Latest / The Magic Guys / Kyle Purnell on Magic, Creativity, and Resilience #290

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Kyle Purnell on Magic, Creativity, and Resilience #290 · The Magic Guys

• 0:03
  They're guys. They do magic. They are the magic guys.
• 0:13
  Well, hello, friends. Welcome to the Magic Guys podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:16
  Nick Kay, and this is episode 290.
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  I thought it was 91. 290. Friends, it is me riding solo today.
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  So our friend Josh and Doug are out there doing gigs, taking over the planet,
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  but fear or not today we have an amazing guest,
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  most recently while i was in magic live and i was telling our guests backstage
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  that there's always one person that truly stands out to me every,
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  magic live that i do and you know there's always something that i walk away
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  from i'm just entirely like entirely enamored
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  by this particular person as you guys know in the past you know we've brought
• 0:49
  nicholas lawrence on the show and i was telling you the very same thing and
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  today it is that guest at the last magic live i met this gentleman
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  and he blew my freaking mind and you know he's coming So friends,
• 1:00
  you know this is a live chat.
• 1:01
  Michael Wan, good to see you. Tim Askin in the chat.
• 1:04
  You can ask your questions to our guests, so please let me introduce our guests.
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  Our guest is an American magician, magic creator, and lecturer based in Pennsylvania.
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  He's known for his super high level of creativity and really unconventional
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  approaches to magic, which I got to see firsthand.
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  He's got an amazing career highlights, such as performing in Penn and Teller
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  Fool Us. He's created more magic tricks than I've had. So luck, yeah.
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  He is an amazing lecturer. He does amazing collaborations with Penguin and Vanishing
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  Ink and Murphy's. There's literally no one he hasn't worked with.
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  The man is a one-man orgy.
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  Friends, please join me in welcoming all the way from Pennsylvania,
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  the USA, Mr. Kyle Purnell.
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  Hey, how's it going, guys? Thanks for having me.
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  Buddy, thanks for coming on the show. Please tell everyone, who are you? What do you do?
• 1:55
  My name is Kyle Pernell, and I do tricks or two.
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  I love, you know, I try to not say that magic's my life because I feel like
• 2:07
  that's the loser thing to say, but it is magic's my life.
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  And it's kind of like default mode at this time, at this point in my life.
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  So, you know, it's been a long time since magic's been a hobby.
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  I'm sure you can relate to that.
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  Yeah, I mean, I think even in that, in Eric, you houses book.
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  You mentioned that this was like a new shifts going into the magic full-time
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  game again, or back into the creative realm again.
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  I get it, man. Like it's a really good time, but you know, it's,
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  I always love to know where you came from to know where you're going.
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  So can we, can we like circle back and like go back to the beginning and how you even found magic?
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  Because, you know, when some people get into magic a certain way,
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  they're groomed a certain way and they all think a certain way,
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  you know, like there's certain magicians in my town where they think and act
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  entirely like danny d ortiz for example,
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  as if they're danny d ortiz you you couldn't do that man so i'm so curious like
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  how did you discover magic and when did you realize you enjoyed creating it
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  as much as performing it yeah sure i'll give you a give you kind of the abridged version so.
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  All my life, I have had a stutter when I talk. I'm a PWS, a person who stutters.
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  And that is very much ingrained in my family. My dad stutters.
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  His dad, when he was alive, stutters. And my grandfather, my sister stutters.
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  For a little bit, my son and daughter stuttered as well. But I think they got
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  speech therapy right away.
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  And now it's not nearly as prevalent, but very much in our family. right,
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  and so it it hit me hard growing up and,
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  my my hope is that right now it's kind of hard maybe to believe that this is
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  was as much of a struggle as it was growing up but i was definitely the stutter
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  kid i couldn't get out with things i wanted to say my brain knew what i wanted
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  to say but i couldn't but my body wouldn't let me say it the way i wanted to
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  i would often get stuck on the words my body would just kind of like freeze up,
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  especially kind of right here my jaw my throat,
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  and so i wanted to be able to do something especially in like junior high time
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  i wanted to be able to do something most people couldn't do because most people
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  could do something i couldn't,
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  so i got into you know balloon sculpting juggling magic you know the things
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  that really get the ladies and.
