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[Music]

what brings you to a place where all you

want to do is sit in the back of the

room and and poop all over somebody

else’s act while they’re working

especially if you know how hard it is to

do the difference can’t be give me 20

bucks and now you’re a magician the

difference has to be you’ve put forth

the time energy and effort to prove that

you want to to become sugar rather than

taste sugar it was an old sideshow stunt

I was a kid rooting around with a q-tip

and it just slid right into my nostrils

like oh that’s pretty cool

[Music]

what’s up guys Xavier katana here you

were listening to the human experience

and wow what an amazing episode with mr.

Brian brushwood who has made a career on

influencing human perception we cover

everything in this episode from illusion

to cold reading we especially go into

how people memory is and such an amazing

episode to have our 100th episode on and

with that there’s a few people I want to

thank the show would not be possible

without my producer Josh Josh thank you

so much for your consistent very hard

work Kimmy

she’s one of our writers she’s the

female version of Hunter S Thompson

Kimmy thank you so much for everything

you do for us Casey also one of our

writers amazing amazing literary genius

Casey thank you so much for all of your

work and finally Jasmine Jasmine thank

you so much for helping out with the

show there are other people that I could

probably mention here but those are the

four people on our team that make

everything that you hear possible for us

so a huge amount of gratitude to them

and again this episode was a lot of hard

work getting to a hundredth episode of

anything is pretty difficult so we did

it thank you guys so much for listening

and I hope you guys enjoy this one

the human experiences in session my

guest for today’s mr. Brian brushwood

Brian my good sir thank you for making

the time welcome to hxp oh man I’m so

glad we finally got to make this happen

this is gonna be a blast

yeah likewise you know I’ve I’ve

followed your career for a while now for

anyone who doesn’t know why don’t you

give us a little bit of an introduction

on how you got into what you’re doing

right now sure sure so May of 99 I quit

my day job because I had visions of

doing a punk rock blood guts magic show

and touring all over the United States

so after about 10 15 years of that

started hosting a show called scam

school all about how to win free drinks

at the bar by using magic and trickery

and out of that came the television

project hacking the system that I did

for National Geographic and now it’s 2.0

iteration called the modern rogue that

me and my buddy Jason Murphy do yeah I

love that show I love the little

techniques that you show on you know

credit card skimmers and all this

different stuff how to hit a bull’s-eye

in one shot how did this start for you

how did you begin this interest in kind

of acting the system and showing people

you know how to sort of alter their

lives

sure well for the Montrouge it was a

very simple idea like if basically if

Houdini James Bond and I don’t know

magnum p.i had a baby it would be the

modern rogue and it’s like the idea this

perfect man’s man what would he know

even know everything from how to talk

his way past the velvet rope hotwire a

car handle himself in a fight and so you

know here Jason and I a couple of doughy

four-year-olds begin this quest to try

to become this ultimate para ground of

badassness but I think all of it came

from a place as long as I can remember

I’ve always been interested in thinking

around problems with clever solutions I

think that’s what attracted me to magic

early on and certainly you know fueled

the ideas behind hacking the system and

now the modern rogue I absolutely love

that I love that so when you’re in this

sort of state where you’re talking to

someone what are you using to affect

their perception

you mean on a day-to-day basis or

onstage or when we’re done camera more

when you’re doing a trick when you’re

going up to people or when you’re when

you’re busking in front of a large crowd

I mean is there a sleight-of-hand

process that you use there’s something

that you keep in mind yeah as a matter

of fact I didn’t have words for it I

think in many ways magicians are sort of

folk psychologists you know for

thousands of years farmers they didn’t

know anything about genetics but they

did know that when you combine these two

plants you tended to get a better yield

when you rotated crops when the land was

treated a certain way you know they

didn’t know why it worked they just know

that it worked and I think in many ways

magicians have been essentially

psychologists or both neuroscientists

for years and it wasn’t until I read the

book incognito

that talks about you know we think of

ourselves as the person in charge of

everything but the more we learn about

brain science the more we realize that

the brain is basically like Congress you

got all these different parts of the

brain that are arguing for different

things and usually they have to come to

some kind of consensus to pull it off

and once I read that I realized that

intuitively when I’m doing magic even

now as as work having this conversation

there’s another part of my brain

sketching out making sure that we’re

gonna be able to button this up that

it’s gonna segue into something

interesting likewise when you’re doing

magic there’s a physical element to it

you have to be present focused on the

