this stimulation to what I'm about. And it always
1306
01:16:20.840 --> 01:16:23.520
bothers me because I want to clean their palette, I
1307
01:16:23.560 --> 01:16:26.800
want to reset their palette, and it bothers me that.
1308
01:16:27.760 --> 01:16:30.399
Yeah, it's like I'm going from the super Bowl to
1309
01:16:30.399 --> 01:16:33.239
the NBA Championships or from the ballet to a rock concert.
1310
01:16:33.279 --> 01:16:37.920
It's like, Yeah, I actually have a theory, which is
1311
01:16:37.960 --> 01:16:42.039
that for those that are willing to introduce gaps in
1312
01:16:42.119 --> 01:16:48.159
stimulation sleep, we'll talk more about sleep rest walks where
1313
01:16:48.159 --> 01:16:50.199
we're not looking at our phones or just kind of
1314
01:16:51.079 --> 01:16:55.479
not necessarily bored, but that those gaps we know, we
1315
01:16:55.600 --> 01:16:59.279
know with certainty, are when the brain both processes information,
1316
01:16:59.760 --> 01:17:05.960
stabilizes information that we've learned, and comes up with new ideas.
1317
01:17:05.640 --> 01:17:09.319
It's almost like nowadays, if you want to get really
1318
01:17:09.359 --> 01:17:13.760
good at some craft, just introduce more gaps in between
1319
01:17:14.359 --> 01:17:17.399
intense focus and learning around that thing and exposure to
1320
01:17:17.399 --> 01:17:20.279
that thing. I couldn't be more certain about this.
1321
01:17:20.640 --> 01:17:25.640
It's It's true. And again Juan again, Tom Murice talks
1322
01:17:25.680 --> 01:17:32.880
about the power of pauses and one of the things
1323
01:17:33.000 --> 01:17:37.680
we try to do is that people will embed a memory.
1324
01:17:38.239 --> 01:17:43.319
So it's not just that you encode the information and
1325
01:17:43.359 --> 01:17:45.600
you want them to store it. You'll also want to
1326
01:17:45.640 --> 01:17:48.760
start long term and to be able to recall what
1327
01:17:48.800 --> 01:17:52.199
they've seen. Now, if you move from one action to
1328
01:17:52.279 --> 01:17:56.439
the other, it's just not going to work. So there's
1329
01:17:56.439 --> 01:17:58.960
a thing that Juan does where he's like, he's holding
1330
01:17:59.000 --> 01:18:01.760
a card and he's says, can you see the reflection
1331
01:18:01.960 --> 01:18:05.359
in my glasses? And it was like, what is he doing?
1332
01:18:05.720 --> 01:18:08.560
Look do you see reflection? And meanwhile he's holding a
1333
01:18:08.600 --> 01:18:11.880
plane card to point towards the glasses. And then at
1334
01:18:11.920 --> 01:18:13.960
some point he places the card on the table and
1335
01:18:14.319 --> 01:18:19.000
accidentally he knocks a glass filled with water everywhere, and
1336
01:18:19.039 --> 01:18:23.279
people pass they start cleaning it, and it's like a
1337
01:18:23.960 --> 01:18:27.560
it's a huge interruption to what just happened. And then
1338
01:18:27.600 --> 01:18:32.159
he says, does anybody know what card this is? And
1339
01:18:32.239 --> 01:18:34.880
most of the times nobody knows. He goes, you never
1340
01:18:34.920 --> 01:18:37.680
saw this card and they go, no, he never showed
1341
01:18:37.680 --> 01:18:39.520
it to us. Oh, I never showed it to you.
1342
01:18:40.640 --> 01:18:42.920
And there was one event where he did where he
1343
01:18:43.000 --> 01:18:45.720
replayed the video to them. He says, look, I'm holding
1344
01:18:45.800 --> 01:18:49.319
it for fifteen seconds in front of you in a
1345
01:18:49.439 --> 01:18:52.239
very awkward way, and they don't remember.
1346
01:18:51.880 --> 01:18:54.920
It because it's something dramatic, happened immediately.
1347
01:18:54.720 --> 01:18:58.039
There's no moment for them to isolate the two events.
1348
01:18:58.239 --> 01:19:03.039
And the other event was way more impactful and therefore
1349
01:19:03.039 --> 01:19:06.960
more memorable that it erased the small memory the small event.
1350
01:19:07.239 --> 01:19:10.279
There's a big event and a smaller event, and that
1351
01:19:10.520 --> 01:19:13.560
took over. That's why maybe I don't people crashing too.
1352
01:19:14.159 --> 01:19:16.439
They have an accident, you know whatever, they don't remember
1353
01:19:16.479 --> 01:19:19.960
the ten or five seconds before it kind of erases it.
1354
01:19:21.079 --> 01:19:24.680
So we often when we do magic, we do want
1355
01:19:24.720 --> 01:19:27.880
to give them a moment to really relax and to
1356
01:19:28.000 --> 01:19:33.800
digest what they've just seen, so they can start very well.
1357
01:19:33.640 --> 01:19:35.239
If it's something you want them to store, but if
1358
01:19:35.279 --> 01:19:38.399
it's something you want them to forget, then creating a
1359
01:19:38.439 --> 01:19:41.880
dramatic moment adjacent to it and with no gas.
1360
01:19:43.680 --> 01:19:47.720
We clutter it. We clutter their mind with information. When
1361
01:19:47.760 --> 01:19:50.560
we don't want to start, we will slow down and
1362
01:19:50.600 --> 01:19:53.039
feature it and give it enough time to breathe and
1363
01:19:53.079 --> 01:19:57.359
live when we want them to record it. So the speed,
1364
01:19:58.079 --> 01:20:01.279
the emphasis, the pauses, all of those things are manipulent
1365
01:20:01.319 --> 01:20:02.479
in how they remember things.
1366
01:20:03.479 --> 01:20:05.960
Can I share with you a little bit of neuroscience,
1367
01:20:06.239 --> 01:20:08.319
take a bit knowledge that this is relevant both to
1368
01:20:08.359 --> 01:20:11.560
what you just said and to learning of any kind.
1369
01:20:11.720 --> 01:20:15.279
There's a phenomenon called gap effects, which are very well
1370
01:20:15.319 --> 01:20:21.279
demonstrated in neuroscience and psychology of learning. But before I
1371
01:20:21.319 --> 01:20:25.439
explain those, it's really important to know that when we learn,
1372
01:20:25.720 --> 01:20:29.039
we are exposed to something, and then the actual rewiring
1373
01:20:29.079 --> 01:20:32.279
of connections in the brain occurs typically during sleep or
1374
01:20:32.319 --> 01:20:35.159
rest periods away from the learning. There's the stimulus, just
1375
01:20:35.199 --> 01:20:39.560
like exercise. You don't get better, you know VO two
1376
01:20:39.600 --> 01:20:43.159
max and muscle strength, et cetera, during the exercise. There's
1377
01:20:43.159 --> 01:20:47.399
an adaptation that occurs later, and with learning of cognitive
1378
01:20:47.399 --> 01:20:50.960
material or information of any kind, even if it's very
1379
01:20:51.000 --> 01:20:57.119
emotionally impactful experience or information, the rewiring of connections occurs later,
1380
01:20:57.159 --> 01:21:01.560
typically in sleep or sometime later. Now during sleep, the
1381
01:21:01.600 --> 01:21:04.359
replay of the memory occurs, but at a rate about
1382
01:21:04.359 --> 01:21:06.880
twenty or thirty times faster, and for some reason nobody
1383
01:21:06.880 --> 01:21:10.600
knows why. In reverse. Okay, so a string of numbers one, two, three, four, five, six,
1384
01:21:10.640 --> 01:21:15.159
seven in sleep is played what thirty times faster and
1385
01:21:15.239 --> 01:21:17.159
seven sixty five four three two one nobody's known.
1386
01:21:17.159 --> 01:21:17.439
It's why.
1387
01:21:17.439 --> 01:21:19.439
This is the way the brain encodes information about space,
1388
01:21:19.439 --> 01:21:24.680
about information of any kind. Now, gap effects are the
1389
01:21:25.119 --> 01:21:28.359
very well demonstrated effect of let's say you're teaching me
1390
01:21:28.479 --> 01:21:31.880
how to shuffle cards or sequence of numbers or scales
1391
01:21:31.920 --> 01:21:34.159
on a piano and practicing and practicing and practicing. But
1392
01:21:34.359 --> 01:21:36.880
somebody figured out that if every once in a while
1393
01:21:37.880 --> 01:21:41.119
there's a gap introduced where I cannot perform the rehearsal,
1394
01:21:41.760 --> 01:21:45.359
I do nothing. The brain does the same thing. The hippocampus,
1395
01:21:45.359 --> 01:21:48.680
a center in the brain required for memory and encoding
1396
01:21:48.680 --> 01:21:51.760
of new memories, plays that same sequence at twenty to
1397
01:21:51.800 --> 01:21:58.119
thirty times faster in reverse. So this way. So what
1398
01:21:58.159 --> 01:22:01.800
this means is that when we introduce gaps, the brain
1399
01:22:01.880 --> 01:22:05.439
is still processing the information, but much faster, and the
1400
01:22:05.479 --> 01:22:09.319
introduction of the gap somehow allows whatever we just learned
1401
01:22:09.399 --> 01:22:13.359
to be encoded far more than if we don't introduce
1402
01:22:13.399 --> 01:22:15.359
a gap. Which is exactly what you just said, but
1403
01:22:15.399 --> 01:22:17.319
with a bunch of nerdy neurosciences speak to it. But
1404
01:22:17.399 --> 01:22:21.399
this has been shown for music, for math, for conceptual knowledge,
1405
01:22:21.399 --> 01:22:23.680
et cetera. And what it says to me is that
1406
01:22:23.800 --> 01:22:29.840
if we want to learn things, controlling the cadence and
1407
01:22:28.560 --> 01:22:33.319
the availability of gaps and the adjacency, like how densely
1408
01:22:33.359 --> 01:22:37.920
cluttered or spaced out things are is key and I'll
1409
01:22:37.960 --> 01:22:40.159
just share briefly and forgive me because I'm going along here.
1410
01:22:40.199 --> 01:22:43.600
But the way I remember the video of you with
1411
01:22:43.640 --> 01:22:47.960
Pennintella and the green and white sweater and a few know.
1412
01:22:48.039 --> 01:22:50.319
What I do is I watch something or read something,
1413
01:22:50.439 --> 01:22:52.760
and I sometimes highlight and take notes. But then what
1414
01:22:52.840 --> 01:22:54.840
I do is I close my eyes. Sometimes I take
1415
01:22:54.840 --> 01:22:57.000
a walk and I just think about what I just saw.
1416
01:22:57.680 --> 01:23:00.479
Now I have a problem, and I was recently referred
1417
01:23:00.479 --> 01:23:03.600
to as neuroatypical, which I'm starting to wonder if that's true.
1418
01:23:03.600 --> 01:23:07.039
But you know, I'll get assessed and we'll see that
1419
01:23:07.199 --> 01:23:10.239
oftentimes irrelevant details are what get encoded to memory as
1420
01:23:10.279 --> 01:23:14.279
opposed to the core feature. But we'll see I like
1421
01:23:14.319 --> 01:23:17.399
to think the core components are what I remember, but
1422
01:23:17.520 --> 01:23:21.159
often details that seem irrelevant get encoded, Like I can
1423
01:23:21.199 --> 01:23:23.960
remember details of things that are kind of maybe trivial
1424
01:23:24.520 --> 01:23:31.479
to most. So these gap effects are a real neurobiological phenomenon.
1425
01:23:31.560 --> 01:23:34.600
There's no question about it. And I suppose I should
1426
01:23:34.640 --> 01:23:35.720
pause to let that sink in.
1427
01:23:35.880 --> 01:23:38.000
I know, and people should take a nap right after this,
1428
01:23:38.880 --> 01:23:40.720
go sleep and think about this conversation.
1429
01:23:40.960 --> 01:23:44.079
I think it's so interesting because so that explains something
1430
01:23:44.079 --> 01:23:48.079
about encoding of information, But the causing people to forget
1431
01:23:48.119 --> 01:23:52.239
something is equally important. So oftentimes when you do tricks,
1432
01:23:52.279 --> 01:23:54.359
or when other magicians and mentalists do tricks, I notice
1433
01:23:54.399 --> 01:23:57.640
that you'll get people to count with you. Okay, all right,
1434
01:23:57.680 --> 01:23:59.319
let's just count the cards. Count them with me. It'll
1435
01:23:59.319 --> 01:24:02.960
be one three. Is there something about the counting itself
1436
01:24:03.079 --> 01:24:07.840
or the cadence of the counting that is that is valuable? Yes.
1437
01:24:08.920 --> 01:24:12.159
We try to create tension. You know, it's a drum roll.
1438
01:24:12.159 --> 01:24:14.079
Think of it as a drum roll all the way
1439
01:24:14.119 --> 01:24:19.640
to the punchline. And you're trying to create this tension.
1440
01:24:19.680 --> 01:24:21.119
Oh my god, Oh my god, my god. And then
1441
01:24:21.159 --> 01:24:26.359
it happens right and on the relaxation, the moment right
1442
01:24:26.399 --> 01:24:29.560
after that, when you relax, that's the moment to do
1443
01:24:29.600 --> 01:24:33.039
the things you don't want them to encode. Those are
1444
01:24:33.199 --> 01:24:35.640
the most vulnerables. In other words, when you go to
1445
01:24:35.680 --> 01:24:39.680
a magic show, do not laugh, do not relax, Remain
1446
01:24:39.800 --> 01:24:42.920
tense and you'll be good. But the moment you relax
1447
01:24:44.439 --> 01:24:50.760
you're off guard, you're not scrutinizing, you're relaxing. So we
1448
01:24:51.119 --> 01:24:53.319
do play a lot in Sladdin, it was a master
1449
01:24:53.399 --> 01:24:57.520
of that, the idea of tension and relaxation. So those
1450
01:24:57.520 --> 01:25:00.840
are just one of the tools that we would use
1451
01:25:01.960 --> 01:25:04.399
in order to do what we need to do at
1452
01:25:04.399 --> 01:25:09.880
the right spot. Look, here's an interesting example. You've heard
1453
01:25:10.000 --> 01:25:13.840
the term misdirection. I think every person in the world
1454
01:25:14.199 --> 01:25:18.199
have heard and understands the idea of misdirection. A magician
1455
01:25:18.399 --> 01:25:22.720
is misdirecting you, and yet that information does not help
1456
01:25:22.760 --> 01:25:26.279
you in the real world. Right, you know the concept,
1457
01:25:26.479 --> 01:25:28.640
you know it exists. You know, a magician would make
1458
01:25:28.680 --> 01:25:30.359
you look at the wrong place at the wrong time
1459
01:25:30.760 --> 01:25:32.520
and you would or maybe the right place at the
1460
01:25:32.560 --> 01:25:36.840
right time, and you would still follow. In other words,
1461
01:25:36.960 --> 01:25:42.520
knowing the principle, knowing that he's doing it, it's still effective.
1462
01:25:43.439 --> 01:25:48.760
And that is amazing. So to me, that is the
1463
01:25:49.199 --> 01:25:53.000
reason I don't mind to enrich people people's knowledge about
1464
01:25:53.119 --> 01:25:56.439
magic and to give a little bit of information of
1465
01:25:56.920 --> 01:25:59.279
behind a curtain, the things that magicians say, Oh we're
1466
01:25:59.279 --> 01:26:02.520
gonna you know, there's a beautiful saying that I just
1467
01:26:02.640 --> 01:26:06.920
love and I don't know who's responsible for this beautiful quote,
1468
01:26:06.920 --> 01:26:10.399
but I love it quote all the time. People think
1469
01:26:10.399 --> 01:26:16.520
that magicians are guarding the secrets from the audience, but
1470
01:26:16.560 --> 01:26:20.199
it's the other way around. We are guarding the audience
1471
01:26:20.239 --> 01:26:25.079
from the secrets. So because we know that once you
1472
01:26:25.159 --> 01:26:28.439
know how it's done, you won't enjoy it. But I
1473
01:26:28.560 --> 01:26:33.520
believe also that there's a level of knowledge that you
1474
01:26:33.600 --> 01:26:35.760
can know about magic that next time you see a
1475
01:26:35.840 --> 01:26:39.800
magician you will enjoy it more because you understand that
1476
01:26:39.920 --> 01:26:46.479
to do one card trick could take months and months
1477
01:26:46.479 --> 01:26:50.520
of work, and we think about every word and every
1478
01:26:50.640 --> 01:26:53.399
move and how we interact and how we, you know,
1479
01:26:53.560 --> 01:26:57.279
hook you into wanting to be fold create the desire
1480
01:26:57.399 --> 01:27:02.359
for you to see magic, and it's such an intricate process.
1481
01:27:02.840 --> 01:27:07.640
So maybe you knowing revealing a little bit about magic
1482
01:27:07.920 --> 01:27:11.279
is not a bad thing, so you understand the complexity
1483
01:27:11.319 --> 01:27:16.079
of this art, which unfortunately is invisible art because a pianist,
1484
01:27:16.520 --> 01:27:18.960
Sure you can see how skillful I am, but if
1485
01:27:18.960 --> 01:27:20.880
you come to me after shows, Oh you're so fast
1486
01:27:20.880 --> 01:27:23.880
with your hands, that's an insult, I want to say,
1487
01:27:23.960 --> 01:27:28.359
But you never touched anything, So it's it's a it's
1488
01:27:28.399 --> 01:27:29.960
a bit of a conflict here.