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  It's a mean thing to laugh at nick i don't know what you're talking about no
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  you would have been dripping in it man absolutely and then magic was just kind
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  of the thing that stuck and what i've really what i was really fascinating about magic was,
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  stuttering was the thing that led me to magic but magic helped me gain control
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  over my stuttering so there's like a symbiotic relationship and like they both helped each other,
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  amazing i you know i would have never thought the healing qualities of magic
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  could apply to those types of things well you mean it was a big part of that
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  was the confidence and the performing ability and,
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  but also just when you're performing a lot like especially like walk around
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  stuff that's stuff i like to do it's the same script over and over again so
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  it's not a lot of it's not spontaneous anymore right
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  so it's kind of broke even the story right now is very wrote so it's a lot less
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  likely I'm going to stutter on it because I've told this story a thousand times, right?
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  It's a very great question. I've never gotten it before.
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  But no, that's basically what it was. So I got into it that way to kind of,
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  I guess, subconsciously solve a problem. But then it turns out I just found
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  the thing that my brain was designed to do.
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  That's unreal man i love that i just you don't really appreciate how,
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  holistic magic can be for some people in so many aspects i have my personal
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  journey with that as well man i totally agree like for me it cured heartache more than anything.
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  Yeah like i just remember being at an all-time low getting on stage and still,
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  being able to make people smile and when i kind of realized like even at my
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  worst i can still give my best and i can still make the world a better place
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  and not bleed on the people not bleed on people that didn't cut me,
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  yeah i love that i love that so much yeah yeah i i remember going to like a
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  restaurant gig a few years ago,
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  and my my mental health was not a good place and i was just really struggling
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  on the way there and then i got in there,
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  and i was still not feeling great and i started performing the first table and
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  second table and like with each table i started feeling better and better and
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  better until the end of the gig,
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  i was feeling on top of the world and i and it was just like a far cry from
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  the uh the really shitty place that i started that night in,
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  so it's just like just like performing is very cathartic to me as well as the
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  actual magic is but like the performing like it's not about validation or anything like that it's just,
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  i'm i i feel good when i perform with people and not for people but like but
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  with people that's the that's the goal and but and when that happens and we're
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  like and we're just playing off of each other it's a really good group,
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  and you just feel like you're really in the zone it's just really hard for your
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  mental health to take take you down off of that high you know.
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  Yeah. I mean, and in the same breath, we've probably ended up in situations
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  where we've met people that, that try to pull you down and you,
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  you're just, you gotta be bigger than them and not let them.
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  That's one of the strongest things because, you know, I remember very early
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  in my career, it's like, okay, we've got one more trick for the evening.
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  And then you do a trick and you meet an absolute douchebag who just wants to
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  ruin your life. And then you leave the gig feeling kind of upset and you think
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  to yourself like, wow, I gave that guy too much power in that.
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  You know what I mean? Absolutely.
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  Yeah. Yeah. But these are things you learn. These are things,
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  yeah when you're performing this isn't i had a whole series of questions but
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  i'm just throwing them at the window because we're taking this such a better
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  conversation what sort of stuff are you performing early in your career like
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  what were your kind of influences,
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  oh like early on early early on,
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  i will let me start with the first like what i call real magic trick i ever
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  got what are you talking by the way can we just uh we're talking this is like
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  late junior high or early high school so like in your teens,
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  yeah like 14 15 nice,
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  and so my first magic trick i ever got,
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  and i'm not talking about like you know the magic kit we all get when we're
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  a kid right i'm talking about like the first real magic trick that i you know
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  i scouted out on it was penguin magic back in like oh four and,
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  and up until recently the site looked just the same as it did.
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  And so I went there and I was going back and forth between what trick do I want
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  to ask for for Christmas right,
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  And it was, it was Holy Moly by Jay Sankey. Yeah.
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  Yeah. For those that don't know what the trick is, it's basically like a,
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  um, you have a kind of like a postcard. Is it the best way to describe it,
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  Kyle? No, no, no. It's like two washers.
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  Oh, that, oh, sorry. I totally mixed that one up. Yeah.
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  Yeah. It's like you have two washers, right? And, uh, and obviously a washer has a hole in the middle.
