People take reality for granted, Teller says — offstage:
“Reality seems so simple. We just open our eyes and there it is. But that doesn’t mean it is simple.”
Penn and Teller came to an odd epiphany early in their career:
To kill some time in a diner, Teller was practicing his version of Cups and Balls, a classic sleight-of-hand trick popularized by ancient Roman conjurers. It involves a series of “vanishes” and “transpositions” as the balls appear and disappear underneath the cups. Teller hadn’t brought any props, so he used wadded-up napkins and clear water glasses.Somehow, this made the trick even better. Although it was now possible to follow the crumpled napkins as Teller variously palmed them, squished them, and moved them from cup to cup, the illusion persisted. “The eye could see the moves, but the mind could not comprehend them,” he says. “Giving the trick away gave nothing away, because you still couldn’t grasp it.”
(And could those ladies from The View be any more insipid?)