1489
01:27:30.479 --> 01:27:33.079
It's like the show that I saw that you did
1490
01:27:33.079 --> 01:27:37.359
in New York, right off Washington at Square Park. You
1491
01:27:37.399 --> 01:27:40.359
didn't touch any of the cards or materials. The audience
1492
01:27:40.399 --> 01:27:42.800
did it all for you, which are the inner circle.
1493
01:27:42.960 --> 01:27:45.760
You had people actually maneuvering the cards and doing things
1494
01:27:45.800 --> 01:27:48.960
they weren't collaborating with you. In fact, it made it
1495
01:27:49.079 --> 01:27:52.079
far less likely that you ought to be able to
1496
01:27:52.119 --> 01:27:55.520
do what you were doing, which is which is remarkable.
1497
01:27:55.840 --> 01:28:00.439
I think that you know, as you're describing this, I
1498
01:28:00.479 --> 01:28:05.760
can't help but feel that the understanding of mechanism or
1499
01:28:06.560 --> 01:28:09.119
how it's done just a little bit is a little
1500
01:28:09.159 --> 01:28:11.159
bit of what I've tried to do with the podcast,
1501
01:28:11.199 --> 01:28:13.319
where I think people obviously want to know what to
1502
01:28:13.359 --> 01:28:15.960
do for their health, but if they understand a little
1503
01:28:16.000 --> 01:28:18.239
bit of the mechanism behind it, maybe a lot of
1504
01:28:18.239 --> 01:28:21.000
the mechanism in some cases, then I think it enriches
1505
01:28:21.039 --> 01:28:25.600
their understanding and gives them flexibility when things are perhaps
1506
01:28:25.680 --> 01:28:30.199
not optimal, sort of like someone learning a recipe versus
1507
01:28:30.399 --> 01:28:32.600
understanding why you add a little bit of baking soda
1508
01:28:33.039 --> 01:28:35.239
so that when there isn't any baking soda, maybe there's
1509
01:28:35.239 --> 01:28:37.640
an alternative, or you make an adjustment someplace else, right,
1510
01:28:37.680 --> 01:28:40.279
that's what a real cook can do, as opposed to
1511
01:28:40.279 --> 01:28:43.680
somebody just following a recipe. I think that with magic,
1512
01:28:44.319 --> 01:28:46.560
this takes us back to the first question. I think
1513
01:28:46.560 --> 01:28:52.039
with magic, it's so exciting to me that the magician,
1514
01:28:52.199 --> 01:28:55.800
the mentalists themselves might not get it right. Like if
1515
01:28:55.840 --> 01:28:58.039
I know you're going to get it right, it's exciting
1516
01:28:58.119 --> 01:29:00.640
because if I bring someone else along that's never seen
1517
01:29:00.680 --> 01:29:02.800
it before. But what I want to know is that
1518
01:29:03.279 --> 01:29:06.640
you know, the trapeze artists could fall exactly. I don't
1519
01:29:06.680 --> 01:29:09.560
want them to fall, but that the idea that they
1520
01:29:09.560 --> 01:29:11.239
could fall is what makes it really exciting.
1521
01:29:11.760 --> 01:29:13.840
And we fake it a lot. There's a lot of
1522
01:29:13.840 --> 01:29:18.279
times where I will intentionally create a scenario where it
1523
01:29:18.319 --> 01:29:21.760
seems like it's not going right. You know, I'm in
1524
01:29:21.800 --> 01:29:23.880
trouble and I need to get out of it, and
1525
01:29:23.920 --> 01:29:26.960
you go, oh, he's okay, he's good, good, but this
1526
01:29:27.119 --> 01:29:31.520
one no, And then then you realize it was a
1527
01:29:31.560 --> 01:29:34.159
part of the illusion. And this is like even the
1528
01:29:34.159 --> 01:29:36.960
trouble was an illusion. Don't trust anything.
1529
01:29:37.439 --> 01:29:39.600
Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt there. You paused for me
1530
01:29:39.640 --> 01:29:42.600
to remember, and I want you to right. This is
1531
01:29:42.640 --> 01:29:45.359
like this is built into every script of every romantic
1532
01:29:45.399 --> 01:29:48.399
comedy and every action movie, like everything's you know, there's
1533
01:29:48.439 --> 01:29:50.600
a challenge, then there's moving forward, and then things are
1534
01:29:50.600 --> 01:29:52.720
about to go well, and then oh my goodness, they're
1535
01:29:52.720 --> 01:29:54.800
on the wrong trains. It's going to be and then
1536
01:29:54.800 --> 01:29:58.239
that's the tension build, and then there's resolution of sorry,
1537
01:29:58.279 --> 01:29:59.920
and then sometimes there's a twist at the end where
1538
01:30:00.039 --> 01:30:02.399
resolution isn't there, and that's how you get a sequel. Right,
1539
01:30:02.720 --> 01:30:07.439
It's kind of the same thing. I wonder and I
1540
01:30:07.479 --> 01:30:11.399
hope that someday neuroscience will understand the kind of what
1541
01:30:11.479 --> 01:30:15.199
the core algorithms in the brain are for a story.
1542
01:30:16.199 --> 01:30:20.039
A story that involves a question and a hypothesis, some
1543
01:30:20.159 --> 01:30:27.479
characters and some trajectory, potential error, and then some resolution
1544
01:30:27.600 --> 01:30:30.000
and then maybe it opens up the pos possibility of
1545
01:30:30.039 --> 01:30:33.079
mystery again, because as you describe a magic trick or
1546
01:30:33.079 --> 01:30:36.720
a mentalist act, it seems to follow that sequence. You
1547
01:30:36.800 --> 01:30:40.119
introduce the people, the cards, the props, et cetera. And
1548
01:30:40.159 --> 01:30:43.800
then there's a story. And here's what's interesting. I see
1549
01:30:43.800 --> 01:30:46.920
this in comedy also. One of the things that's exciting
1550
01:30:47.000 --> 01:30:48.920
is when we think we know what's going to happen, next,
1551
01:30:49.359 --> 01:30:52.239
and it's either that we are very surprised, there's a
1552
01:30:52.279 --> 01:30:56.000
violation of the expectation. But even more interesting sometimes is
1553
01:30:56.000 --> 01:30:59.840
when we're like no, no, no, no, no, this where we
1554
01:31:00.119 --> 01:31:03.479
think that something's going to happen, and you're actually taking
1555
01:31:03.560 --> 01:31:07.920
us towards that unbelievable possibility. This is something I find
1556
01:31:07.960 --> 01:31:10.800
amazing that you know, sometimes even when we expect something,
1557
01:31:11.359 --> 01:31:14.800
or especially when we expect something, if it's an outrageous outcome,
1558
01:31:14.840 --> 01:31:20.720
there's no way, that's when we are most excited.
1559
01:31:20.520 --> 01:31:24.199
Because we're involved, We're part of the drama. So I
1560
01:31:24.239 --> 01:31:26.560
love what you said about the idea of a recipe
1561
01:31:26.760 --> 01:31:30.479
might following verbatim in a passive way. I don't know
1562
01:31:30.479 --> 01:31:33.159
how it works, but eventually I think this would lead
1563
01:31:33.199 --> 01:31:37.359
me to a cake somehow. As opposed to understand what
1564
01:31:37.880 --> 01:31:40.439
the chemistry is and why this happens and why this
1565
01:31:40.520 --> 01:31:45.399
and that, I think that you become more invested and
1566
01:31:45.439 --> 01:31:49.439
you are part of the act. So it's almost like
1567
01:31:49.479 --> 01:31:52.600
when I am obsessed, you know, with painting, something that
1568
01:31:52.720 --> 01:31:58.760
I just do often, and I remember, I can easily
1569
01:31:58.800 --> 01:32:01.720
recall the experience as I had when I went to
1570
01:32:01.800 --> 01:32:05.840
a museum and watched some art before I painted and
1571
01:32:05.880 --> 01:32:09.439
the way I viewed today as a painter, as someone
1572
01:32:09.439 --> 01:32:12.880
who's touched pigments, mixed them, put them on a canvas
1573
01:32:12.960 --> 01:32:15.680
or paper, and all of a sudden I look at
1574
01:32:15.680 --> 01:32:18.960
it a little differently, And I think it changes the
1575
01:32:18.960 --> 01:32:23.600
interaction that I have with the painting because I understand
1576
01:32:23.640 --> 01:32:27.000
the language, I understand the struggle, I understand the challenge
1577
01:32:27.119 --> 01:32:30.800
as in all of that. And it's the same with anything.
1578
01:32:30.840 --> 01:32:33.760
Like when you read one of my favorite reads of
1579
01:32:33.800 --> 01:32:37.479
all time and I to this date is then Goes Letters.
1580
01:32:38.560 --> 01:32:40.640
I remember, you know, I saw of and Go before,
1581
01:32:40.960 --> 01:32:46.159
I saw it after and the story and that's that's
1582
01:32:46.159 --> 01:32:48.720
why I think we can talk about AI for a second.
1583
01:32:48.760 --> 01:32:54.640
But the story of the letters with the paintings make
1584
01:32:54.680 --> 01:32:59.079
them complete different images. When I see now the sunflowers
1585
01:32:59.199 --> 01:33:02.279
or the chairs or the landscapes, and I have some
1586
01:33:02.399 --> 01:33:06.840
context to go by, they become a part of a
1587
01:33:06.960 --> 01:33:13.680
much bigger story, and to me that it enhances the experience.
1588
01:33:14.600 --> 01:33:17.920
So a few friends, you know, me and a couple
1589
01:33:17.960 --> 01:33:21.039
of my friends went to a museum, the met and
1590
01:33:21.079 --> 01:33:26.399
there was a beautiful wooden sphere have opened like that
1591
01:33:26.479 --> 01:33:30.560
and the detail was like you need a microscope to
1592
01:33:30.600 --> 01:33:34.239
see and to appreciate the delicate carving of the wood.
1593
01:33:35.439 --> 01:33:38.359
And we all looked at it in awe. It was
1594
01:33:38.399 --> 01:33:42.000
like it's amazing. And I said to them, you know,
1595
01:33:42.039 --> 01:33:44.239
you look at it and you see the years from
1596
01:33:44.279 --> 01:33:47.800
the eighteen hundreds and you go wow, the technology dead
1597
01:33:47.800 --> 01:33:51.399
and eighteen hundreds to do that, and the patience and
1598
01:33:51.439 --> 01:33:54.720
the time. All of it is part of the artwork.
1599
01:33:55.640 --> 01:33:58.159
But if I told you we fold you this was
1600
01:33:58.239 --> 01:34:01.319
three printed twenty minutes ago, it took about five minutes,
1601
01:34:02.000 --> 01:34:04.239
and it's we can make a million of them right now.
1602
01:34:05.279 --> 01:34:10.039
It's the exact same object. It looks as impressive, but
1603
01:34:10.119 --> 01:34:13.800
the story is different. And I think that is again
1604
01:34:14.000 --> 01:34:16.920
part of the experience. We have a recipe. When you
1605
01:34:17.000 --> 01:34:19.960
understand it, the experience you have is different. So I
1606
01:34:20.279 --> 01:34:26.880
do I do believe that knowledge really can enhance an experience,
1607
01:34:27.159 --> 01:34:29.960
change it completely. So that's something.
1608
01:34:29.760 --> 01:34:36.079
I stories seem to be the kind of Bento box
1609
01:34:36.720 --> 01:34:41.119
that arranges information best in my opinion, you know, for
1610
01:34:41.159 --> 01:34:44.640
those who don't know bento box, right, like different compartments
1611
01:34:44.680 --> 01:34:47.479
and you have different things, and you know the brain
1612
01:34:47.720 --> 01:34:51.840
can Okay, let's just acknowledge some some first principles ground truths.
1613
01:34:53.319 --> 01:34:55.680
We can only perceive a certain number of things at
1614
01:34:55.680 --> 01:34:58.039
any one time, but we're sensing tons of information. So
1615
01:34:58.079 --> 01:35:01.199
the brain is a selective filter and a prediction machine
1616
01:35:01.279 --> 01:35:02.960
and so and it does a bunch of other things
1617
01:35:02.960 --> 01:35:05.800
to keep us alive. But that's basically it all. My
1618
01:35:05.840 --> 01:35:08.720
neuroscience colleagues are probably like, wait, wait, wait, but what
1619
01:35:08.760 --> 01:35:10.920
about this? Okay, but that's that's pretty much. It keep
1620
01:35:11.000 --> 01:35:15.399
us alive, predict things and perceive certain things that we
1621
01:35:15.439 --> 01:35:18.520
can sense, not others, things outside our sensory apparatus, like
1622
01:35:18.640 --> 01:35:22.720
infrared vision and sensing. You know, certain forms of heat
1623
01:35:22.760 --> 01:35:26.079
and electromagnetic energy. Some yes, some know, depends on what
1624
01:35:26.119 --> 01:35:32.560
animal you are, so okay. So stories and the sequencing
1625
01:35:32.600 --> 01:35:35.000
of things seems to be one way in which we
1626
01:35:35.439 --> 01:35:37.680
best learn information. From the time we are very little,
1627
01:35:37.720 --> 01:35:41.640
we are read stories, and our lives play out like stories.
1628
01:35:41.800 --> 01:35:46.960
So I think that the idea that additional information about context.
1629
01:35:47.079 --> 01:35:49.640
This is from the eighteen hundreds, not just the box
1630
01:35:49.680 --> 01:35:52.520
that it's encapsulated in. But it gives you a sense
1631
01:35:52.560 --> 01:35:54.680
this is important. It's old that it tells you this
1632
01:35:54.760 --> 01:35:58.720
was harder to do back then, harder presumably, And then
1633
01:35:58.720 --> 01:36:00.520
as you said, it brings to mind and all these
1634
01:36:00.560 --> 01:36:04.479
ideas about what went into that. Like the pyramids, they're
1635
01:36:04.600 --> 01:36:07.359
very very interesting, but especially interesting given when they were
1636
01:36:07.359 --> 01:36:10.439
built exactly right and what that meant for certain people
1637
01:36:10.800 --> 01:36:14.479
and not for others. So I think that So there's
1638
01:36:14.520 --> 01:36:16.600
that which I think is so key because it extends
1639
01:36:16.640 --> 01:36:19.319
way past magic. Is really about how the brain works
1640
01:36:19.359 --> 01:36:23.880
and learns information and perceives the world in moments and
1641
01:36:23.880 --> 01:36:27.319
what we remember what we don't remember. And then there's
1642
01:36:27.359 --> 01:36:29.159
another thing that I'd like to touch into it. Maybe
1643
01:36:29.159 --> 01:36:32.079
we touch into this first, which is that you mentioned
1644
01:36:32.079 --> 01:36:36.439
that you paint. Yes, So I've come to learn that
1645
01:36:37.000 --> 01:36:41.760
many people who are virtuosos in their craft as you are,
1646
01:36:42.960 --> 01:36:47.479
have hobbies or practices or things that they do that
1647
01:36:47.520 --> 01:36:51.279
are sort of adjacent to craft. I think Joni Mitchell,
1648
01:36:51.359 --> 01:36:53.960
the singer, often talked about painting as a way to
1649
01:36:54.000 --> 01:36:58.199
get into a mindset of singing, even though that wasn't
1650
01:36:58.199 --> 01:37:00.680
the specific intention. It just kind of there, a little
1651
01:37:00.680 --> 01:37:03.359
bit like a like a sprinter might have I don't know,
1652
01:37:03.399 --> 01:37:05.439
some dynamic stretching that they do that sort of like
1653
01:37:05.600 --> 01:37:07.720
semi related but not the main thing. Or maybe they
1654
01:37:07.720 --> 01:37:09.840
would listen to music and kind of bounce around to
1655
01:37:09.880 --> 01:37:11.920
the music. Maybe that's a better example. So it's not
1656
01:37:12.039 --> 01:37:14.159
directly in line with the practice, but it puts the
1657
01:37:14.159 --> 01:37:17.000
brain circuits that are required for that practice into a
1658
01:37:17.000 --> 01:37:20.359
certain mode. For you, maybe it's painting. For me, it's drawing.
1659
01:37:23.760 --> 01:37:25.520
How often do you paint, what do you paint? And
1660
01:37:25.560 --> 01:37:27.439
do you paint with the intention of anyone ever seeing
1661
01:37:27.640 --> 01:37:28.319
your paintings?
1662
01:37:28.520 --> 01:37:31.760
Yes, I'm not sure. I post them in my show.
1663
01:37:32.760 --> 01:37:35.000
It was an opportunity for me to make a portrait
1664
01:37:35.079 --> 01:37:37.399
of all of my heroes. So it was a MENI
1665
01:37:37.479 --> 01:37:40.680
exhibition as people walked into the theater to see all
1666
01:37:40.720 --> 01:37:44.479
those portraits of the people that affected me, touch you know,
1667
01:37:44.600 --> 01:37:45.880
influenced me and so forth.