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  You, you, they choose one, you give it to them. And then the other one,
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  you take the, you move the hole and you take it off.
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  And then you throw it onto their hand and then when they open it up their washer
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  has two holes in it and i i really think that that was.
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  Super not knowingly but now looking back you know hindsight's 2020 right i think,
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  looking back that was super influential to how i create things now wow because,
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  i remember at the time i was really disappointed,
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  because i'm like oh you're just like switching it,
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  i thought it was like a good i thought it was like this crazy thing where you
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  know the there's a flap that like seals up somehow and then you know
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  and then there's another piece that moves out of the way kind of like you know
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  the michael shatley and the matrix cards which is amazing by the way i just
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  got one of those and it's awesome right but,
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  but that that is what kind of established my foundation for methods.
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  And what started as a huge disappointment kind of turned into.
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  This epiphany that some of the strongest magic that you can do doesn't have to be crazy,
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  complex,
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  intricate methods or apparatuses.
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  In fact, that's the thing that started enchanting me the most,
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  was realizing that the less method you use, the more satisfying I think it is.
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  Because it's one thing to, you know, it's because I remember years ago,
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  there's a bunch of different tricks where like a bill melts through another
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  bill, dollar through another dollar, right?
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  And i remember watching one and it required a gimmick right like an extra piece
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  of bill or whatever it might be and then you see andrew may do his ghost bills,
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  and there's no gimmicks and like how much more satisfying is that,
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  that you can do pretty much the same trick but anytime anywhere that's like
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  a superpower you're like equipped to be able to as dan harlan said in my penguin
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  live and i never forgot this,
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  i would rather manipulate the world around me than have it gimmicked for me wow bars,
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  yeah wow never forgot that i love it so much yeah,
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  wow that's an that's an epic drop you know and i can just say you know from
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  hearing this story dude and off jamming with you at magic live i i totally.
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  You know when you see it just connection it kind of makes sense.
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  I totally get it now like yeah i feel like i know you even better just from
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  that conversation like just from what you've told me now so,
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  as far as influencers go you're it's hard to see that what you do is basically
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  very reminiscent of a lot of people that you that you do so creatively who would
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  you say some of your influencers are,
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  i mean it's no secret that i mean a lot of my stuff is probably very reminiscent
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  of how people feel when they look at paul harris's material,
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  so i would say i i would it's kind of funny though because i would say my material
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  is probably closest to his material,
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  but he wasn't one of my biggest influences growing up which is like,
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  i i mean later on i'm i'm looking through his stuff I'm like,
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  oh, yeah, I think like that.
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  Oh, yeah, I think it's like that and it's like that. So it's just kind of like,
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  two minds happen to think very similarly. But,
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  I don't think that his material directly influenced mine. So the biggest ones
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  that probably influenced it was,
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  sankey greg wilson richard sanders,
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  probably those were the biggest three and then like it's it's funny it's like
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  you it's like you uh you add those together and you get paul harris.
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  I see that yeah uh which is you know so it's like i get all these influences
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  and then i find that the stuff that i'm doing is very reminiscent of what paul
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  harris was doing in the 70s,
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  yeah you know i'm sort of curious like with regards to some of,
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  your level of originality and if you could recall like what your first,
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  sort of original creation might be because i was trying to do the same for myself
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  and i couldn't because yeah i think that you basically start with something
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  and it evolves a lot and i was just curious whether or not you had the same
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  journey when you had your first original trick,
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  first original trick or first original good trick let's let's answer both okay all right so,
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  funny enough i i have this vivid memory of,
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  well before i even got into magic right you know like i i guess i always found
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  it fascinating but it was never you know something i thought oh this is my thing
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  right so this is well before i was in junior high,
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  and i remember my my cousin uh was a few years older than me and she was over at our house and,
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  i was just kind of back in the room in in my room and i was playing with my
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  dad's handkerchief and i was playing with a coin and.
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  And i just remember thinking oh the magic's pretty cool and i remember putting
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  the coin in the middle of the handkerchief folding up the handkerchief in half,
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  holding it again so it's in quarters.
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  Now the coin is in the middle of the quarters.
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  And then I said, just to myself, I was like, no, watch.