other person you have to be speaking and

essentially lying with your eyes in your

body presence and the things that you’re

saying while secretly what you really

care about is whether or not your ring

finger is properly positioned on the

coin so that you’re able to balm it in a

few seconds I love it I’m fascinated by

the human psychology of it the social

engineering of it was NLP a big factor

for you like your own linguistic

programming do you study that yeah I I

read I read a fair amount of it you know

piece of work you won in that the stuff

that’s most useful is also the most kind

of transparent stuff like mirroring

matching the body language the pace the

tenor the volume other people’s stuff I

got a little turned off when you get to

some of the stuff that sounds a little

bit like voodoo like ah if you look up

and to the left you’re

remembering from the past and anytime a

chart gets involved and you start

labeling stuff yeah that that felt to me

like a little bit too pseudoscience for

me but I do like the core idea of it the

idea of essentially using your mirror

neurons to to project into what somebody

else is thinking based on their body

language and so on

human perception is such a big component

in the way advertising works so what we

see every day is there an element of

your trade that kind of exploits that

absolutely and one of the biggest and

most pleasing surprises that have

learned in an entire 20-year career in

magic is just how malleable memory is

how what lousy video tape recorders our

brains are there’s a dated reference for

it the fact that the moment I do a trick

all I have to do is recap and say it

ever so slightly different from the way

I did it the moment they hear those

words they’re picturing it done that way

and sure enough it scrubs the the memory

you know when we remember things we

don’t remember the way they actually

happen we remember the last time we told

ourselves the story of it which is why

Elizabeth Loftus has done some of this

amazing memory work where not only does

she prove that we don’t remember things

very well but that it’s astonishingly

easy to plant false memories for example

she did one experiment where she divided

a class into group a and group b all of

them were shown the exact same footage

of two cars colliding but and they all

had for the most part the same set of

questions but one of them was asked how

fast do you think the cars were going

when they collided the other group was

asked how fast were the cars going when

they smashed into each other and just

that tiny difference in language he had

shifted the lens through which they

viewed it so as a result two or three

weeks later when they were asked

follow-up questions like was there blood

at the scene was there broken glass the

folks who hadn’t asked the question

smashed into were much more likely to

report those things that didn’t even

happen so as a magician you know we rely

on that the moment the trick is over or

even while the trick is happening and

we’re recapping what happened just five

minutes ago

they’ll be carefully selected language

that causes people to be like yeah no I

do remember that I remember that

remember that all while massaging away

real heat that we want to avoid on the

actual moment we did the trickery yeah

that’s so important so crucial to

everything that you’re doing um there

was a time in your life where you were

working for the computer industry you

were offered a raise but you chose to

give yourself a year to try to make it

in the magic industry what happened

during that year what sort of directed

your career into what you’re doing now

sure so when I went to college I did a

exclusive honors program where the first

two years you took the classes they told

you to but the last two you took

whatever was related to your thesis and

I thought it would be great to do

something magic related and somehow

talked my way into doing a magic show as

a creative writing thesis which meant

that the last two years of college I

took classes like history of witchcraft

pseudoscience and the paranormal

psychology he was a blast and the whole

time I thought like oh look at me I’m

getting away with having fun instead of

you know everyone else is writing papers

and whatnot but by the time I graduated

I had a good little 30 minute show and

so even as I had a day job I would live

for Wednesday nights when I would go

down to perform just off of 6th Street

and past the Hat and I started to pick

up a bit of corporate work on the side

and this was another company that was

kind of a peer of the group I was

working with during the day so I get up

there onstage I do a performance and

it’s going really well but I find out

afterwards that apparently there was

somebody sitting in the back of the room

who grew up in the circus or was

familiar with sideshow stunts and he

basically held court and just every time

I do a trick people would run to the

back and he’d say like oh that’s no big

deal you just do this and that’s a dumb

trick I know that I know this and it

occurred to me what brings you to a

place where all you want to do is sit in

the back of the room and poop all over

somebody else’s act while they’re

working especially if you know how hard

it is to do and then as a mental

exercise I projected myself 20 years in

the future and I was like okay imagine

you’re a middling vice president at this

tech company and it’s a big holiday

extravaganza they hire some magician and

all the attentions on him everybody’s