1668
01:37:46.039 --> 01:37:50.079
Magicians to me, I would say ninety most of them
1669
01:37:50.399 --> 01:37:50.720
after there.
1670
01:37:51.399 --> 01:37:54.000
It was there too. He's not a magician per se.
1671
01:37:54.039 --> 01:37:58.880
He's also a magician, but mainly magicians. Hudini was a Milini,
1672
01:37:59.600 --> 01:38:05.239
Tommy wander Chan Canasta, David Blaine, uh. People that really
1673
01:38:05.279 --> 01:38:09.279
are part of who I am today. So to me,
1674
01:38:10.199 --> 01:38:12.479
that's that's an aspect of its own. Why why do
1675
01:38:12.560 --> 01:38:14.960
I paint these people is because it's an opportunity for
1676
01:38:15.000 --> 01:38:19.720
me to meditate with these people. That I adore and
1677
01:38:20.079 --> 01:38:24.039
owe so much too. But why do I paint? First
1678
01:38:24.079 --> 01:38:28.079
of it's intuitive, I didn't. It was not a cerebral
1679
01:38:28.520 --> 01:38:31.920
decision or I think I need something to supplement my life,
1680
01:38:32.239 --> 01:38:35.600
you know, and I need painting. I always love to
1681
01:38:35.640 --> 01:38:37.840
work with my hands. I always love to draw, I
1682
01:38:37.840 --> 01:38:43.079
love imagery, I love design, and I always gravitated towards
1683
01:38:43.640 --> 01:38:47.000
wanting to paint. And by the way, most of the
1684
01:38:47.039 --> 01:38:48.800
things I do, and they're not like, I don't look
1685
01:38:48.800 --> 01:38:50.800
at them through a scientific point of view. It's I
1686
01:38:50.880 --> 01:38:54.560
do them intuitively and then later I understand in a
1687
01:38:54.600 --> 01:38:59.079
more scientific way why or I ask scientific, scientific questions
1688
01:38:59.079 --> 01:39:01.520
why am I doing those things? And I think for
1689
01:39:01.720 --> 01:39:07.239
art is important, start with intuition, start with what makes
1690
01:39:07.279 --> 01:39:10.800
sense to you or feels right, and then start asking
1691
01:39:10.880 --> 01:39:14.199
questions the wise and house and what does it mean?
1692
01:39:15.319 --> 01:39:18.399
You know, painting in itself, there's lots of science. You know,
1693
01:39:18.439 --> 01:39:22.199
if you mix blue with yellow every time, you're going
1694
01:39:22.279 --> 01:39:26.399
to get green, that's science. But when you paint, I
1695
01:39:26.479 --> 01:39:28.880
think you need to forget about the science. It needs
1696
01:39:28.920 --> 01:39:30.760
to live in the back of your mind and you
1697
01:39:30.800 --> 01:39:34.600
need to to let your I don't know what your spirit,
1698
01:39:34.760 --> 01:39:40.279
your mojo take over and paint with you. So but
1699
01:39:40.439 --> 01:39:44.960
I started to learn so much about magic from painting,
1700
01:39:46.119 --> 01:39:48.800
And I tell you why you need a bird eye
1701
01:39:48.840 --> 01:39:51.279
every now and then. You need to detach yourself from
1702
01:39:51.279 --> 01:39:54.880
something that you do so much off and you build
1703
01:39:54.920 --> 01:39:59.079
all these biases. Right when I approach a trick or
1704
01:39:59.079 --> 01:40:02.279
I work on a trick, I come with a similar approach.
1705
01:40:02.479 --> 01:40:06.960
You know, it's almost it becomes formulaic, and formulize is
1706
01:40:07.039 --> 01:40:11.680
poison for art. When you when you approach something with
1707
01:40:11.880 --> 01:40:17.600
a predetermined, you know, preconceived notion of doing something, you
1708
01:40:17.600 --> 01:40:21.159
you might repeat yourself so much that it's boring and
1709
01:40:21.199 --> 01:40:24.479
you not allow yourself to grow and to maybe find
1710
01:40:24.880 --> 01:40:27.960
things that you never knew existed in you or outside
1711
01:40:27.960 --> 01:40:31.920
of you. So painting in a weird way. When I
1712
01:40:31.960 --> 01:40:35.079
when I read biographies, let's say Lucian Freud, which who
1713
01:40:35.119 --> 01:40:41.760
I really love, and he's talking about art, at some point,
1714
01:40:41.960 --> 01:40:44.600
I feel like I'm reading a magic book. It's so
1715
01:40:44.640 --> 01:40:49.079
applicable to magic. He's talking about intention, he's talking about
1716
01:40:49.439 --> 01:40:51.920
you know, I'm gonna misquote him for sure. He says,
1717
01:40:51.960 --> 01:40:53.680
every time I approach a canvas, I approach it as
1718
01:40:53.720 --> 01:40:56.399
if it's the first painting I've ever painted, and it
1719
01:40:56.439 --> 01:41:00.840
says to take it even further, depending depending that ever painted,
1720
01:41:02.680 --> 01:41:04.920
because he wants to approach it with the attitude of
1721
01:41:04.960 --> 01:41:09.840
a student, with the naivete, with the virginity of first time,
1722
01:41:10.880 --> 01:41:13.840
so you don't repeat the same stake. Oh ay, you
1723
01:41:13.920 --> 01:41:16.279
do this as kain. Oh I've done this before, I
1724
01:41:16.279 --> 01:41:18.680
can do this again. You kind of want to divorces
1725
01:41:18.760 --> 01:41:23.199
from all these things, you know, and start the search
1726
01:41:23.359 --> 01:41:26.800
again from as close as possible to this first time,
1727
01:41:26.840 --> 01:41:31.239
because there's something beautiful about that. There's a technique that
1728
01:41:31.359 --> 01:41:36.119
painters use. Andrew wife did it a lot. It will
1729
01:41:36.159 --> 01:41:39.520
paint the painting, it would look at it say something
1730
01:41:39.560 --> 01:41:42.840
is wrong about it, and I don't know what something is.
1731
01:41:44.079 --> 01:41:46.840
There's something about this painting that's just does not work.
1732
01:41:47.720 --> 01:41:50.279
Then it will take the painting and look at it
1733
01:41:50.560 --> 01:41:52.960
with the mirror. So he looks at the reflection of
1734
01:41:53.000 --> 01:41:55.520
the painting. So he flips the image very much like
1735
01:41:55.600 --> 01:41:59.760
the way we think at night. And when it looks
1736
01:41:59.760 --> 01:42:03.800
at the reflection, he goes, ah, the nose is wrong.
1737
01:42:05.039 --> 01:42:07.560
He couldn't see it when he looked at it. He
1738
01:42:07.560 --> 01:42:10.439
couldn't see that the wrong was awf or you know, distorted,
1739
01:42:11.159 --> 01:42:15.119
but when he saw the reflection, he could because he
1740
01:42:15.239 --> 01:42:19.399
was able to cancel his biases. He saw almost a
1741
01:42:19.439 --> 01:42:23.239
cousin painting of the one he just made, which is
1742
01:42:23.279 --> 01:42:27.800
a beautiful thing. But this analogy also, I think acts
1743
01:42:27.800 --> 01:42:30.960
for me with magic. It's a way for me to
1744
01:42:30.960 --> 01:42:33.880
look at magic from a mirror, to look at it differently,
1745
01:42:33.880 --> 01:42:37.720
from a different angle. Because art, I find that the
1746
01:42:37.840 --> 01:42:42.199
arts are very much connected. There's so much similarities. And
1747
01:42:42.239 --> 01:42:46.159
when I lecture to musicians about magic, I quote art
1748
01:42:46.159 --> 01:42:49.880
books more than I quote magic books. I quote Servantes
1749
01:42:49.920 --> 01:42:54.640
from Don Quixote about magic. You know, someone wrote a
1750
01:42:54.680 --> 01:42:57.560
book in the sixteen hundreds, and he talks about the
1751
01:42:58.159 --> 01:43:00.439
what we like to call the two impossible theory, not
1752
01:43:00.479 --> 01:43:03.760
the two perfect theory, the two impossible theory. And he
1753
01:43:03.800 --> 01:43:10.319
talks about that perfection in writing is restraining exaggeration, and
1754
01:43:10.680 --> 01:43:15.039
it's it's a whole paragraph about that art needs to
1755
01:43:15.079 --> 01:43:18.960
be believable, there has to be truth in it to
1756
01:43:19.039 --> 01:43:22.760
be enjoyed. So and it's so much true for magic.
1757
01:43:23.239 --> 01:43:26.279
I can just even when we do something that's impossible,
1758
01:43:27.000 --> 01:43:31.439
I still want the ground to be plausible. Maybe maybe
1759
01:43:31.479 --> 01:43:35.079
this could happen. Therefore, I need to restrain exaggeration. I
1760
01:43:35.119 --> 01:43:40.680
need to restrain the impossibility. And that again, this is
1761
01:43:41.399 --> 01:43:43.439
a novel from the sixteen hundred. Its don Keyoto, my
1762
01:43:43.479 --> 01:43:49.239
favorite book of all time, teaching us about magic, and
1763
01:43:49.439 --> 01:43:52.680
Lucim Forrest teaching me about magic, Andrew Wife and Ven
1764
01:43:52.680 --> 01:43:56.079
Goal and all these people. So I think that's why
1765
01:43:56.119 --> 01:44:00.239
I love this diversity of You know, I love photography much.
1766
01:44:00.239 --> 01:44:02.600
I always have a camera, a camera with me, film photographer.
1767
01:44:02.640 --> 01:44:07.399
I love and composition, the idea. No one uses that
1768
01:44:07.479 --> 01:44:11.239
word usually with adjacent to magic. They never talk about, oh,
1769
01:44:11.279 --> 01:44:15.479
it's a composition. But if you understand a composition and
1770
01:44:15.520 --> 01:44:17.800
you apply to magic, you have a whole new way
1771
01:44:17.800 --> 01:44:20.159
of looking at how to create a piece of magic,
1772
01:44:21.119 --> 01:44:24.000
just by using that word, that term that painters and
1773
01:44:24.000 --> 01:44:30.399
photographers use. So that's to me just an amazing reason,
1774
01:44:31.520 --> 01:44:32.960
a good reason to paint.
1775
01:44:34.319 --> 01:44:37.439
I love that you're touching into some of the core modulars,
1776
01:44:37.760 --> 01:44:42.319
the ground truths of art and of magic, and how
1777
01:44:42.359 --> 01:44:45.600
they overlap, because what we're really talking about here are
1778
01:44:47.119 --> 01:44:51.239
ways in which the brain works stories and this restraining exaggeration.
1779
01:44:51.319 --> 01:44:54.199
I'll just share two things. I'll try and keep it brief.
1780
01:44:56.039 --> 01:45:01.520
One is that again, Rick Rubin incredibly virtuoso in at
1781
01:45:01.560 --> 01:45:04.520
the level of creativity and bringing out people's best in
1782
01:45:04.800 --> 01:45:11.560
terms of music, other domains too, but mostly music. Often
1783
01:45:11.600 --> 01:45:13.479
says that you know that the art has to have
1784
01:45:13.600 --> 01:45:17.720
some recognizable feature, like this is this artist that people
1785
01:45:17.720 --> 01:45:20.760
have perhaps heard before, but then something new, But you
1786
01:45:20.800 --> 01:45:23.479
can't completely depart from what was done before. There has
1787
01:45:23.520 --> 01:45:28.000
to be some recognition. He also talked about wiping away
1788
01:45:28.079 --> 01:45:31.119
of using a completely new canvas. This example you gave
1789
01:45:31.840 --> 01:45:34.079
when Rick came to our studio here, he looked around
1790
01:45:34.119 --> 01:45:37.119
and and he goes, I like this place. He's very
1791
01:45:37.119 --> 01:45:40.279
into physical spaces. And the walls here are black, and
1792
01:45:40.319 --> 01:45:43.840
there's some other stuff too, And he said, uh, you know,
1793
01:45:44.239 --> 01:45:46.039
well because both Rick and I came up through punk
1794
01:45:46.119 --> 01:45:48.399
rock music. And he's like, yeah, I think a smaller place,
1795
01:45:48.439 --> 01:45:53.600
black walls like cool. His studio is mostly white. And
1796
01:45:53.640 --> 01:45:55.119
but then he said, you know, but I'd get rid
1797
01:45:55.119 --> 01:45:57.359
of all the art and the plants. And I said
1798
01:45:57.359 --> 01:45:59.720
why and he said, because it's distracting. You know, he
1799
01:45:59.720 --> 01:46:03.520
doesn't have art or awards on his walls. It's all blank.
1800
01:46:03.600 --> 01:46:06.560
So that every new project is a completely new project.
1801
01:46:06.600 --> 01:46:10.960
There's no interesting previous stimulate entering the picture. It's a
1802
01:46:11.000 --> 01:46:13.840
new project, so you don't want pictures of awards that
1803
01:46:13.880 --> 01:46:15.640
you won for that album or anything. I go, what
1804
01:46:15.680 --> 01:46:16.920
do you do with all that stuff? And he's like,
1805
01:46:17.159 --> 01:46:17.640
just get rid.
1806
01:46:17.600 --> 01:46:20.920
Of it, like me too, By the way, I totally understand.
1807
01:46:21.079 --> 01:46:24.640
Very interesting, so clean slate. Then the other thing that
1808
01:46:24.880 --> 01:46:29.399
it just is so striking to me is you know
1809
01:46:29.760 --> 01:46:33.000
this idea that there has to be something that is
1810
01:46:33.039 --> 01:46:37.720
a truth, a mathematical or a physical truth present in art.
1811
01:46:38.920 --> 01:46:41.159
One of the best ways that one can understand how
1812
01:46:41.199 --> 01:46:47.319
the brain creates perceptions is that the brain creates abstractions
1813
01:46:47.319 --> 01:46:50.920
of what's out in the outside world. Light, sound, touch, smell,
1814
01:46:51.359 --> 01:46:54.479
tastes come in, but that's all translated to electrical and
1815
01:46:54.560 --> 01:46:57.359
chemical signals, and then the brain reconstructs an image. By
1816
01:46:57.399 --> 01:47:00.640
the way, the lens of the eye this interesting as
1817
01:47:00.640 --> 01:47:05.159
a photographer inverts and reverses the image so that when
1818
01:47:05.199 --> 01:47:07.720
it lands in the brain the neural retina first stage
1819
01:47:07.720 --> 01:47:10.479
of visual processing. You're actually I'm looking at you your
1820
01:47:10.520 --> 01:47:13.439
right side up, but you're actually landing on the perception
1821
01:47:13.520 --> 01:47:16.479
in my brain is that you're upside down and flipped.
1822
01:47:16.840 --> 01:47:20.039
I am, And then now you got me, you had
1823
01:47:20.039 --> 01:47:26.159
me for a second. I am too, so and then
1824
01:47:26.199 --> 01:47:29.479
the brain reconstructs an upright image. It's really wild. So
1825
01:47:29.600 --> 01:47:32.960
the brain is constantly abstract, making abstractions about what's out there.
1826
01:47:33.000 --> 01:47:35.800
So if I were to say, take a photograph of
1827
01:47:35.840 --> 01:47:38.119
you and show you a picture of your face, you'd say, yeah,
1828
01:47:38.119 --> 01:47:40.399
that's me. But if I said, aha, but I'm an
1829
01:47:40.439 --> 01:47:42.920
abstract artist, and to me you look like and I
1830
01:47:43.000 --> 01:47:45.399
basically do a bunch of squiggles and a thing, and
1831
01:47:45.680 --> 01:47:47.399
I show you it doesn't look anything like your face.
1832
01:47:47.439 --> 01:47:49.800
You say, yeah, I don't see it. However, if I
1833
01:47:49.880 --> 01:47:53.239
somehow have the artistic genius, which I don't, to create
1834
01:47:53.279 --> 01:47:56.760
an image of you where the eyes are distorted, their position,
1835
01:47:57.039 --> 01:48:00.159
or maybe the shading, something is different in a way
1836
01:48:00.479 --> 01:48:03.359
that lets you see and other people see your face
1837
01:48:03.359 --> 01:48:07.399
in a way that is similar enough to assi wind
1838
01:48:08.399 --> 01:48:11.439
that we recognize you, but different enough that it looks interesting.
1839
01:48:12.680 --> 01:48:15.920
We're effectively creating the kind of abstraction that the brain creates,
1840
01:48:15.960 --> 01:48:19.119
like some level of interest in an emotion or in
1841
01:48:20.159 --> 01:48:23.319
something right, a reflection in your eye? Who knows right?
1842
01:48:23.359 --> 01:48:25.840
And so the brain is an abstraction machine. It doesn't
1843
01:48:25.880 --> 01:48:29.159
actually know what's out there. It's taking best guesses. And
1844
01:48:29.239 --> 01:48:33.840
so I think when we see great art, it's able
1845
01:48:33.880 --> 01:48:37.600
to capture enough of the real physical truth of that thing,
1846
01:48:38.199 --> 01:48:40.800
but to touch into some of the ways in which
1847
01:48:40.800 --> 01:48:43.399
the brain abstracts. I'll give one more example, roth Goes,
1848
01:48:43.880 --> 01:48:47.439
which are simply to some people who don't like them.