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  And I took the whole handkerchief and I flipped it over. And I opened it back
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  up and I said, but it's still in the middle. And.
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  And in my head, I'm like, whoa, but I flipped it over. It should be on the outside now.
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  And what's funny is, I'm actually just piecing this together right now.
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  That was just a very crude version of a topological concept for a magic trick
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  to actually work. It was still very primitive.
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  It was kind of like laying the groundwork for what I was to later do.
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  Which I didn't even put that together until right the second.
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  So that's the very first trick I ever did, and it was awful.
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  But the very first good trick I ever created was probably...
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  Years later i was in college and i created a moving hole trick but it was impromptu,
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  and it was called what the hole.
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  And i put it on theory 11's wire do you remember the wire yeah yeah so i put
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  it up there it was pretty well well received,
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  and you know it was a little fiddly and there's a lot of moves to it but it's
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  fun to do and and it was the thing that really got the um,
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  kind of the bug bit i think of specifically magic creating at that point.
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  Because it was like the coolest feeling in the world to have,
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  other people learning your stuff and performing it to other people and and then
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  getting the reviews and it was just it was like this is what i got to do man
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  this is what i got to do for the rest of my life,
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  so the bug bit with that one and then the rest of this history i guess that's
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  unreal so when you're creating something new,
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  i i is there a sort of process that you have that you sort of stick to in a
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  very rigid way or is it just,
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  you know you just sort of imagine something impossible just while teetering,
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  well i know that you had eric on last week or was that two weeks ago who just
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  wrote this new book plug plug,
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  cultivating creativity and i actually overviewed the,
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  uh i hesitate to call it my process because it's really not a process i have,
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  just unregulated adhd flowing through my veins at all times so it's hard for
• 18:00
  me to have a rigid process for things,
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  like a thing i said before it's more like it's a state of mind it's like a this
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  is just life at this point my i see life through magic goggles.
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  And so it's not like I sit down and try to create a trick.
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  You can do that. A lot of people do that. And I remember in the book as to not,
• 18:27
  I give too much of the content away, but I remember the first chapter in the book is Blake Voight.
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  And Blake was like, I can't guarantee any good ideas, but I can promise to be
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  the guy that never runs out of bad ones.
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  And so he and I create very differently.
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  But i actually went and we were i was actually just a few weeks after live this
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  year i was booked to be a lecturer at,
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  the b magic convention which is brent bronze thing this year along with marcus
• 19:00
  eddie and jenny garcia and all these guys specifically those two i was i'm bringing
• 19:06
  up specifically because they,
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  we were talking about our creative process and i was specifically markets i,
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  I was blown away by the fact that up until this point, I hadn't met anybody
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  else who really creates the same way I do.
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  But it was uncanny how similar our processes were because.
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  We don't really start with the effect a lot of the time. We start with the prop
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  itself, and we look at the attributes of the prop.
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  And for me in particular, I
• 19:39
  look at what all attributes are a part of this prop that we're looking at.
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  And is this an attribute that would be best suited for the effect or best suited
• 19:54
  to be used for as part of the method?
• 19:56
  Right. So, for example, if we did, if we use something like post-it notes. All right.
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  So let's do this quick back and forth, Nick.
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  We'll go back and forth and we'll say some attributes of a normal,
• 20:09
  just a standard size post-it note. Okay? Right. I'll go first.
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  They're able to be torn.
• 20:16
  Yeah. They're equidistant on all sides as well. Oh, I love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  They look the same from the top as from the bottom. So you can't really tell
• 20:25
  if it's on the top or the bottom if you just look at it at the cursory glance.
• 20:29
  Yeah. There is a portion that is adhesive.
• 20:33
  Mm-hmm. And that portion, this is a fun fact, this is the nerdiest fun fact
• 20:39
  that I can tell you, but this is also what I'll tell you about the attributes here.
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  That portion is always the same, no matter what the size of the Posenode is.
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  So if you have one of the larger ones, and you're comparing it to one of the
• 20:55
  smaller ones, the strip of adhesive is the same size strip of adhesive.
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  So proportionally, they're very different.