clapping for him

and if you’ve never went for it you

never knew whether or not you would be

able to pull it off and I could picture

myself being that bitter bastards

in the back of the room crapping on

someone else’s back so what happened was

once I got a raise I realized oh this is

the first step of a thousand mile

journey that very likely gets me to a

place where I spend my whole life

wondering what might have been and I

become that bitter bastard in the back

of the room who could only feel

important by crapping on someone else’s

act so as the direct result

I never thought even as I quit I didn’t

think magic was gonna work out full-time

but I did know that after that year even

if I racked up a bunch of debt and had

to go back to work I knew that for the

rest of my life I would never have to be

a bitter bastard because I could say

yeah man I spent a year touring I

couldn’t quite hack it but at least I

would know you know and so as a result

of that you know my wife was kind enough

to keep the lights on and a year into it

I’d made garbage money like i grossed

less than half of what i had made that

previous year but at the end of that

year i saw how it could be done and I

was like Bonnie quit your job come with

me let’s do this and you know it’s it’s

grown slowly and steady with a lot of

work and a lot of setbacks but now I no

longer have to wonder who I might have

been yeah very very intriguing one of

the things that really interests me is

just the perceptual threshold that we

all have there’s a magician out of the

UK Darren brown who I jumped into his

work and I just found it fascinating how

much of the psychology involved in doing

this stuff is and how much we can sort

of manipulate what for someone is

perceiving at any given moment there’s a

part of your act to which involves kind

of nailing a nail into your face what

does that involve yeah well first of all

– Darren Brown Darren brown is truly an

amazing talent the phenomenal performer

he just did a run a shows in New York

and I’m very sad that I missed it but

everybody said amazing stuff about it

the real brilliance of Darren brown was

that he figured out that if I tell you

but I was on a journey in Far East India

and got struck by lightning and now I

have the power of telepathy you’re gonna

roll your eyes be like that’s not true

but if he mixes in enough real

psychology with a bit of you know trendy

fringy pop psychology

he’s still doing the same trick he’s

still telling you what your card is but

you view it through a different lens and

you see it from that perception of like

oh wait no I do believe all this and so

that’s the funnest part for me is as a

magician trying to pinpoint that exact

moment when he flips from you know

talking about the actual psychology to

like okay we’re in trick mode some

people have criticized their and Browne

for being a little too comfortable with

leaving people with the impression that

key use psychological techniques to

program them rather than making it clear

that this is a fantasy that this is a

magic trick but to me I love the

challenge of that stuff and I think he’s

backed off from some of that from his

television shows back in the day but but

the effect you’re talking about

hammering a four and a half inch nail in

your nose that’s a that’s an old

sideshow stunt called the human

blockhead and the idea is very simple if

you’ve ever seen the cutaway of the

human skull

you’ve got your sets of sinuses your

front toes are up top and then your

maxillary sinuses are the ones that

curve down and become your throat

someone has a feeding tube they

basically run a tube up the nose and

straight down into the belly and when I

do that effect it’s basically sword

swallowing in miniature I actually feel

that nail touching the back of my throat

when it ends Wow I mean it makes for a

really good stage you know entertainment

when I look at your work and I when I

was watching the YouTube videos that

have been watching through this week how

much of this is for your own personal

amusement versus just entertainment

oh that’s interesting I think almost

everything in the show began with

something that was interesting to me in

fact even the human blockhead years

before I knew it was an old sideshow

stunt I was a kid rooting around with a

q-tip and it just slid right into my

nostril I was like oh that’s pretty cool

and then forgot about it and it wasn’t

until years later I’m watching the Jim

Rose circus sideshow and I’m watching

people literally faint and Lollapalooza

1990 to be at the sight of that because

they were so horrified and I realized

that that that show did something very

clever in that they primed everyone to

say what you’re about to see is so

extraordinary

there absolutely will be people fainting

at this show when this happens

procedure everybody just the folks

around I want you to point down we’ll

get paramedics right over by priming the

viewers to believe that what you are

about to see is gonna have such a

shocking impact that people are going to

faint around you of course you know that

became the reality and so I I actually

by by doing the weird sideshow stuff

mixed with the sleight of hand and

mind-reading my goal is to take what is

traditionally a very jaded audience you

know college students are not known for

being in love with magic shows because

most of them last time they saw him was

at a 12 year olds birthday party and so

as a result I walk out and the first

thing I do is the fire-eating