1849
01:48:47.479 --> 01:48:50.840
I love roth Goes. I are simply color on canvas.
1850
01:48:51.359 --> 01:48:54.319
But roth Go, whether or not he intended it or not,
1851
01:48:54.439 --> 01:48:57.640
did something absolutely spectacular with his art, which was he
1852
01:48:57.720 --> 01:49:00.960
eliminated the white space and the canvas, and in doing
1853
01:49:01.000 --> 01:49:03.960
so was able to allow things to come forward in
1854
01:49:04.039 --> 01:49:06.720
color space, as we call it in visual neuroscience. Certain
1855
01:49:06.760 --> 01:49:09.800
colors are not visible unless they are adjacent to other colors.
1856
01:49:10.119 --> 01:49:12.479
And when you eliminate all the white space the canvas
1857
01:49:12.479 --> 01:49:15.600
and you take away the frame, then colors that you
1858
01:49:15.680 --> 01:49:20.119
haven't seen before and color transitions that you can't see pop.
1859
01:49:21.760 --> 01:49:24.359
And that's the brilliance of a wroth Go. It's not
1860
01:49:24.479 --> 01:49:26.520
that it's two colors in a square and a rectangle.
1861
01:49:26.560 --> 01:49:27.960
And you know, this is why they're worth millions and
1862
01:49:27.960 --> 01:49:31.920
millions of dollars. They're so spectacular because they capture a
1863
01:49:32.119 --> 01:49:35.920
physical truth about color space. That's inaccessible in a framed
1864
01:49:35.920 --> 01:49:39.560
painting or a painting that includes some visibility of the canvas.
1865
01:49:40.119 --> 01:49:44.079
So wroth Go shows us color space the math of
1866
01:49:44.119 --> 01:49:47.439
how the brain produces color, contrast and hue and wavelength
1867
01:49:47.439 --> 01:49:50.520
intensity and color is also intimately tied to value in
1868
01:49:50.560 --> 01:49:52.960
the brain in a very interesting way. And we're not
1869
01:49:53.000 --> 01:49:55.600
looking at it thinking all that, but we feel something
1870
01:49:55.640 --> 01:50:00.359
that's like if we appreciate roth goes like, that's interesting.
1871
01:50:01.079 --> 01:50:03.000
That captivates me. Does that make sense?
1872
01:50:03.079 --> 01:50:04.800
Yeah? I have a question to you.
1873
01:50:04.880 --> 01:50:05.159
Do we.
1874
01:50:06.800 --> 01:50:12.520
Know that roth did it through that lens of understanding science?
1875
01:50:12.520 --> 01:50:15.359
So you just described or did he just intuitively felt
1876
01:50:15.600 --> 01:50:19.439
this is a great composition, these are great color scheme,
1877
01:50:19.800 --> 01:50:22.319
and I will do that, like, what do we know that?
1878
01:50:22.399 --> 01:50:26.760
It's most most likely the latter. I have a colleague,
1879
01:50:26.760 --> 01:50:29.119
Bebel Conway, who's at the National Institutes of Health, who's
1880
01:50:29.239 --> 01:50:30.880
far more versed in this stuff than I am, so
1881
01:50:30.920 --> 01:50:32.239
he might correct me. I'd love to get him on
1882
01:50:32.279 --> 01:50:37.479
the podcast sometime. But it's very likely that rothco felt
1883
01:50:37.560 --> 01:50:42.720
something upon seeing colors in a restricted kind of tunnel
1884
01:50:42.720 --> 01:50:44.600
of vision and then realize that if this could be
1885
01:50:44.600 --> 01:50:47.520
brought to scale, because roth goes tend to be pretty large,
1886
01:50:48.119 --> 01:50:52.479
then something special, what's happening? Sort of like Chuck Close
1887
01:50:53.279 --> 01:50:55.560
took tiny little images of faces and now he had
1888
01:50:55.560 --> 01:50:59.439
a visual issue with faces, proposagnosia, et cetera. So people
1889
01:50:59.439 --> 01:51:02.239
can look that up, failure to recognize faces as faces,
1890
01:51:03.399 --> 01:51:06.279
they just look like objects, and realize that he could create,
1891
01:51:06.640 --> 01:51:08.880
you know, composites of these things as a big face,
1892
01:51:08.920 --> 01:51:12.560
and it's very different experience to look at a face
1893
01:51:12.600 --> 01:51:15.319
that's made up of tiny fragments of many, many faces. Now,
1894
01:51:15.399 --> 01:51:17.840
now here's where it gets interesting, because there are many
1895
01:51:17.880 --> 01:51:20.399
many artists that sit out in front of museums like
1896
01:51:20.439 --> 01:51:24.359
the Met and sell paintings that are very inexpensive, that
1897
01:51:24.479 --> 01:51:28.479
are very accurate renditions of things. Picture a Taylor Swift
1898
01:51:28.560 --> 01:51:32.159
picture of Bob Marley. Not interesting, it's cool they can
1899
01:51:32.199 --> 01:51:34.359
do it, or the real you know, the kind of
1900
01:51:36.399 --> 01:51:39.800
you know, curbside trickery. Take a painting paint in front
1901
01:51:39.800 --> 01:51:42.000
of people, what's what's he or she doing? And then
1902
01:51:42.079 --> 01:51:46.359
flip it over it's the person. Wh It's cool in
1903
01:51:46.399 --> 01:51:48.439
the moment because you're like, wow, they can paint upside down,
1904
01:51:48.960 --> 01:51:51.319
but actually it's not interesting at all because what they've
1905
01:51:51.319 --> 01:51:56.000
created is basically a decent photographish image, just upside down,
1906
01:51:56.760 --> 01:51:58.800
so they might as well hang upside down while they
1907
01:51:58.840 --> 01:52:02.520
do it. It's not interesting, it's not great art. So
1908
01:52:02.600 --> 01:52:04.800
what I think, what we're converging on is that great
1909
01:52:04.920 --> 01:52:09.119
art takes us through a trajectory that involves the I
1910
01:52:09.199 --> 01:52:13.159
believe now after this discussion, that takes us through the
1911
01:52:13.319 --> 01:52:18.520
arc of excellent storytelling. It involves a surprise recognition of truth,
1912
01:52:19.359 --> 01:52:22.640
a return to mystery. All these components that you describe
1913
01:52:22.680 --> 01:52:25.560
for magic are president in art, and presumably are president
1914
01:52:25.640 --> 01:52:28.319
in a great song or play as well.
1915
01:52:29.600 --> 01:52:33.279
You know, I love everything you said, And I often
1916
01:52:33.359 --> 01:52:37.920
contemplate about why I respond to a certain painting, but
1917
01:52:38.000 --> 01:52:40.319
the painting outside the mat of the guy, I don't
1918
01:52:41.600 --> 01:52:44.159
and I never I was never able to come up
1919
01:52:44.199 --> 01:52:48.079
with a sufficient answer. But this is as close as
1920
01:52:48.079 --> 01:52:51.680
I got. And I often what do I like this?
1921
01:52:51.800 --> 01:52:53.359
But not this? What do I like that? And I
1922
01:52:53.359 --> 01:52:59.840
don't like this? I think that I making a judgment
1923
01:53:00.399 --> 01:53:06.239
about the motives of the painter, And do I believe him?
1924
01:53:06.680 --> 01:53:11.439
Is it honest? Is it a true, honest expression that
1925
01:53:11.640 --> 01:53:15.119
extends out of him on a canvas? And a lot
1926
01:53:15.159 --> 01:53:18.039
of times and that's the course they got. I go
1927
01:53:18.079 --> 01:53:21.199
and I see these patterns and dripping the paint and
1928
01:53:21.199 --> 01:53:23.600
this splatter and this and that, and it's super like
1929
01:53:23.600 --> 01:53:25.680
like lots of people wh this is cool, and I'm
1930
01:53:25.680 --> 01:53:29.520
the snob goes. I think it's shit. And the reason
1931
01:53:29.800 --> 01:53:33.880
is when I see it, I think, I think I
1932
01:53:33.920 --> 01:53:38.000
see the motive. He says, I'm gonna do something cool.
1933
01:53:38.920 --> 01:53:41.840
I'm gonna do something that is eye candy, and I'm
1934
01:53:41.840 --> 01:53:43.640
going to use every trick in the book to make
1935
01:53:43.680 --> 01:53:47.640
it happen, as oppose to somebody like Lucien, who paints
1936
01:53:48.000 --> 01:53:53.560
with his guts. I believe every brushstroke, I believe it's
1937
01:53:53.600 --> 01:53:57.479
an honest painting that comes from here, and there's no
1938
01:53:58.279 --> 01:54:02.159
motive to try to wow you or to to tell you, look,
1939
01:54:02.640 --> 01:54:05.680
I'm the best, I'm so great. So that's as close
1940
01:54:05.720 --> 01:54:11.159
as I got to understanding why I respond to Lucian
1941
01:54:11.239 --> 01:54:13.880
Freud but not to that street artists who does this,
1942
01:54:14.279 --> 01:54:18.199
you know, sparkles with his too. I don't know, toothpaste,
1943
01:54:18.279 --> 01:54:18.600
I don't know.
1944
01:54:18.880 --> 01:54:22.039
I you know, I took everything I had, all the
1945
01:54:22.079 --> 01:54:25.159
top down inhibition to not go yes, yes. I think
1946
01:54:25.199 --> 01:54:29.199
that the critical distinction is that the street artist is
1947
01:54:29.239 --> 01:54:34.199
doing it for the audience, for people and for the sale.
1948
01:54:34.680 --> 01:54:40.119
They're right, whereas the other artists that sort of let's
1949
01:54:40.159 --> 01:54:43.199
call them the greats, are doing it for themselves. It's
1950
01:54:43.239 --> 01:54:46.720
something in them that needs to get out and it's honest, right.
1951
01:54:47.000 --> 01:54:48.960
And I have so many examples that just leap to mind.
1952
01:54:49.000 --> 01:54:52.760
I'll use one from a completely different domain. I grew skateboarding.
1953
01:54:52.760 --> 01:54:54.439
I was not good enough to make it a career,
1954
01:54:54.479 --> 01:54:56.399
but I have great appreciation for them. There was a
1955
01:54:56.439 --> 01:54:59.000
guy in the nineties. He's still around. Sadly, he suffered
1956
01:54:59.000 --> 01:55:01.319
an injury. I'd him paralyzed for a while, but now
1957
01:55:01.359 --> 01:55:05.399
he's walking, cycling and skateboarding again. His name is John Cardiel.
1958
01:55:06.000 --> 01:55:10.520
John Cardiel is just a legend in the landscape of skateboarding.
1959
01:55:10.680 --> 01:55:13.079
I knew him back when, still know him a bit,
1960
01:55:13.439 --> 01:55:16.560
and the way he would do things was just so spectacular.
1961
01:55:17.119 --> 01:55:19.520
He just like it, just the energy in it. It
1962
01:55:19.560 --> 01:55:22.720
wasn't because it was so big and so far and
1963
01:55:22.760 --> 01:55:24.880
all of that, yes, but there was something in the
1964
01:55:25.000 --> 01:55:27.039
energy of it, and I'll never forget. There's there's a
1965
01:55:27.039 --> 01:55:30.159
documentary about him. I'll put a link to it in
1966
01:55:30.199 --> 01:55:35.319
the show. Note captions where someone's describing a conversation they
1967
01:55:35.359 --> 01:55:38.319
had with him where he does something spectacular and then
1968
01:55:38.359 --> 01:55:41.159
he he shows out. He sort of goes up to
1969
01:55:41.199 --> 01:55:43.960
his friend and his friend said, yeah, that moment John
1970
01:55:43.960 --> 01:55:45.960
turned to him and he goes that one was for me,
1971
01:55:47.199 --> 01:55:49.720
and I just I think of that now, like John
1972
01:55:49.880 --> 01:55:52.319
like Cards as they call him, just it always looked
1973
01:55:52.319 --> 01:55:55.720
like everyone was delight, just thrilled by what he does. Right,
1974
01:55:55.760 --> 01:55:59.039
he's a true virtuo. So but it's the sense that
1975
01:55:59.199 --> 01:56:02.159
he's not doing it for your entertainment, he's doing it
1976
01:56:02.199 --> 01:56:04.680
for him. That it's the expression of something inside. Rick
1977
01:56:04.760 --> 01:56:08.079
talks about great art as your own offering to God.
1978
01:56:08.640 --> 01:56:10.920
This is not about your audience. This is you and
1979
01:56:11.000 --> 01:56:14.239
your thing, whatever is inside you, and it's your offering
1980
01:56:14.279 --> 01:56:16.359
to God. And I think it's such a key things.
1981
01:56:16.600 --> 01:56:19.600
It's the exact opposite of someone doing something to please
1982
01:56:19.640 --> 01:56:23.039
the audience. And of course one delights in audience as
1983
01:56:23.079 --> 01:56:26.439
being pleased, but that can't be how you approach your magic.
1984
01:56:26.479 --> 01:56:28.640
It must be because it just feels so good.
1985
01:56:29.279 --> 01:56:33.600
The truth is the show I create Inner Circle, it
1986
01:56:33.680 --> 01:56:37.239
was created because I wanted to do that show. I mean,
1987
01:56:38.239 --> 01:56:41.439
if you tell me somebody's going to come and watch
1988
01:56:41.479 --> 01:56:43.399
an hour and a half somebody doing a bunch of
1989
01:56:43.399 --> 01:56:49.039
car tricks. It sounds boring, but I think every art
1990
01:56:49.079 --> 01:56:53.479
form is an excuse still something bigger. You know, Vin
1991
01:56:53.479 --> 01:56:59.000
Gold recorded his sensations when he looked at the sunflowers
1992
01:56:59.000 --> 01:57:04.119
and record his emotions on a canvas. Every brushstroke, the
1993
01:57:04.560 --> 01:57:07.880
speed in which he placed every brushstroke, and the colors
1994
01:57:07.880 --> 01:57:10.600
he chose to put. Every decision he made was a
1995
01:57:10.640 --> 01:57:14.760
recording of his sensations, is state of being at that
1996
01:57:14.960 --> 01:57:20.439
moment when he painted it. So who cares about sunflowers.
1997
01:57:20.920 --> 01:57:24.039
We've seen a lot of bouquets of flowers and roses
1998
01:57:24.039 --> 01:57:27.159
and this Mattissa's this famous quote. He says that the
1999
01:57:27.199 --> 01:57:30.239
hardest thing to paint is a rose, because one has
2000
01:57:30.279 --> 01:57:32.720
to first forget about all the roses he painted before
2001
01:57:33.279 --> 01:57:38.920
were painted before. And that's it's so true because to me,
2002
01:57:39.560 --> 01:57:43.800
a still life it's something that students do in art schools.
2003
01:57:44.279 --> 01:57:47.079
Here's a bouquet of flower painted. So while we're looking
2004
01:57:47.079 --> 01:57:50.119
at Van Gohn saying, oh, the sunflowers, what a beautiful
2005
01:57:50.119 --> 01:57:55.439
piece of it's because the sunflowers are just an excuse
2006
01:57:56.359 --> 01:58:00.359
for him to record something of him. He recorded him
2007
01:58:00.720 --> 01:58:03.760
himself on the canvas, and that's what we're seeing. We're
2008
01:58:03.760 --> 01:58:09.680
seeing the personality, the excitement, the obsessiveness that he had,
2009
01:58:10.479 --> 01:58:12.640
and I think that's one of us. To me, I mean,
2010
01:58:13.039 --> 01:58:15.439
I always start with I want to do this show
2011
01:58:15.479 --> 01:58:18.079
because I think it's beautiful, because I think it has
2012
01:58:18.119 --> 01:58:23.000
something to say. I hope people like it. I love
2013
01:58:23.079 --> 01:58:26.560
people too, and to me, the people are also part
2014
01:58:26.600 --> 01:58:29.439
of the brushstrokes. I make a lot of room in
2015
01:58:29.479 --> 01:58:33.520
my show for people to flourish, to become a part
2016
01:58:33.520 --> 01:58:36.279
of the show. That's part of the expression that I'm
2017
01:58:36.319 --> 01:58:39.920
trying to create. It's not just about me, it's about
2018
01:58:39.960 --> 01:58:42.800
them too. But that's an artistic choice in itself.
2019
01:58:44.279 --> 01:58:46.920
Where do you draw I don't want to say inspiration,
2020
01:58:47.119 --> 01:58:50.479
but the components for a show, so I can think
2021
01:58:50.520 --> 01:58:53.199
of you can look historically and see what people have done,
2022
01:58:53.239 --> 01:58:59.039
learned from masters, teachers, from your own experiences. Like if you,
2023
01:58:59.119 --> 01:59:01.239
let's say you were to try level to do't know
2024
01:59:01.279 --> 01:59:04.920
Australia or South America, would you bring back components of
2025
01:59:04.960 --> 01:59:09.640
your travels to the show you create. I don't know,
2026
01:59:11.560 --> 01:59:16.319
or you know, what's your process for figuring out or
2027
01:59:16.439 --> 01:59:19.000
sensing into what you want to do? And I feel like,
2028
01:59:19.000 --> 01:59:21.000
discussions like this are very important for people to hear
2029
01:59:21.079 --> 01:59:23.800
because not everyone wants to be a magician or mentalist
2030
01:59:23.840 --> 01:59:26.640
or scientist or podcaster. But what we're getting down to
2031
01:59:26.720 --> 01:59:31.039
here are the core components of creative expression. So where
2032
01:59:31.039 --> 01:59:35.399
do you Where do you draw on the what? What
2033
01:59:36.920 --> 01:59:39.479
do you bring? Is it your daily experience? Does it
2034
01:59:39.520 --> 01:59:41.359
come to you in the form of a bodily sensation?
2035
01:59:41.520 --> 01:59:44.159
Is it in your dreams? Is it in your discussions?
2036
01:59:44.560 --> 01:59:46.720
Do you try and resurrect cool things from the past?
2037
01:59:47.680 --> 01:59:49.399
Where does it? Where do you draw from?
2038
01:59:49.399 --> 01:59:51.600
It's all of it, It's really all of it. I'm
2039
01:59:51.640 --> 01:59:58.159
a sponge of everything around me. I interact with art,
2040
01:59:58.560 --> 02:00:04.439
with books, with information, with friends, conversations. Everything is a
2041
02:00:06.039 --> 02:00:10.159
source of inspiration. Everything is and it goes through my filter.
2042
02:00:11.239 --> 02:00:13.960
Like I'm always amazed at the fact that you know,
2043
02:00:14.680 --> 02:00:18.439
twenty students can paint the exact same thing, the exact
2044
02:00:18.479 --> 02:00:22.279
same please, this is a flower painted and you'll have
2045
02:00:22.479 --> 02:00:27.600
twenty completely different paintings. Is because everybody, I think, filters
2046
02:00:28.760 --> 02:00:34.199
this information through their sensory whatever it is, And I
2047
02:00:34.199 --> 02:00:37.760
think that's what That's what I think I'm doing. I'm
2048
02:00:37.840 --> 02:00:44.079
constantly consuming, not just art, everything a flower, this a
2049
02:00:44.079 --> 02:00:49.840
conversation with a friend. Uh and experience. Maybe you know what? Yes, yes,
2050
02:00:50.159 --> 02:00:52.640
I think everything affects me. Me sitting with you right
2051
02:00:52.680 --> 02:00:55.640
now will affect me, will change me, will become a
2052
02:00:55.680 --> 02:01:02.000
part of the the mosaic of experiences I have, and
2053
02:01:02.039 --> 02:01:05.880
it will affect me. Like this conversation right now is
2054
02:01:06.000 --> 02:01:09.479
changing me. Maybe I'm poetic about it, but I really
2055
02:01:09.520 --> 02:01:13.319
think that way. I think that, you know, if I
2056
02:01:13.359 --> 02:01:15.800
had any success, I owe to all the people that
2057
02:01:15.880 --> 02:01:21.640
surround me, all my friends, you know, terrific painter Laurea Alexander,
2058
02:01:21.640 --> 02:01:29.439
who's unbelievable. Her contribution to me is immense. I mean,
2059
02:01:30.600 --> 02:01:34.039
and it's maybe you can draw direct lines, maybe you can't.
2060
02:01:34.199 --> 02:01:37.439
But I feel like every person i've that was part
2061
02:01:37.439 --> 02:01:41.840
of my life is the reason. The outcome that I
2062
02:01:41.880 --> 02:01:45.239
produce is because of these of those people. So I
2063
02:01:45.239 --> 02:01:47.880
don't know. If I I don't look for I don't
2064
02:01:47.880 --> 02:01:51.720
search for inspiration. I think what I do at least,
2065
02:01:51.760 --> 02:01:56.079
I really want to let things sink in and I
2066
02:01:56.119 --> 02:01:58.640
want to consume. I'm curious. I always want to know more,
2067
02:01:59.039 --> 02:02:02.279
to listen to more, to see more. Like, for example,
2068
02:02:02.279 --> 02:02:04.119
if I go to a museum and see a painting
2069
02:02:04.199 --> 02:02:06.279
I have. I like to dwell and why do I
2070
02:02:06.399 --> 02:02:09.159
like it? Why am I responding to this? Why is
2071
02:02:09.199 --> 02:02:13.239
this triggering me? What is this revealing about me? And
2072
02:02:13.319 --> 02:02:16.960
I don't think there's one way that that I say, Oh,
2073
02:02:17.039 --> 02:02:19.399
this is this is the process, this happens. I do this,
2074
02:02:19.479 --> 02:02:23.279
then a trick is born. Sometimes sometimes it's the tummy
2075
02:02:23.319 --> 02:02:27.319
wonder story. Right. I see someone who's doing a trick
2076
02:02:27.479 --> 02:02:30.199
and the explanation to the trick is way prettier, and
2077
02:02:30.239 --> 02:02:33.720
I go, wow, it's amazing that the things behind the
2078
02:02:33.720 --> 02:02:35.960
curtain are more interesting than things in front of the curtain.
2079
02:02:36.720 --> 02:02:39.079
That to me, it planted the seed and five years
2080
02:02:39.159 --> 02:02:42.199
later there was a piece. So I yeah, I think
2081
02:02:42.239 --> 02:02:48.000
inspiration is become a sponge. You know, you need to
2082
02:02:48.079 --> 02:02:50.960
consume this. I learned from my friend Jamie and Swiss.
2083
02:02:50.960 --> 02:02:54.000
He says to do good art have to consume art,
2084
02:02:54.920 --> 02:02:58.600
create art, get critiqued. Just do those three things. Consume art,
2085
02:03:00.399 --> 02:03:05.319
create art, and get critiques. Also, when you consume art,
2086
02:03:07.159 --> 02:03:11.039
it reveals something about you. So first when I start painting,
2087
02:03:11.039 --> 02:03:16.119
I loved everything. So realism and pointanism give me hyperrealism,
2088
02:03:16.560 --> 02:03:21.920
and slowly it narrowed down because through observing art, I
2089
02:03:21.960 --> 02:03:27.479
start to learn about what triggers me. The art revealed
2090
02:03:28.000 --> 02:03:31.479
taught me. What am I responding to? What pushes those
2091
02:03:31.520 --> 02:03:36.560
buttons right? And I think that's a valuable important step
2092
02:03:36.840 --> 02:03:41.119
in becoming an artist. Consume art and let it teach
2093
02:03:41.159 --> 02:03:45.920
you something about you. Then create art, and then critique
2094
02:03:45.960 --> 02:03:50.279
it by yourself and maybe people you trust. I think again,
2095
02:03:50.359 --> 02:03:52.359
you do those three things, you're pretty good.
2096
02:03:53.239 --> 02:03:56.039
I was trying to understand that in your magic and
2097
02:03:56.119 --> 02:04:00.159
mentalist work, you're a storyteller and to some extent, to
2098
02:04:00.199 --> 02:04:04.079
some extent, and the characters can involve cards or numbers
2099
02:04:04.159 --> 02:04:07.399
or information, and you cast people in the audience often
2100
02:04:07.520 --> 02:04:10.399
into those stories, and depending on what they give you, you
2101
02:04:10.319 --> 02:04:14.039
might assign them a different role. And you do know
2102
02:04:14.119 --> 02:04:17.000
what the conclusion of the story could be, it maybe
2103
02:04:17.079 --> 02:04:19.279
ought to be. Sometimes there's some element of surprise even
2104
02:04:19.359 --> 02:04:25.239
for you, but that you're working with a certain palette
2105
02:04:25.239 --> 02:04:28.279
of paints and they're predictable enough that you can get
2106
02:04:28.279 --> 02:04:30.399
where you want to go. But as you said before
2107
02:04:30.399 --> 02:04:33.479
that the improvisation of it is part of the delight
2108
02:04:33.680 --> 02:04:37.119
for you, absolutely, And because people are resonating with your emotions,
2109
02:04:37.159 --> 02:04:42.680
there's this empathicubement excuse me, empathic attunement that you create
2110
02:04:43.239 --> 02:04:46.479
that people also feel like they're part of the experience.
2111
02:04:47.439 --> 02:04:50.279
It's so very different to watch something that you do
2112
02:04:50.359 --> 02:04:53.199
on YouTube versus to be in a small setting versus
2113
02:04:53.279 --> 02:04:56.680
a larger setting. And all of these are spectacular and
2114
02:04:56.720 --> 02:04:58.439
we'll provide links to these, and if you get the
2115
02:04:58.479 --> 02:05:02.279
opportunity to see Assie live, you absolutely should do it.
2116
02:05:02.279 --> 02:05:08.199
It's it's like it will clearly fall into the far
2117
02:05:08.279 --> 02:05:12.600
extreme of experiences, amazing experiences that you'll have. I guarantee it.
2118
02:05:14.720 --> 02:05:19.880
I think in discussing like what art is and people
2119
02:05:19.920 --> 02:05:26.640
thinking about learning, I think often we wonder if you're
2120
02:05:26.640 --> 02:05:29.319
a sponge, are you you're taking in everything? But are
2121
02:05:29.359 --> 02:05:32.560
you do you constrain your days in a way that
2122
02:05:32.880 --> 02:05:34.720
you know, like you're not you're hanging out at the met,
2123
02:05:34.760 --> 02:05:37.159
You're not looking at the stuff on the sidewalk outside
2124
02:05:37.159 --> 02:05:41.039
the met as much. So you have a taste, you
2125
02:05:41.079 --> 02:05:43.720
have a sense of taste what you like, and you're
2126
02:05:43.800 --> 02:05:46.439
drawing from different things. I delight in animals of all kinds,
2127
02:05:46.479 --> 02:05:48.039
and so much of what I do and so much
2128
02:05:48.079 --> 02:05:49.399
of what I think about in terms of how the
2129
02:05:49.479 --> 02:05:52.760
human animal works, is based on some overlap with the
2130
02:05:52.840 --> 02:05:55.399
kind of core modules that exist in other animals, and
2131
02:05:55.439 --> 02:05:58.000
I won't take us down that path, but I just
2132
02:05:58.000 --> 02:05:59.920
delight in animals. Why That's why I follow some in
2133
02:06:00.159 --> 02:06:03.760
raccoon accounts on Instagram. So I'm trying to figure out, like,
2134
02:06:03.840 --> 02:06:09.399
when you walk us through a day, you are night owl.
2135
02:06:09.479 --> 02:06:12.439
We talked about this before. So what time do you
2136
02:06:12.439 --> 02:06:13.439
go to sleep at night?
2137
02:06:15.079 --> 02:06:17.000
I mean typically four am?
2138
02:06:17.159 --> 02:06:19.039
Four am is when you go to sleep. And it's
2139
02:06:19.079 --> 02:06:23.119
not just because you're a performing artist on stage. You've
2140
02:06:23.119 --> 02:06:24.039
always been this way.
2141
02:06:24.159 --> 02:06:27.000
Yeah, okay, and a lot of magicians are. And my
2142
02:06:27.119 --> 02:06:29.880
mom is the same way. My brother maybe he's a
2143
02:06:29.920 --> 02:06:34.199
little change now, but he's also if he follows his nature,
2144
02:06:34.880 --> 02:06:37.840
he will fall asleep around four and I wake up
2145
02:06:37.840 --> 02:06:39.359
around noon two pm.
2146
02:06:39.439 --> 02:06:41.439
Do you wear an eyemask or curtains? Right?
2147
02:06:41.600 --> 02:06:44.359
Yeah, okay, a little bit of light and I'm screwed.
2148
02:06:44.560 --> 02:06:47.159
Okay, So then you wake up, what do you do?
2149
02:06:47.239 --> 02:06:48.960
I was about to call it your morning routine, but
2150
02:06:49.000 --> 02:06:52.680
your afternoon, your hour, afternoon, your morning? Right, your morning?
2151
02:06:52.720 --> 02:06:56.399
What is your typical thing you do? You pay attention
2152
02:06:56.439 --> 02:06:58.319
to your dreams? Do you recall your dreams? Is their
2153
02:06:58.359 --> 02:06:59.199
information there?
2154
02:07:00.640 --> 02:07:03.720
I don't know. I do know that a lot of
2155
02:07:03.720 --> 02:07:08.239
my resolution I resolve a lot of you know, tricks
2156
02:07:08.359 --> 02:07:11.039
or magic in general is problem solving. And a lot
2157
02:07:11.039 --> 02:07:13.960
of times I have a problem and I can't solve it,
2158
02:07:14.000 --> 02:07:16.279
And as you said, it happens a lot. I sleep,
2159
02:07:17.079 --> 02:07:20.439
I see everything reversed, and then I come up with
2160
02:07:20.479 --> 02:07:22.840
a solution in the morning. It's the clearest day to me,
2161
02:07:23.119 --> 02:07:28.119
that's what needs to be done. Immediately. I put the practice.
2162
02:07:28.359 --> 02:07:30.720
I literally just I'll if it's a deck of cars,
2163
02:07:30.760 --> 02:07:32.199
I would say, okay, I need to do this, and
2164
02:07:32.239 --> 02:07:36.640
I will burn it into a muscle memory. But definitely
2165
02:07:37.399 --> 02:07:42.159
nighttime is where most of the thinking happens. I sleep well,
2166
02:07:42.319 --> 02:07:46.520
I think I speak pretty well. I try, I mean,
2167
02:07:47.640 --> 02:07:51.039
I try to start very relaxed. I want the first
2168
02:07:51.039 --> 02:07:53.439
few hours of my way to be pretty relaxed. It's
2169
02:07:53.520 --> 02:07:57.119
usually a ritual. I have a coffee machine where you're
2170
02:07:57.239 --> 02:07:59.880
in to grind the coffee. You need to do everything,
2171
02:08:00.399 --> 02:08:03.760
and I love the ritual of making the first cup
2172
02:08:03.800 --> 02:08:07.800
of coffee. It's the first thing I do. I try
2173
02:08:07.800 --> 02:08:12.600
to avoid answering, you know, emails or things that are
2174
02:08:12.760 --> 02:08:15.720
urgent or that I don't want to start my day
2175
02:08:15.800 --> 02:08:17.079
with this energy.
2176
02:08:17.800 --> 02:08:19.720
Are you on social media early in the day?
2177
02:08:20.159 --> 02:08:24.560
No, no, no, I consume social media to a degree,
2178
02:08:24.560 --> 02:08:27.439
and I think it has a place. I mean, there's
2179
02:08:27.439 --> 02:08:30.119
some beautiful things I found on social media that that
2180
02:08:30.399 --> 02:08:33.079
you know, shows that I want to see friends that
2181
02:08:33.159 --> 02:08:36.560
do beautiful work and they post it and it's wonderful paintings,
2182
02:08:37.920 --> 02:08:40.319
There's lots of things. Social media is not a black
2183
02:08:40.319 --> 02:08:42.199
and white thing for me that, oh, it's just bad.
2184
02:08:43.000 --> 02:08:47.279
I think it's a platform and you can curate it
2185
02:08:47.359 --> 02:08:51.319
in such a way that is beneficial, interesting and could
2186
02:08:51.960 --> 02:08:57.600
give you valuable information. It's the obsessiveness, it's the intensity
2187
02:08:57.720 --> 02:09:00.760
that that's a little and the fact that ordinal filters
2188
02:09:00.880 --> 02:09:03.439
or there's an algorithm deciding for you what you should see.
2189
02:09:04.079 --> 02:09:07.439
That's a little scary. But no, I don't. I started
2190
02:09:07.479 --> 02:09:11.199
to day with those things and slowly I go for
2191
02:09:11.239 --> 02:09:14.960
a walk or I love walking? Am I thinking I
2192
02:09:14.960 --> 02:09:17.920
think better when I walk? What's what's the logic behind that?
2193
02:09:18.199 --> 02:09:20.760
Yeah? Well, I'm delighting this. First of all, the way
2194
02:09:20.760 --> 02:09:23.039
you describe your morning routine is very similar to Rick
2195
02:09:23.119 --> 02:09:25.840
Rubin's morning your routine. He wants to capture some of
2196
02:09:25.840 --> 02:09:29.720
the elements from sleep ease into the day, gradually walk,
2197
02:09:29.840 --> 02:09:37.079
get sunlight, uh and allow whatever processing occurred in sleep
2198
02:09:37.119 --> 02:09:39.760
and in the liminal states around the morning, and the
2199
02:09:39.800 --> 02:09:43.119
clarity that comes with the early day to crystallize into
2200
02:09:43.199 --> 02:09:47.439
ideas and not deal with email and kind of you know,
2201
02:09:47.680 --> 02:09:48.920
kind of operational things.
2202
02:09:49.039 --> 02:09:51.319
It's it's a set of mind. If I start now
2203
02:09:51.359 --> 02:09:53.079
taking care of emails and this, and I need to
2204
02:09:53.079 --> 02:09:56.319
send that in the package, you know, then that dictates
2205
02:09:56.560 --> 02:09:57.279
the day for me.
2206
02:09:57.640 --> 02:10:01.159
What's tactical. What's interesting is it's tac it's not creative.