it’s this virtuosic skill there is no

trick to it it’s just you know really

impressive to watch the kind of you know

the juggling the tossing of a flame from

one torch to another and then there’s

this contract that I have to build

because some audiences are conservative

they don’t want to see a dude chub nails

in his eyes but I need to seduce them

into doing it so after doing the fire

eating the first thing I ask is I was

like okay we have a very important

question we can move and try some

traditional magic or we could do some

freaky stuff what’s it going to be and

of course every audience shouts out

freaky stuff and even if they’re more

conservative older audience at that

point they’ve all shouted that they want

freaky stuff so it’s sort of it cuts off

that ability for them to be suddenly

horrified and disgusted when I start

doing the human blockhead because they

asked for the freaky stuff and so

everything keeps going one step forward

one step forward and you take the

audience on this bizarre journey or

somebody who didn’t think they would be

cheering for a bunch of blood and guts

and me cutting off my tongue on stage

they’ve been primed and warmed up to

that point where they’re evolved all in

huh it’s very interesting

so with scam school the large element of

this is that you reveal what you’re

doing at the end do you get a lot of

flack from other magicians or other

performers when you are revealing these

tricks I’ll tell you what it has been a

fascinating 10 years I had the idea for

scam school 10 years ago this month it

was during the summer of 2007 that I

pitched it and at the time the only

thing anywhere close to what I was

wanting to do was the magic

Cribbs revealed specials which you know

obviously upset a whole bunch of

magicians they ended up you know try

trying to sue fox and so on but to me

the crime of that show was so it here’s

the question is what is the difference

between teaching and exposure so that

show was very much exposure you saw a

magic box you saw the girl get in you

had a moment of magic then they took a

giant dump on magic and say yeah it’s

dumb it’s just a trick and you’re a

sucker for liking magic so yes they

exposed the effect no the people

watching did not get any closer to being

able to perform it whereas on the flip

side scam school the way I wanted to

present it was each one beginner

appropriate something that you could

watch today later that night be two and

a half years in half remember the trick

and still be able to pull it off because

to the core of the difference between

teaching and exposure is when the lesson

is over can you do the trick if you can

do the trick then clearly you’re taught

if you can’t do the trick then all

that’s happened is you’ve scratched the

itch of your curiosity and that would be

exposure and so I was terrified that

there would be a big backlash and I kept

waiting for it to happen and instead

what happened is over the last 10 years

magicians had to wrestle with the

question of what is fair because there

are some people who felt like well

you’re just giving it away for free on

the internet and I was like well but you

got it for free when you got a magic kit

when you were a kid you got it for free

when you went to the library you know

the the the difference can’t be give me

20 bucks and now you’re a magician the

difference has to be you’ve put forth

the time energy and effort to prove that

you want to to become sugar rather than

taste sugar that’s the difference is

people who enjoy magic gets a taste

sugar but if you make that decision that

you want to be sugar instead it’s a lot

less sexy but it is very very satisfying

to bring that kind of joy to other

people it could go either way really

because in one sense you’re you’re

keeping other magicians other mentalists

on their game and you’re asking them to

kind of improve their skill set and in

the other direction it’s like oh well

you just gave away this you know this

trick that I’ve been studying and

learning for the last six months

we’ll keep in mind magicians have a

saying if you want to keep a secret put

it in a book it is I think I googled on

or checked on Amazon there was over a

hundred thousand different titles books

that had magic in it to some degree

so obviously magicians are concerned

with secrecy as much as they say they

will because everybody the moment you

come up with a slight derivation yeah

everybody puts it in a book they publish

it in magazines and so on so but but I

do think that there’s it’s important how

you present it and in that regard I’m

not going to pretend like it’s my job to

keep other magicians or working

performers on their toes I think I think

any working professional knows that’s

hard enough as it is what I am

interested in is minting new magicians I

want very much for scam school to be a

kind of a gateway drug to get people a

taste of that high of having deceived

someone and that’s both because I want

more people doing magic as an art and I

want more people literate about magic so

that they could tell the difference

between good magic and bad magic but

also I think even for the folks who pick

up magic for a little bit and then and

then set it aside I think you’re

fundamentally changed once you’ve

experienced what it’s like to deceive

another human and and I think it arms

you to better prevent yourself from

being deceived when I was 18 or 19 I was

working at a movie theater cash register

and guy and a girl come walking in girl

walks all the way down to the far end