2207
02:10:01.399 --> 02:10:04.119
In fact, it's by definition it's not creative because it's
2208
02:10:04.119 --> 02:10:06.359
being defined by what other people put on there. There's
2209
02:10:06.479 --> 02:10:10.239
an investor, I forget his name, great investor, Hedge, fun guy,
2210
02:10:10.319 --> 02:10:13.840
young kid, I can't remember, so forgive me, but this
2211
02:10:13.920 --> 02:10:15.920
quote is online and he said the email is basically
2212
02:10:15.920 --> 02:10:18.399
a public post to do list. So people are telling
2213
02:10:18.439 --> 02:10:21.359
you where to drive your attention and behavior. So your
2214
02:10:21.359 --> 02:10:24.760
process is very similar to ricks. I like to write,
2215
02:10:24.800 --> 02:10:26.399
and I have most of my clarity in the morning
2216
02:10:26.399 --> 02:10:30.399
as well, although sometimes too many tactical things enter my framework.
2217
02:10:30.439 --> 02:10:35.279
I'm working on that. But I think that what you
2218
02:10:35.319 --> 02:10:37.920
describe is the life of an artist and a creative,
2219
02:10:38.359 --> 02:10:43.840
capturing the unique components of what was put together in
2220
02:10:43.880 --> 02:10:47.399
your brain based on your unique experiences, and it's from
2221
02:10:47.439 --> 02:10:51.439
you and for you, and ultimately people benefit because they
2222
02:10:52.239 --> 02:10:55.399
delight in and are astonished by the end by the end result.
2223
02:10:55.479 --> 02:10:58.479
So what you describe sounds to me like an amazing
2224
02:10:59.000 --> 02:11:03.079
and a perfect day a creative I think it's so
2225
02:11:03.199 --> 02:11:05.760
important for people to hear. What you describe is also
2226
02:11:06.600 --> 02:11:10.079
runs countercurrent to what most people do during their days,
2227
02:11:10.079 --> 02:11:13.279
which is to immediately allow the context and the tactics
2228
02:11:13.279 --> 02:11:16.119
of their actions and thinking to be driven by some
2229
02:11:16.199 --> 02:11:19.560
external force that is not from them. It's from someone
2230
02:11:19.640 --> 02:11:23.439
else's mind and so and it's and it's incredibly there's
2231
02:11:23.479 --> 02:11:26.159
a strong gravitational pull, like what's in the news, what
2232
02:11:26.199 --> 02:11:27.920
are people saying? Where, what's in my text? What do
2233
02:11:27.960 --> 02:11:29.640
people want from me? What do people think of me?
2234
02:11:29.840 --> 02:11:35.840
Et cetera. That but that is that is absolutely poisonous
2235
02:11:35.880 --> 02:11:37.920
for creative work.
2236
02:11:38.079 --> 02:11:41.920
It's pollution. It's really It puts you in a panic mode.
2237
02:11:43.439 --> 02:11:45.319
And and by the way, we have so much stuff
2238
02:11:45.359 --> 02:11:47.479
to do that will never catch up with anything. So
2239
02:11:47.680 --> 02:11:50.520
let's make peace with that. You'll never catch up with
2240
02:11:50.640 --> 02:11:53.960
what you need to do because it's it's just it's
2241
02:11:54.000 --> 02:11:58.159
it's exhausting. So I understand that. You know, the first
2242
02:11:58.199 --> 02:12:05.720
few hours I can do vote to me to feeling good, relaxed,
2243
02:12:06.359 --> 02:12:09.000
and slowly I will introduce. Okay, I want to what
2244
02:12:09.039 --> 02:12:11.119
do I What do I want to do right now?
2245
02:12:11.239 --> 02:12:14.520
What's the first thing I want to tackle? Right Sometimes
2246
02:12:14.680 --> 02:12:17.920
I have an urgency, you know, Like I was practicing
2247
02:12:17.960 --> 02:12:20.239
the rubic scube, so I had a roobs right next
2248
02:12:20.960 --> 02:12:22.560
on my side, and the first thing I want the
2249
02:12:22.600 --> 02:12:25.199
first thing I wanted to do by choice, is to
2250
02:12:25.279 --> 02:12:27.800
do and start solving a Kubi scube because I had
2251
02:12:27.800 --> 02:12:30.199
to get good at it for a routine of mine.
2252
02:12:30.840 --> 02:12:34.239
So I tried. I would like to start the day
2253
02:12:34.279 --> 02:12:37.039
with my as you said, my own decisions. Things I
2254
02:12:37.159 --> 02:12:40.479
want to do first, this will make me happy, then
2255
02:12:40.520 --> 02:12:42.079
I'm going to do it. Or I have a deck
2256
02:12:42.119 --> 02:12:44.840
of cards next, you know, right next to me, and
2257
02:12:44.880 --> 02:12:47.039
there's a move I'm trying to get right, and the
2258
02:12:47.039 --> 02:12:48.319
first thing I want to do is try it in
2259
02:12:48.359 --> 02:12:52.800
the morning. That's another reason I love cards so much.
2260
02:12:52.840 --> 02:12:55.279
It's tacktile. Even though in my new show, which we
2261
02:12:55.359 --> 02:12:59.000
can talk about, I decided there will be no more cards.
2262
02:12:59.159 --> 02:13:03.600
It's just you know. It's a tribute to the human mind.
2263
02:13:03.600 --> 02:13:07.560
It's called Incredibly Human and it's about the things that
2264
02:13:07.640 --> 02:13:11.439
are possible and yet they're on the verge of impossible.
2265
02:13:12.439 --> 02:13:15.960
So a form rendition of it was when I memorized
2266
02:13:16.000 --> 02:13:20.800
the entire audience, I know everybody by name, and it's
2267
02:13:20.840 --> 02:13:23.600
just skill. I memorized one hundred and twenty people every night.
2268
02:13:25.760 --> 02:13:29.319
So to use a mnemonic approach where you you know,
2269
02:13:29.359 --> 02:13:32.600
like Andrew sounds like or reminds you of some other things.
2270
02:13:32.640 --> 02:13:34.399
Are you doing a paired association?
2271
02:13:34.720 --> 02:13:37.399
Sure, so I'll tell you a story about it. There's
2272
02:13:37.479 --> 02:13:42.319
a there was. He just died at ninety seven something
2273
02:13:42.319 --> 02:13:45.760
that old men, but he was sharp to his last day.
2274
02:13:46.079 --> 02:13:49.520
Harry Lorraine was a memory guy. He performed as a
2275
02:13:49.560 --> 02:13:55.239
magician but also taught people how to remember things, wrote
2276
02:13:55.239 --> 02:14:00.960
a lot of books so ill and he was known
2277
02:14:01.000 --> 02:14:03.159
for that. He was on the Carson Show. He rememberized
2278
02:14:03.199 --> 02:14:05.439
the entire audience and it was really cool. It was
2279
02:14:05.439 --> 02:14:07.760
his thing, signature piece of his and I wanted to
2280
02:14:07.760 --> 02:14:11.000
do it in my show. So we called him and said,
2281
02:14:11.199 --> 02:14:14.960
can we get permission to use that piece? And he
2282
02:14:15.000 --> 02:14:16.920
says sure, so can we meet with you and you
2283
02:14:17.039 --> 02:14:20.640
teach me, you know, those little details, the minutia, and
2284
02:14:20.640 --> 02:14:23.159
and I came with the notebook and a pen. I'm
2285
02:14:23.199 --> 02:14:27.119
ready to take notes. How do you remember one hundred
2286
02:14:27.159 --> 02:14:29.960
and twenty people every night? One hundred twenty people's names?
2287
02:14:31.119 --> 02:14:33.920
So okay, so what's the work on it? And he goes,
2288
02:14:34.119 --> 02:14:35.159
you just remember them.
2289
02:14:35.680 --> 02:14:38.039
You said, first and last names are first names, first
2290
02:14:38.079 --> 02:14:39.479
and last, first and last?
2291
02:14:39.560 --> 02:14:41.319
Yeah you can first He did first and last.
2292
02:14:41.399 --> 02:14:41.720
Yeah. Good.
2293
02:14:42.439 --> 02:14:46.119
So he says, you just remember them, yeah, but tell
2294
02:14:46.159 --> 02:14:51.119
me the techniques. Yes, And I thought it was a joke.
2295
02:14:51.319 --> 02:14:55.840
I wrote nothing that day, nothing, and I was so
2296
02:14:55.880 --> 02:15:00.279
scared of it. And I I tried to remember people
2297
02:15:00.319 --> 02:15:03.079
and I couldn't and it was so daunting. And I
2298
02:15:03.159 --> 02:15:06.239
realized that in order to remember a lot of people's names,
2299
02:15:06.760 --> 02:15:11.680
the first thing you need to conquer is fear. It's fear.
2300
02:15:12.479 --> 02:15:15.079
I was afraid that I won't be able to do it.
2301
02:15:16.439 --> 02:15:20.279
And one night I did a small venue with like
2302
02:15:20.359 --> 02:15:23.239
thirty people showed up. I said, okay, that's manageable. I
2303
02:15:23.279 --> 02:15:28.680
can memorize thirty people. So I did it. And you
2304
02:15:28.720 --> 02:15:31.279
don't know that you know their names until you do it,
2305
02:15:31.800 --> 02:15:33.520
because all I do is I say shake their hands. Oh,
2306
02:15:33.600 --> 02:15:35.159
thank you so much for you take your seat. I
2307
02:15:35.199 --> 02:15:38.960
was the usher. Sit down, thank you. Now the show starts,
2308
02:15:39.159 --> 02:15:42.399
and this is a test for me. Do I remember
2309
02:15:42.399 --> 02:15:46.720
their names? I don't know, and I go Susan blah
2310
02:15:46.720 --> 02:15:48.520
blah blah blah blah blah. And I was able to
2311
02:15:48.560 --> 02:15:49.199
do all their names.
2312
02:15:49.319 --> 02:15:51.079
Do you still remember any of their names?
2313
02:15:51.680 --> 02:15:52.760
I'll tell you a story about that.
2314
02:15:52.920 --> 02:15:54.560
Remind me well, I'll come back to that.
2315
02:15:56.840 --> 02:16:01.880
So it felt like I had super powers. It was
2316
02:16:01.880 --> 02:16:03.640
as amazing to me, I think, as it was maybe
2317
02:16:03.920 --> 02:16:07.800
to them. And then then I started doing it in
2318
02:16:07.840 --> 02:16:11.840
that venue with about sixty people. So I remember, I
2319
02:16:13.239 --> 02:16:15.000
have everybody sat down. And there's a point in the
2320
02:16:15.039 --> 02:16:18.239
show where I take two coins, large coins, and I
2321
02:16:18.279 --> 02:16:21.720
glue them with tape on my head. So I'm blindfolded
2322
02:16:21.800 --> 02:16:24.800
and I sold two excuse at the same time blindfolded
2323
02:16:26.039 --> 02:16:31.199
and I forgot, don't about memembery. I forgot to have somebody,
2324
02:16:31.359 --> 02:16:35.360
uh you know that, just have a stopwatch to time
2325
02:16:35.440 --> 02:16:37.159
me how long it takes me to do it. I
2326
02:16:37.319 --> 02:16:40.159
just forgot, and I go, guys, I'm so sorry. I forgot.
2327
02:16:41.079 --> 02:16:44.559
Does anybody here has a watch or an app that
2328
02:16:44.680 --> 02:16:48.159
he can measure take time. And one guy goes, yeah,
2329
02:16:48.159 --> 02:16:52.879
I can do it, and I recognize his voice, and
2330
02:16:53.399 --> 02:16:56.639
I did not know I could do it. I go Robert,
2331
02:16:58.280 --> 02:17:01.159
and he goes yes. So I did not just remember
2332
02:17:01.200 --> 02:17:03.440
how they look. I remember how they sound.
2333
02:17:03.639 --> 02:17:06.040
And you didn't know that you remembered how they sound.
2334
02:17:06.200 --> 02:17:07.159
It was just part of you.
2335
02:17:07.280 --> 02:17:11.040
There was a surprise to me and then to make
2336
02:17:11.200 --> 02:17:14.680
And it's crazy, you said, You're sitting next to Susan,
2337
02:17:14.799 --> 02:17:18.559
right and Stephanie and I describe how they look like
2338
02:17:19.760 --> 02:17:23.200
almost to a tea And it amazes me how much
2339
02:17:23.319 --> 02:17:27.879
we do remember. And that's crazy because the voice, like
2340
02:17:29.280 --> 02:17:33.360
your voice, my voice, people's wice are very distinct. We
2341
02:17:33.719 --> 02:17:36.399
and I now I know it that I can hear
2342
02:17:36.479 --> 02:17:41.559
somebody peripheral, you know, and I know. So that's that's
2343
02:17:41.600 --> 02:17:44.000
about memory. How do we get how do we get
2344
02:17:44.000 --> 02:17:50.879
to the memories? So to your question, you asked me
2345
02:17:51.200 --> 02:17:55.079
if if you use the mnemonics or stuff, the truth
2346
02:17:55.239 --> 02:18:01.000
is we need to care if you care about someone's name.
2347
02:18:01.680 --> 02:18:04.520
Like I just assume you see somebody in a coffee
2348
02:18:04.559 --> 02:18:08.639
shop and the one thing you really wanted is to
2349
02:18:08.680 --> 02:18:11.040
talk to this person because you're attracted to them. I
2350
02:18:11.079 --> 02:18:13.159
don't know, and he said, Hi, nices to meet you.
2351
02:18:13.200 --> 02:18:16.680
I'm asking what's your name? The moment they say their name,
2352
02:18:16.920 --> 02:18:20.719
you will never forget it because you care, you want.
2353
02:18:21.520 --> 02:18:22.840
A lot of times we say hey, what's your name,
2354
02:18:22.879 --> 02:18:25.000
We don't mean it, we don't care about the answer,
2355
02:18:26.159 --> 02:18:28.479
and that's a big part of why we don't remember it.
2356
02:18:28.920 --> 02:18:30.799
But if I say you need to meet this guy,
2357
02:18:30.879 --> 02:18:35.639
this guy, you should know him, you will make an effort.
2358
02:18:36.520 --> 02:18:38.639
So the one thing I did the most was repeat
2359
02:18:38.680 --> 02:18:40.959
their name. What's your name? Andrew O, Andrew, Nice to
2360
02:18:41.040 --> 02:18:44.200
meet you. I repeated a few times as I talked
2361
02:18:44.239 --> 02:18:46.399
to them, or we have a little conversation. And I
2362
02:18:46.399 --> 02:18:49.159
also realized that the more you interact with them, the
2363
02:18:49.239 --> 02:18:51.799
more you remember it. So in the show, I always
2364
02:18:52.079 --> 02:18:54.760
I faked it. I struggled on the last two people.
2365
02:18:54.799 --> 02:18:56.840
I said, I don't know your names, remain standing, I'll
2366
02:18:56.879 --> 02:19:00.760
get back to you. And it was Genevieve. I remember
2367
02:19:00.799 --> 02:19:04.000
another story. Genevieve say, you know, I don't know her
2368
02:19:04.079 --> 02:19:05.719
name yet. So I said, I don't remember your name,
2369
02:19:05.799 --> 02:19:08.440
but you told me you just came from Africa. You
2370
02:19:08.479 --> 02:19:11.600
were on vacation for two weeks. And I started recalling
2371
02:19:11.680 --> 02:19:15.399
so much information about her, and Genevieve will never forget
2372
02:19:15.440 --> 02:19:18.600
your name, and she sits down. It's amazing. But the
2373
02:19:18.719 --> 02:19:21.319
more they tell you about themselves, the more you retain
2374
02:19:21.680 --> 02:19:23.879
and the more you remember, because as you said, it's
2375
02:19:23.879 --> 02:19:27.799
a story, and now Genevieve is just it's not just
2376
02:19:28.079 --> 02:19:31.040
a random person with the name Genevieve. It's somebody who's
2377
02:19:31.120 --> 02:19:33.879
been to that place and this place, and she's you know,
2378
02:19:34.239 --> 02:19:38.719
you can connect it to a story or to something
2379
02:19:38.760 --> 02:19:42.079
you can visualize right every now and then, you know,
2380
02:19:42.319 --> 02:19:45.559
stoves stave and you know I would make those mnemonics
2381
02:19:46.840 --> 02:19:50.360
or try to find a feature, almost like a caricaturist does,
2382
02:19:50.440 --> 02:19:53.600
you know, exaggerate a feature and attach it to the
2383
02:19:53.719 --> 02:19:57.680
name somehow, like Anthony maybe has lots of ants all
2384
02:19:57.719 --> 02:20:01.200
over him, you know, stuff like that. But the truth
2385
02:20:01.319 --> 02:20:03.440
is I only did it with those I struggled. It
2386
02:20:03.559 --> 02:20:06.159
was a backup plan. But most of the people I
2387
02:20:06.239 --> 02:20:08.600
hear the name, I cared, I wanted, and I had
2388
02:20:08.680 --> 02:20:10.799
confidence that I could do it, and I did it.
2389
02:20:12.559 --> 02:20:16.079
The brain definitely remembers information that has an emotional salience
2390
02:20:16.159 --> 02:20:19.879
to it, So caring about something, some set of information,
2391
02:20:20.040 --> 02:20:25.760
name or otherwise definitely will helping code to memory. The
2392
02:20:25.920 --> 02:20:28.959
other is to put things into motifs of song. It
2393
02:20:29.120 --> 02:20:32.000
is no coincidence that children learn songs to learn the
2394
02:20:32.040 --> 02:20:36.959
alphabet ABC. The inflections, the motifs within that song of
2395
02:20:37.040 --> 02:20:40.319
the alphabet is what allows us to remember that our
2396
02:20:40.520 --> 02:20:43.840
entire lives as opposed to a B, C, D e FG.
2397
02:20:44.200 --> 02:20:46.479
Think about the number pi out passed three point one
2398
02:20:46.520 --> 02:20:50.559
four out to some number of you know, you know,
2399
02:20:50.639 --> 02:20:52.680
some people can remember that out very far if you
2400
02:20:52.799 --> 02:20:57.559
set it to a song with some repeating motifs like
2401
02:20:58.040 --> 02:21:01.719
the alphabet song or happy birthday song. That's how people
2402
02:21:01.799 --> 02:21:05.159
remember very very far. Because the brain creates these modules.
2403
02:21:05.239 --> 02:21:07.840
It doesn't take bits of information and just throw it
2404
02:21:07.879 --> 02:21:11.760
in there. It creates libraries of information where just as
2405
02:21:11.799 --> 02:21:14.680
in the library, certain books are grouped with other books
2406
02:21:14.760 --> 02:21:19.360
and more disparate topics are positioned further away in the
2407
02:21:19.440 --> 02:21:23.840
library from one another. For those of you that are
2408
02:21:24.000 --> 02:21:26.159
younger than me, you can look up what a library is.
2409
02:21:26.399 --> 02:21:29.600
Just kidding, but this is how the brain works, right,
2410
02:21:29.680 --> 02:21:32.079
and so it's amazing that you did that, And it
2411
02:21:32.239 --> 02:21:37.319
also just really highlights that when we do this, we
2412
02:21:37.440 --> 02:21:40.719
are remembering far more than we think we remember some
2413
02:21:40.760 --> 02:21:43.600
people are more visual, some people more auditory, but it's
2414
02:21:43.639 --> 02:21:45.879
all coming in there provided that people have access to
2415
02:21:45.959 --> 02:21:51.559
those senses. It's just spectacular. I have to return to
2416
02:21:51.680 --> 02:21:53.760
something because I took us away from it, which was
2417
02:21:54.000 --> 02:21:56.559
you said, Is there something about walking that allows for
2418
02:21:56.680 --> 02:22:00.479
creative thought? I'm of the mind now based on my
2419
02:22:00.559 --> 02:22:05.079
observation of extremely creative individuals and talking to them, as
2420
02:22:05.159 --> 02:22:08.159
well as some understanding of the neuroscience of creativity, which
2421
02:22:08.600 --> 02:22:10.879
by the way, there isn't a lot, but it's sort
2422
02:22:10.879 --> 02:22:13.959
of happening more and more that there are sort of
2423
02:22:14.040 --> 02:22:19.440
two polarized states. One is being very very still with
2424
02:22:19.520 --> 02:22:21.600
the mind active. This is true of rapid eye movement
2425
02:22:21.639 --> 02:22:23.959
sleep we're paralyzed. The mind is very very active. It's
2426
02:22:23.959 --> 02:22:27.639
a state in which memories are encoded, especially emotional memories.
2427
02:22:28.360 --> 02:22:30.440
Many people his name seems to keep coming up, but
2428
02:22:30.520 --> 02:22:34.799
Rick Rubin, Karl Deiser, Einstein, and others reported having practices
2429
02:22:34.799 --> 02:22:37.239
where they would deliberately sit or lie down and to
2430
02:22:37.319 --> 02:22:40.639
be very still and deliberately make their mind very active,
2431
02:22:40.760 --> 02:22:43.639
even thinking in complete sentences as a way to come
2432
02:22:43.760 --> 02:22:46.879
up with ideas a deliberate practice. The other is to
2433
02:22:46.959 --> 02:22:49.719
be in movement, but to not really try and force
2434
02:22:49.799 --> 02:22:52.959
your thinking down a particular trajectory. Some people seem to
2435
02:22:53.000 --> 02:22:54.719
favor one or the other. I come up with a
2436
02:22:54.760 --> 02:22:57.520
lot of my ideas while jogging or running or walking
2437
02:22:57.959 --> 02:23:00.760
as you do. So there's something about either stilling the
2438
02:23:00.840 --> 02:23:03.520
body or making the body just active enough that the
2439
02:23:03.639 --> 02:23:07.680
mind is allowed to take off down novel trajectories. And
2440
02:23:07.799 --> 02:23:10.280
that's very difficult, I think for a lot of people
2441
02:23:10.280 --> 02:23:12.479
to sit down with pen and paper and write things out.
2442
02:23:12.639 --> 02:23:15.920
So anyway, your practice of walking in the morning is
2443
02:23:16.000 --> 02:23:19.879
one that perhaps people should want to explore. I think
2444
02:23:19.920 --> 02:23:25.239
that when people hear about having a super memory for
2445
02:23:25.440 --> 02:23:29.559
names or being able to read people, so much of
2446
02:23:29.639 --> 02:23:31.520
what you describe as are like being able to repeep
2447
02:23:31.520 --> 02:23:34.680
based on their physicality. All these questions come to mind,
2448
02:23:34.680 --> 02:23:36.959
and so I can't help myself. Do you believe in
2449
02:23:37.959 --> 02:23:41.239
these kind of notions, like if people are sitting arms crossed,
2450
02:23:41.319 --> 02:23:43.600
that they're more closed and difficult to get to, whereas
2451
02:23:43.680 --> 02:23:46.479
people who are more forward leaning in their posture they're
2452
02:23:46.520 --> 02:23:49.200
more willing to engage. I mean, does that stuff really hold?
2453
02:23:49.399 --> 02:23:54.079
In your laboratory of experiments of magic and mentalism?
2454
02:23:54.520 --> 02:23:57.319
The body language is something that I read much about
2455
02:23:57.559 --> 02:24:00.959
I believe is I'm not an expert when it comes
2456
02:24:00.959 --> 02:24:05.200
to body language, but I do think that I don't
2457
02:24:05.239 --> 02:24:09.120
even control it. It's just somebody can signal a closeness
2458
02:24:09.200 --> 02:24:10.600
to them or an openness to them.
2459
02:24:10.879 --> 02:24:11.000
Right.
2460
02:24:11.639 --> 02:24:13.959
But I also found it to be very misleading a
2461
02:24:14.040 --> 02:24:17.879
lot of times, like people do certain things because they're
2462
02:24:17.920 --> 02:24:21.319
cold or this, or they're shy, and being shy could
2463
02:24:21.360 --> 02:24:27.360
be misunderstood as or or perceived as snobbish and vice versa. Right,
2464
02:24:28.000 --> 02:24:31.840
So there's that could be really misleading. What I rely
2465
02:24:32.040 --> 02:24:36.879
on is a interaction when I interact with people or
2466
02:24:37.000 --> 02:24:41.360
I and I'm saying it in the slightest possible way,
2467
02:24:41.479 --> 02:24:45.319
when I challenge them with something very simple and I
2468
02:24:45.360 --> 02:24:48.040
see how they deal with it, that reveals a lot
2469
02:24:48.200 --> 02:24:51.479
about them immediately, because look, we need to make decisions
2470
02:24:51.559 --> 02:24:54.680
on the spot. Even if I just can you please
2471
02:24:54.760 --> 02:24:58.239
open your hand and I give them something, how eager
2472
02:24:58.360 --> 02:25:00.479
they are to do it, how they do it? Can
2473
02:25:00.559 --> 02:25:06.799
they follow directions? I want also people that will you know,
2474
02:25:06.879 --> 02:25:09.079
that are able to do the things I wanted to
2475
02:25:09.159 --> 02:25:12.280
do for a specific routine. And by the way, certain
2476
02:25:12.840 --> 02:25:15.920
some routines I would use this type of person, this
2477
02:25:16.079 --> 02:25:20.399
one needs a teenager this one. I want to somebody
2478
02:25:20.440 --> 02:25:24.319
a look older. Every every routine, I kind of assign
2479
02:25:24.399 --> 02:25:27.719
a different character, and it's again it's trial and error.
2480
02:25:28.360 --> 02:25:30.559
I tried with a certain person for a long time
2481
02:25:31.239 --> 02:25:34.399
and I said, now I get it. It's my relationship.
2482
02:25:34.440 --> 02:25:37.000
And by the way, as I'm aging, that also changes.
2483
02:25:37.559 --> 02:25:39.280
Like but there's a piece where I used to do it,
2484
02:25:39.280 --> 02:25:43.159
and I always preferred an older woman and you consider's
2485
02:25:43.200 --> 02:25:48.200
some a motherly quality to it, because that's kind of
2486
02:25:48.360 --> 02:25:51.680
the role she was in. But now as I'm aging,
2487
02:25:51.760 --> 02:25:55.159
it's it's not it's not gonna work as well. I
2488
02:25:55.280 --> 02:26:00.399
think there's you're creating relationships like for example, I'm a guy,
2489
02:26:00.520 --> 02:26:04.200
and if I work with another guy, that's some sort
2490
02:26:04.239 --> 02:26:07.520
of an energy. If it's a female, it's different if
2491
02:26:07.559 --> 02:26:12.840
it's a young old My relationship with these people changes
2492
02:26:13.239 --> 02:26:15.440
and how they feel. Do they feel comfortable with me?
2493
02:26:15.719 --> 02:26:18.639
There's a certain things I can do with a certain individual,
2494
02:26:18.840 --> 02:26:22.319
but not within another. So that's something I constantly think about.
2495
02:26:23.079 --> 02:26:26.760
I choose my spectators very very carefully.
2496
02:26:28.159 --> 02:26:30.959
You mentioned that you take in things from your environment
2497
02:26:31.120 --> 02:26:35.520
and from many diverse sources, art and interactions with people,
2498
02:26:35.559 --> 02:26:40.799
et cetera. You seem like a very positive person. I
2499
02:26:40.959 --> 02:26:44.120
generally upbeat and enjoy your work. I get that impression
2500
02:26:45.959 --> 02:26:50.319
very much so. But I'm assuming that you also experience anger, frustration,
2501
02:26:51.920 --> 02:26:57.200
et cetera. Do you separate that from your creative work?
2502
02:26:58.520 --> 02:27:00.719
Do you try and buffer yourself against that? And the
2503
02:27:00.760 --> 02:27:03.040
reason I ask is that many of the creatives that
2504
02:27:03.200 --> 02:27:09.239
I know are artists, of which you are. They they're
2505
02:27:09.360 --> 02:27:12.239
very feeling people. It's it's required for the craft. You
2506
02:27:12.319 --> 02:27:15.559
need to be a permeable to some extent. But of
2507
02:27:15.639 --> 02:27:17.440
course you want to be semi permeable. You don't want
2508
02:27:17.840 --> 02:27:20.639
every emotion or thing that you counter to yank you
2509
02:27:20.719 --> 02:27:25.000
all over the place. But magic is this thing of delight,
2510
02:27:25.159 --> 02:27:28.559
and it's this thing of love, and that all sounds wonderful.
2511
02:27:28.600 --> 02:27:31.079
But how do you deal with things that you know
2512
02:27:31.159 --> 02:27:33.239
that upset you and frustrate you? Do you do you
2513
02:27:33.440 --> 02:27:36.520
actively try and push those out from the creative process?
2514
02:27:36.600 --> 02:27:39.319
Or do you kind of incorporate them into the creative process?
2515
02:27:40.079 --> 02:27:41.520
We want the truth? Or what do you need?
2516
02:27:41.680 --> 02:27:42.600
I only want the truth?
2517
02:27:42.680 --> 02:27:48.040
The truth. The truth is I'm I'm. I consider myself
2518
02:27:48.040 --> 02:27:52.520
a perfectionist, and I demand so much of myself and
2519
02:27:52.600 --> 02:27:55.520
also the people working with me. I could dwell on
2520
02:27:55.680 --> 02:28:00.159
the smallest detail. I look at the poster and I
2521
02:28:00.200 --> 02:28:02.840
say the font is wrong. That would bother me. The
2522
02:28:02.920 --> 02:28:07.760
space in the curning between the letters I. It's hard
2523
02:28:07.879 --> 02:28:13.280
for me to let go of the smallest, smallest, smallest details.
2524
02:28:13.440 --> 02:28:17.040
I drive myself nuts, and I have no doubt that
2525
02:28:17.280 --> 02:28:23.200
I sometimes, hopefully sometimes drive my crew nuts. I you know,
2526
02:28:24.239 --> 02:28:28.520
Grant Ackets a chef from Millennia, a dear friend and
2527
02:28:28.639 --> 02:28:31.360
one of the greatest minds, one of the smallest people
2528
02:28:31.360 --> 02:28:37.120
I've ever met. He's a chef. He makes food, but
2529
02:28:37.280 --> 02:28:40.639
you know, he cares about the plate that the food
2530
02:28:40.719 --> 02:28:43.360
is going to live in. So he has a guy
2531
02:28:43.559 --> 02:28:47.479
designed the plate for the food that's going to be
2532
02:28:47.559 --> 02:28:51.120
on top of it. What's the smell in the restaurant,
2533
02:28:51.159 --> 02:28:53.760
what's the temperature, what's the carpet like, what's the color?
2534
02:28:54.079 --> 02:28:59.040
Everything counts. There's nothing like, for example, I know fine
2535
02:28:59.440 --> 02:29:02.479
restaurants this a lot, but it's a nice detail in
2536
02:29:02.600 --> 02:29:06.799
his restaurant. When you go to Alenea, they know we do.
2537
02:29:06.879 --> 02:29:09.280
It's going to be easy because you're very recognizable, but
2538
02:29:09.920 --> 02:29:13.200
they needn't know your name no matter where it is.
2539
02:29:13.559 --> 02:29:17.639
The entire crew. Every person in the restaurant knows what
2540
02:29:17.799 --> 02:29:19.879
you look like and what's your name, and they will
2541
02:29:19.879 --> 02:29:24.600
address you by your name. That's amazing to me. Allegedly
2542
02:29:24.639 --> 02:29:28.360
it's got nothing to do with food, and yet it
2543
02:29:28.479 --> 02:29:33.360
does because everything counts, and that's the life I live.
2544
02:29:33.559 --> 02:29:37.159
Everything counts, Every detail is important, nothing is too small.
2545
02:29:37.319 --> 02:29:39.040
I drive everybody. That's the truth.
2546
02:29:39.760 --> 02:29:43.520
And yeah, I know it's really important for people to
2547
02:29:43.559 --> 02:29:46.479
hear because I know for myself when I see things
2548
02:29:46.520 --> 02:29:51.479
that irritate me because of the way they're composed or
2549
02:29:51.520 --> 02:29:55.680
something I've had to learn over the years to I
2550
02:29:55.680 --> 02:29:58.159
always say, I don't run other people's businesses. You know,
2551
02:29:58.200 --> 02:30:01.040
I'm focused on my stuff. I don't get involved in
2552
02:30:01.120 --> 02:30:03.360
other people's art. But when I see things that I
2553
02:30:03.479 --> 02:30:07.399
love and that look right, yeah, so satisfying. But to
2554
02:30:07.520 --> 02:30:11.520
be in the world as you are or as I am,
2555
02:30:11.639 --> 02:30:15.600
perhaps it can be frustrating. So we need selective filters, right.
2556
02:30:16.000 --> 02:30:18.479
So I guess provided that it's it's aimed at our
2557
02:30:18.920 --> 02:30:22.600
craft and that people at their craft and what they're creating,
2558
02:30:23.479 --> 02:30:27.120
then it's great. But it's tricky if one is trying
2559
02:30:27.159 --> 02:30:29.879
to engage with the world at large to not let
2560
02:30:29.959 --> 02:30:32.120
this stuff kind of bombard the senses. It can be,
2561
02:30:32.719 --> 02:30:34.920
you know, like for somebody that loves great food, it
2562
02:30:35.000 --> 02:30:36.959
must be frustrating to walk down the street in Manhattan.
2563
02:30:37.040 --> 02:30:42.840
The smells are range from delightful to horrible. So we're
2564
02:30:42.879 --> 02:30:45.879
a peculiar species us humans. But it's the species that
2565
02:30:46.000 --> 02:30:49.079
have these unique tunings and these preferences, and they lean
2566
02:30:49.159 --> 02:30:52.760
into those preferences and how they create that produce the
2567
02:30:53.959 --> 02:30:58.680
marvelous work that is your magic, and Van goes that's
2568
02:30:58.959 --> 02:31:02.239
they put me in a good we need we need you, Yeah,
2569
02:31:02.280 --> 02:31:04.440
we need we need uh. Well, you are and and
2570
02:31:04.799 --> 02:31:07.719
and we need people like you. So for you, if
2571
02:31:07.760 --> 02:31:12.040
you're drawing from many things and there's anger about something
2572
02:31:12.079 --> 02:31:15.079
you see in the world, frustration, are you able to
2573
02:31:15.159 --> 02:31:18.200
transmute that into your craft or is it a process
2574
02:31:18.280 --> 02:31:21.200
of Okay, I gotta dump that, move that out so
2575
02:31:21.280 --> 02:31:25.559
that I can focus on beauty, focus on positive inspiration
2576
02:31:26.399 --> 02:31:28.319
or can anger and frustration play a role?
2577
02:31:28.479 --> 02:31:31.639
I think there is beauty even in the ugly. I mean,
2578
02:31:31.760 --> 02:31:34.559
I look, you're right, I live. I live in New York.