and asks about the candies the guy

starts talking to me saying he needs

change for a poker game later today so

we start to make it change for a twenty

and a 50 and up and down and along the

way I think man there’s something about

the cadence and the rhythm of this this

feels like a magic trick and

unfortunately I didn’t have the

wherewithal to stop everything and call

the manager right there but the moment

he left I was like that felt like a

magic trick and I only knew that because

I had been doing magic and sure enough

we counted the till and $50 with light

and so that’s something that I would

have even known anything was afoot if it

weren’t for magic and with a little more

experience I certainly don’t think I

would be taken for a ride like I was as

now so it’s my hope that folks who get

into

just a little bit of magic with scam

school will either become somebody who

gets in to a lot of magic or somebody

who’s better armed to not get suckered

by all the the fraudsters out there yeah

that’s an interesting perspective I

really like that what is what is it the

sort of protocol when a trick goes wrong

you don’t ever stop a trick in the

middle do you or do you kind of admit to

failure oh you know what it depends um

for example there is one stage show

piece that I do where I get two people

from the audience and one of them’s

blindfolded and as a boxer over said so

there’s no way you can see and the other

person you know thinks of an image it

draws it onto poster board and then

hopefully at the end the the version

that the guy in isolation draws exactly

matches and you know there’s a lot of

variability in it because I really I

don’t say anything up ahead of time

while I’m talking and giving the

instructions I’m looking to see how well

they’re paying attention and whether or

not they’re following along but one in a

hundred performances we get to that last

part and it’s eight minutes of comedy

and build-up all to this one moment

where we’re gonna reveal the two

pictures and hopefully they’ll match and

one in a hundred times they just don’t

match at all not even close to it and

when that happens it is amazing because

I turn them around and everybody laughs

cuz they don’t match and I just end the

routine saying and that’s why I don’t

believe in ESP let’s have a big big

round of applause for both of them and

everybody claps and you call the show

this is a they call it the Texas

sharpshooter fallacy which is you shoot

the bullet then you draw the target

around it so in this case I don’t

announce everything that’s gonna happen

at the beginning I don’t say hey we’re

gonna grab two people they’re gonna

think of pictures the pictures are gonna

match because that would pin me into

that being the only outcome whereas if I

begin by saying we’re gonna try and

experiment in ESP second sight psychic

phenomenon and we get volunteers and

it’s a fun funny process the whole way

the only thing that ever it is at the

end they don’t happen to match but I

never said they would match I said we

were gonna do an experiment and then the

punchline is just and that’s why they

don’t believe in ESP on a more localized

you know when you’re doing table hopping

or talking

forming maybe a card trick or whatever

maybe you need somebody to take a

certain card but they don’t take that

card the nice thing is is nobody knows

where you’re supposed to end up and as

long as you continue to tell an

interesting story you could take anyone

along for the ride and as long as

there’s a good ending and it doesn’t

have to be the ending you intended

because what will happen is is there’s

some tricks where maybe I’ll get halfway

through and it’s very clear they didn’t

follow instructions they don’t have the

right card I can’t finish the trick as I

did intended but at that point I might

recap like alright let’s be totally fair

you did blank blank great

remember your car and then then turn on

and say now your turn and I as if I’m

setting up the next phase when really I

just never get around to finishing the

first guy’s trick I didn’t admit defeat

I didn’t make the person feel bad I

didn’t guilt them for not following

instructions instead I said you’ve done

a very good job you followed everything

exactly right let me press pause on this

now we’re gonna do this other stuff and

I think you’ll see where this is all

ends up and of course statements like

that basically satisfy the itch in their

mind of knowing okay this will pay off

at some point and even if it doesn’t by

that point hopefully you’re three or

four tricks into the other thing to

where the worst thing that can happen is

after the show they’re all like hey what

was that whatever happened with my card

and then which you know you could be

honest we like oh you know what I didn’t

get back to that but here let me show

you another trick let me do a different

one for you as long as you provide some

kind of value and you and you scratch

that itch people will stay with you huh

it’s intriguing I love this stuff is

it’s a absorb it as much as I can so all

right I want to know about there was a

trick that you did on scam school where

you mind control by way of poetry which

was later yeah by Richard Garriott on

the International Space Station how did

that trick work this is quite possibly

the single best thing I ever did on scam

school we had this idea so um the way

the effect works and the beautiful of

this is that you could do it over the

phone you could do it in person you

don’t need anything on you as long as