2579
02:31:35.719 --> 02:31:39.360
It's my favorite city in the world, and it's it's
2580
02:31:39.399 --> 02:31:42.200
a love hate relationship. It's ugly and beautiful at the
2581
02:31:42.239 --> 02:31:46.239
same time. It's rich and poor. It's it's sophisticated and simple.
2582
02:31:46.399 --> 02:31:54.399
It's it's it's a city of opposites. You know, these
2583
02:31:54.399 --> 02:31:56.520
are things I always think about. Like you go and
2584
02:31:56.600 --> 02:32:01.239
to see like this area is really run down and
2585
02:32:01.360 --> 02:32:04.760
the signs are kind of like fading in this and
2586
02:32:05.360 --> 02:32:07.360
you can think, Wow, people are not taking care of it.
2587
02:32:08.360 --> 02:32:11.760
They're not cleaning this. It's ugly. But you know what,
2588
02:32:12.639 --> 02:32:14.680
when I have my camera on me, that's what I
2589
02:32:14.760 --> 02:32:18.479
want to take a photo of. It has character and
2590
02:32:18.559 --> 02:32:23.639
it tells an amazing story. So to me, the ugly,
2591
02:32:24.239 --> 02:32:29.159
the old, the ring called, the the not so beautiful
2592
02:32:29.719 --> 02:32:36.000
is very interesting and beautiful. So and again it's not
2593
02:32:36.120 --> 02:32:38.239
that I think about it and then I make the choice.
2594
02:32:38.280 --> 02:32:41.680
I first respond and then maybe I'll think about it.
2595
02:32:43.440 --> 02:32:46.360
I usually have a camera on me old times, and
2596
02:32:46.479 --> 02:32:50.200
I the rule is very simple. I don't take a
2597
02:32:50.239 --> 02:32:55.479
photo until something tickles me. So take a photo here,
2598
02:32:55.799 --> 02:32:58.879
and I take a photo. Some are good, some are bad.
2599
02:32:58.920 --> 02:33:01.840
I don't care. But some thing in that moment made
2600
02:33:01.920 --> 02:33:05.719
me want to do this and take a photo. And
2601
02:33:05.840 --> 02:33:12.479
a lot of times it's not the obvious, pretty clean stuff.
2602
02:33:12.559 --> 02:33:17.680
It's sometimes the the ugly, the violent. You know, some
2603
02:33:17.879 --> 02:33:22.239
of the most beautiful photos ever taken are taken at
2604
02:33:22.360 --> 02:33:32.079
war by Brasone. Right, it's us, it's us, and we're
2605
02:33:32.159 --> 02:33:36.719
interesting even when we're ugly, and when we're angry, we're
2606
02:33:36.760 --> 02:33:40.200
still interesting. So to me, that's yeah, I don't know
2607
02:33:40.239 --> 02:33:41.120
if I make a distinction.
2608
02:33:42.760 --> 02:33:48.920
That's very helpful. By the way, were you always sensory
2609
02:33:49.319 --> 02:33:51.840
and emotionally tuned to the world around you since you
2610
02:33:51.920 --> 02:33:53.959
were little? Do you feel like you could feel feel
2611
02:33:54.000 --> 02:33:56.079
your way through the world? This? I like this. I
2612
02:33:56.280 --> 02:34:01.760
don't like like kind of sensing things. If it seems
2613
02:34:01.760 --> 02:34:04.399
to me that you are able to detect things people
2614
02:34:04.600 --> 02:34:09.760
experiences with a lot of texture, you know, like that, it's.
2615
02:34:09.559 --> 02:34:11.319
Hard for me to think outside of myself. That's the
2616
02:34:11.360 --> 02:34:11.840
way I think.
2617
02:34:11.879 --> 02:34:14.440
I don't know. I'm not a therapist, but I'm just
2618
02:34:14.520 --> 02:34:20.280
reflecting on creatives that I know. And you seem to
2619
02:34:20.360 --> 02:34:23.600
fall into this category of like things affect you or
2620
02:34:23.639 --> 02:34:26.040
have the potential to affect you, and so your nervous
2621
02:34:26.040 --> 02:34:29.719
system is tuned to observe and to absorb. Fortunately, you
2622
02:34:29.799 --> 02:34:32.319
have a selective filter there that it can't be bombarded
2623
02:34:32.399 --> 02:34:35.680
by by life or stuck there. But do you recall
2624
02:34:35.799 --> 02:34:38.719
being a kid and like like you have like visual
2625
02:34:38.799 --> 02:34:41.000
and emotional memories of things that are strong.
2626
02:34:41.319 --> 02:34:46.159
I think I'm very sensitive. I think I get it's
2627
02:34:46.239 --> 02:34:53.159
I'm ticklish, you know. It's I think with my heart
2628
02:34:53.280 --> 02:34:55.440
as much as I think with my brain. I really think,
2629
02:34:55.520 --> 02:34:59.479
so I am. You know, I want to think I
2630
02:34:59.559 --> 02:35:06.520
have thick skin. I don't. I get hurt easily. I
2631
02:35:06.600 --> 02:35:12.520
have empathy. It happens to me often that I remember
2632
02:35:12.799 --> 02:35:16.239
walking in New York. I cry easily, and I was
2633
02:35:16.600 --> 02:35:20.159
and I saw just a person crying, but I could
2634
02:35:20.200 --> 02:35:22.639
feel their pain. I don't know this person. I start crying,
2635
02:35:23.719 --> 02:35:34.280
and I think, you know, I I A big part
2636
02:35:34.319 --> 02:35:38.399
of why I love being a magician is because I'm
2637
02:35:38.440 --> 02:35:42.680
a part of a family that I will not replaced
2638
02:35:42.760 --> 02:35:46.799
with any other family Like my best friends John Graham,
2639
02:35:47.120 --> 02:35:52.079
shimshe Blaine, Dog McKenzie. These are very important people in
2640
02:35:52.159 --> 02:35:57.079
my life. And and uh, I'm moved by the fact
2641
02:35:57.120 --> 02:35:59.520
that you know, I wanted I wanted to do a
2642
02:35:59.559 --> 02:36:02.600
couple of I wanted to do magic, but I got
2643
02:36:02.639 --> 02:36:08.600
something really way way. It's a family. I've joined a family. Jue,
2644
02:36:08.680 --> 02:36:12.000
who I talked and quote a million times I feel like,
2645
02:36:12.079 --> 02:36:17.920
you know, what a privilege. You know, this master gave
2646
02:36:18.000 --> 02:36:21.360
me so many gifts, taught me so many things for
2647
02:36:21.639 --> 02:36:25.200
no other reason then wanting to share something with me.
2648
02:36:27.399 --> 02:36:31.799
I'm in awe of that, and it reminds me that
2649
02:36:32.000 --> 02:36:34.760
I now need to do it with other people. So
2650
02:36:34.879 --> 02:36:38.200
when we did in a circle, we we grew a family.
2651
02:36:38.360 --> 02:36:46.239
Or there's a bunch of kids, you know, Jacob Denny Luke, Yes,
2652
02:36:46.840 --> 02:36:51.440
Charlie truth Ari, there's a bunch of you know, and
2653
02:36:51.600 --> 02:36:55.719
we became a family. I remember that I got an
2654
02:36:55.760 --> 02:36:59.959
award from the Magic Castle, which is a flattering thing.
2655
02:37:00.239 --> 02:37:03.719
And you spoke about awards. I'm I appreciate awards, but
2656
02:37:03.879 --> 02:37:06.840
I have I think awards could be very deceiving. So
2657
02:37:06.920 --> 02:37:08.959
I immediately when I got when I got my award,
2658
02:37:09.000 --> 02:37:10.959
I got the Magician of the Year, which is very flattering.
2659
02:37:11.879 --> 02:37:14.639
I looked at for exactly ten minutes. I close it
2660
02:37:14.760 --> 02:37:16.879
and I gave it to somebody. I did not want
2661
02:37:16.920 --> 02:37:19.559
to own it. But here's really the story that I'm
2662
02:37:19.559 --> 02:37:23.000
trying to tell you here is that so I had
2663
02:37:23.040 --> 02:37:25.520
to fly from New York to Los Angeles to receive
2664
02:37:25.600 --> 02:37:28.639
the award, and one of the kids said, can I
2665
02:37:28.799 --> 02:37:31.000
join you. It's sure, but you have to buy your
2666
02:37:31.000 --> 02:37:35.559
own ticket and you know, Airbnb whatever. And then another
2667
02:37:35.639 --> 02:37:39.159
one and all of them came with me, all of
2668
02:37:39.239 --> 02:37:42.840
them to see me get an award, and I remember it.
2669
02:37:44.719 --> 02:37:49.639
The award became secondary to the fact that they came
2670
02:37:50.479 --> 02:37:53.239
to see me get an award. So we went to
2671
02:37:53.399 --> 02:37:56.000
get coffee, and I took him to the Magic Castle
2672
02:37:56.079 --> 02:37:58.079
for the first time. I made them perform. We went
2673
02:37:58.120 --> 02:38:01.000
downstairs to the basement. I said, you perform now, and
2674
02:38:01.600 --> 02:38:04.079
you could. It was a highlight for them and I
2675
02:38:05.879 --> 02:38:06.719
that was my award.
2676
02:38:08.600 --> 02:38:11.319
It's so interesting because once again it's it's the story
2677
02:38:11.399 --> 02:38:14.120
of the experience as opposed to the end product of
2678
02:38:14.159 --> 02:38:19.040
the experience. That is what captures us and what and
2679
02:38:19.159 --> 02:38:22.000
it's clearly how we embed memory and how we come
2680
02:38:22.079 --> 02:38:25.440
up with concepts of self and our life arc. It's
2681
02:38:25.479 --> 02:38:29.479
really beautiful, and in your case it's about magic and
2682
02:38:29.559 --> 02:38:35.079
mentalist work, but it clearly exports to all domains of life.
2683
02:38:35.159 --> 02:38:40.520
I'm certain people are are getting it. To put it
2684
02:38:40.840 --> 02:38:45.399
that way, speaking of the arc of life, tell us
2685
02:38:45.440 --> 02:38:49.840
what's coming next, what's that? What's the next? Uh act,
2686
02:38:50.159 --> 02:38:52.920
what's the next I don't want to call it a
2687
02:38:53.040 --> 02:38:57.280
trick because it diminishes from your craft, your art. What
2688
02:38:57.760 --> 02:39:00.840
what what excites you most these days about what's coming
2689
02:39:00.920 --> 02:39:02.280
next in your professional life.
2690
02:39:03.040 --> 02:39:08.040
So I'm now just about to to debut my next show,
2691
02:39:08.040 --> 02:39:13.920
which is incredibly Human. I'm super excited about this show because,
2692
02:39:14.680 --> 02:39:18.879
in a strange way, that show is this conversation we
2693
02:39:19.040 --> 02:39:22.239
just had. It's about the human mind. It's about what
2694
02:39:22.399 --> 02:39:26.239
we can do. It's about pushing limits. It's about kind
2695
02:39:26.280 --> 02:39:31.559
of proving to ourselves of how magnificent we are. So
2696
02:39:31.719 --> 02:39:34.319
that it's a it's a very you know, it's very
2697
02:39:34.360 --> 02:39:36.600
different than my first show, Inner Circle, because this one
2698
02:39:36.719 --> 02:39:40.280
is in theaters. It's in you know, a thousands some seats,
2699
02:39:40.360 --> 02:39:44.040
you know, theaters, and it's what I wanted this show
2700
02:39:44.280 --> 02:39:48.239
to be visual. I want to have a painterly quality
2701
02:39:48.319 --> 02:39:50.600
to it. So there's lots of things that are just
2702
02:39:50.680 --> 02:39:52.920
going to paint the stage with lots of things I
2703
02:39:52.959 --> 02:39:55.879
can I don't spoil anything, but it is a tribute
2704
02:39:55.920 --> 02:39:58.399
to the human mind. I'm excited about doing it. We
2705
02:39:58.520 --> 02:40:03.440
have so far announced six dates, and there's two big
2706
02:40:03.559 --> 02:40:05.520
things coming up that I cannot.
2707
02:40:05.200 --> 02:40:05.959
Talk about.
2708
02:40:07.360 --> 02:40:12.719
That are very exciting, but they're brewing slowly. But for
2709
02:40:12.879 --> 02:40:16.440
me right now, this show that I'm about to do
2710
02:40:16.559 --> 02:40:19.959
is the most exciting thing. Figuring out how to make
2711
02:40:20.000 --> 02:40:23.559
the best version of that show fantastic.
2712
02:40:24.760 --> 02:40:29.200
Well, ah see, I want to say, on behalf of
2713
02:40:29.280 --> 02:40:34.479
myself and everyone listening and watching, you are a truly
2714
02:40:34.680 --> 02:40:40.079
unique and spectacular individual, both for the work that you
2715
02:40:40.239 --> 02:40:44.000
do and the way you approach it, but also for
2716
02:40:44.120 --> 02:40:46.920
what you teach us about ourselves, about the human mind
2717
02:40:47.639 --> 02:40:53.760
and brain, about what makes us tick, indeed, what is
2718
02:40:53.879 --> 02:40:57.319
possible in us. It's just ringing over and over again
2719
02:40:57.360 --> 02:41:00.920
in my head that what you do is less about
2720
02:41:00.959 --> 02:41:03.239
showing what's possible in the world a card can do this,
2721
02:41:03.520 --> 02:41:07.440
or that it's about what's possible inside of us, both
2722
02:41:07.479 --> 02:41:10.399
alone and in groups, and as it relates to perception
2723
02:41:10.600 --> 02:41:15.239
and imagination. It's really truly spectacular. And I say that
2724
02:41:15.600 --> 02:41:19.600
having again seen you do your ex live and seen
2725
02:41:19.680 --> 02:41:24.120
some online, and I'll certainly come out to the upcoming
2726
02:41:24.159 --> 02:41:26.280
show and the mystery shows that I'm not allowed to
2727
02:41:26.360 --> 02:41:30.479
know about. I also would be remiss if I didn't
2728
02:41:30.479 --> 02:41:33.559
say that you know this empathy that you have and
2729
02:41:33.639 --> 02:41:36.719
the fact that you, as you described it, you think
2730
02:41:36.799 --> 02:41:41.000
with your heart. I don't know much about your life
2731
02:41:41.079 --> 02:41:45.200
aside from what you've told us here today. But I
2732
02:41:45.200 --> 02:41:48.399
imagine that can be a challenging experience at times to
2733
02:41:48.440 --> 02:41:51.360
live life that way, that sensitivity. But I just want
2734
02:41:51.399 --> 02:41:54.479
to say thank you. We are all gifted this magic,
2735
02:41:54.920 --> 02:41:57.440
true magic that you do because of the way that
2736
02:41:57.600 --> 02:42:00.680
you think, with your heart and your empathy, and your
2737
02:42:00.719 --> 02:42:03.479
openness and willingness to share. While you did not reveal
2738
02:42:03.559 --> 02:42:07.760
how every trick is done, you made it very clear
2739
02:42:07.959 --> 02:42:11.680
that to do so would be to erase some of
2740
02:42:11.760 --> 02:42:17.360
what's possible in us, and so I also place great
2741
02:42:17.440 --> 02:42:20.760
value on the fact that you've kept some of the mystery,
2742
02:42:21.280 --> 02:42:25.559
or let's say, much of the mystery of magic and
2743
02:42:25.680 --> 02:42:29.719
mentalist work secret to us so that we can have
2744
02:42:29.879 --> 02:42:32.680
it revealed to us in real time through your shows
2745
02:42:32.719 --> 02:42:37.600
and other venues for magic and mentalist work. So on,
2746
02:42:37.719 --> 02:42:39.799
behalf of myself and everyone listening. I just want to
2747
02:42:39.840 --> 02:42:42.200
extend an enormous dead of gratitude for what you do
2748
02:42:42.559 --> 02:42:46.079
and for being you. Thank you so much, it means
2749
02:42:46.079 --> 02:42:46.319
a lot.
2750
02:42:46.399 --> 02:42:46.639
Thanks.
2751
02:42:48.280 --> 02:42:51.120
Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Assi Wind.
2752
02:42:51.479 --> 02:42:53.520
Please check out the links in the show note captions
2753
02:42:53.840 --> 02:42:56.760
to Assi's social media handles and to his live tour
2754
02:42:56.920 --> 02:43:00.280
happening now, the Incredibly Human Tour. If you're learning, if from,
2755
02:43:00.280 --> 02:43:03.639
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2756
02:43:03.799 --> 02:43:06.719
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2757
02:43:06.959 --> 02:43:09.920
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2758
02:43:10.120 --> 02:43:12.200
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2759
02:43:12.280 --> 02:43:14.600
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2760
02:43:14.639 --> 02:43:17.920
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2761
02:43:17.959 --> 02:43:20.600
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2762
02:43:20.719 --> 02:43:23.360
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2763
02:43:23.399 --> 02:43:25.360
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02:43:25.440 --> 02:43:28.000
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2765
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2766
02:43:30.680 --> 02:43:33.319
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2772
02:43:50.360 --> 02:43:53.040
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2773
02:43:53.239 --> 02:43:55.840
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2785
02:44:30.639 --> 02:44:33.680
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2786
02:44:33.840 --> 02:44:36.719
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