somebody is connected to the Internet

and so you begin in my case I say oh I

interviewed this guy

but you could just as easily say oh I

was watching this show scam school and I

always began you know hey do you believe

in mind control not like like voodoo

zombie you know the puppet master stuff

but the idea that we can influence your

thoughts with certain words okay because

there’s this crazy life coach guy who

joined me for a scan school and he

claimed that it was possible if I just

recited a few lines from a Robert Frost

poem but it would cause you to think of

one playing card in the deck of cards

and so you know what you want to give it

a try sure okay the lines are the woods

are lovely dark and deep but I have

promises to keep and miles to go before

I sleep and then I’ll say now right now

you probably have flashed a few

different cards in your mind but now

your brain wants to settle and end up on

just one card what card are you thinking

of and in your name a card so so

whatever card you say oh you want me to

name a card sure sure yeah okay so he

served clubs ASA clubs great

and and at this point I would put them

on defense saying shut up you saw this

too right you saw this episode really no

what are you talking about like that’s

what the guy said no yeah I’m telling

you he’s a life coach look up coach

Alfred singleton and find the interview

and so no matter whether they ask Siri

whether they ask ok Google whether they

look it up on YouTube whether they just

search coach alfred singleton they’ll

find an interview and you know to throw

the word scam school in there and then

they hit it and sure enough it’s an

interview with me and this guy coach

alfred singleton and he’s explaining you

know how this really will cause everyone

to think of the ace of clubs and in that

moment people are just like shut up and

then they instantly say well i guess

that makes sense i well you know the

brains a funny thing when in fact the

whole thing is a sham because you’ll

notice i never say the name of the

expert until after I get the card so in

this case we recorded a hundred and four

different versions of the video under 52

different names for the expert and so

this is something everyone could try

right now let’s say let’s say you wanted

to do okay basically is either a coach a

reverend

a professor or a doctor so doctor is

diamonds professor spades coaches clubs

and what was the last one I left out Oh

Reverend Reverend his heart and then

whether his you know his last name

if it’s the first five cards he’s a

singleton of one through five if it’s

the second five cards six to ten he’s a

Doubleday and if it’s the third side of

cards he’s a triplet and then and then

basically within those little

neighborhoods he’s either an Alfred

Byron Charles David or edgert so ABCDE

so basically so if somebody says the

three of Hearts I’ll say he’s Reverend

Charles singleton and the biggest moment

of my life was when one of my childhood

heroes performed that effect on the

International Space Station over ham

radio to his dad and as a result I

realized oh my god I designed

mind-control experiments that were

executed on the International Space

Station which was a pretty pretty

freakin great thing so if you want to

watch the video or get a cheat sheet for

all that just Google mind-control scam

for scam school and you should be able

to find it yeah we will make that

available for all her listeners I love

it and I love the ingenuity and I love

the thinking behind it I mean it’s

almost like a game of chess where you’re

kind of predicting where the person is

going to be in in their thinking before

they even know

yeah as a matter of fact that’s a really

good example and that’s why that’s why

when magic is bad it’s frustrating

because imagine I don’t say bad

magicians because everyone’s on their

own paths but but somebody who doesn’t

have a very good show often times they

make the mistake of thinking they’re

playing chess against an idiot who

doesn’t know the rules and as a result

they don’t go out of their way to give

credit to the audience to think okay

they’re probably going to suspect X or Y

or Z the good magicians they’re able to

project into the audience’s perceptions

and and think well if I was in this

situation I would be suspicious of this

box or I would want to examine these

cards or whatever so what you do is you

make sure to do all of that but you do

it out of order let’s say you got a

special card that I don’t know it has

something tricky about it and you can’t

let people check it out so what you do

is you do steps out of order you give

them the chance to look at the card

before you do the trick you’re like look

I’m gonna do something and you’re gonna

want to look at the card I’m not gonna

say what I’m gonna do but I want you to

remember clearly that you checked out

the card and they do they check out the

card very very thoroughly you know use

what magicians called time delay and

then you know when you need the sneaky

version of the card you switch them out

or whatever but all of this is

predicated on giving the most credit

that you can to the audience and realize

that that you are playing chess to

create a moment of genuine magic and

genuine wonder and the only way you do

that is by believing that you’re not

talking to an idiot and going out of

your way to make it as fair as possible

you have been listening to the human

experience podcast with Brian brushwood

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you