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  Right the the proportions for the the smaller ones that i really like to use
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  it's about half the width it takes up about half the width of it right but when
• 21:14
  you look for the the the larger post notes that
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  sticky strip is only a very small like a fifth or an eighth,
• 21:22
  of the width i don't know if that makes sense or not um okay so that's in and
• 21:27
  that's interesting so the.
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  So the size of the adhesive is the same regardless of the size of the post note.
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  So that's an attribute, right? You can also go with they are able to be crumpled.
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  They are able to be written on. They are able to be punched in a hole, right?
• 21:46
  You can see through them if you write with a Sharpie, right?
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  Like all these things that you kind of take for granted. You just kind of be
• 21:54
  hyper aware of those. If you need to write them down, you write them down, right?
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  But then then you start to think okay so not only do I have these attributes
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  but these attributes could be used,
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  it could be one could be used as a method or I could use that same attribute
• 22:14
  as part of the effect right so,
• 22:18
  the fact that it has a strip of adhesive that could be used as part of the method
• 22:22
  where instead of palming something you could secretly stick it to your fingers
• 22:25
  right so you don't have to palm it Right.
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  So that can be part of the method, but it can be a part of the effect.
• 22:30
  Maybe I take a part of a signpost note that they can feel it's sticky and I
• 22:35
  remove the stickiness magically and I put it onto a different piece that wasn't sticky and now it does.
• 22:41
  That's part of the effect now. Right.
• 22:43
  And it could even be both. But so what you do is you list the attributes first,
• 22:52
  and then you go through each one and say, how can I use this as part of the effect?
• 22:56
  How can I use this attribute as part of the method? Right.
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  That's kind of how it is yeah yeah you're looking at you're looking at an object
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  and being able to say like how can it be used magically ultimately i mean most
• 23:08
  most folks for example the rubik's cube looked at it and just been it's just
• 23:11
  a toy and it's a puzzle but then you know over years of existing,
• 23:16
  ended up being a very magical piece which is nearly part of everyone's repertoire nowadays.
• 23:23
  Absolutely what's the what's the weirdest thing that oh no i wouldn't say weird
• 23:27
  let's use a better word what's the most non-magical,
• 23:31
  object that you think you've created magic with i mean,
• 23:36
  i i would say a fork is kind of magical it's been given enough credence the
• 23:39
  cutlery has been given enough credence i see i see you know like i would you
• 23:44
  say like i do a magic trick with an earbud cleaner,
• 23:50
  oh see you know that's interesting and i i think i'm gonna have to disappoint you with my answer,
• 23:55
  because I'm actually pretty picky about the stuff that I use because I don't want them for me.
• 24:02
  And I think it's because I kind of tend to live in the magic product side of things.
• 24:09
  I want things to be on the en vogue side of things and I want them to be not
• 24:14
  weird things. I definitely don't want the...
• 24:18
  I actually have a pet peeve. I really dislike tricks where we ignore the fact
• 24:28
  that it's pretty much we're doing tricks with garbage.
• 24:31
  I really hate that. So when you take the tab off of a Coke can and then put
• 24:36
  it back on, it's like, oh, watch, I'm going to take this thing off of garbage
• 24:40
  and I'm going to restore it. So now it's restored garbage.
• 24:44
  You didn't refill it.
• 24:49
  It's still trash. That's a good point. You know? Yeah.
• 24:54
  Or, or like there's one trick and I, I know this is, you know,
• 24:58
  obviously public and live and everything like that. So I hope this doesn't come
• 25:01
  back to bite me because I love all the people associated with this particular
• 25:04
  trick, but it's a good example of what I'm saying.
• 25:07
  So please, if you're associated with this trick, please, I love you.
• 25:11
  It's just this particular thing. It's a, it's a bugbear of mine is with like
• 25:17
  the two loyalty cards and you like, you rip them in half.
• 25:20
  And then you like fuse the two halves of the two different loyalty cards together right,
• 25:26
  okay but like there's no value in that like it's it's just it looks like trash to me and
• 25:32
  it looks good don't get me wrong it looks good it's a good it's a good looking
• 25:36
  trick and it's it's a very fooling
• 25:38
  trick but for me aesthetically it just it's not what i i would rather.
• 25:43
  Just do it with two cards and i know the the point was to try to get away from
• 25:47
  playing cards and just do it with you know more organic items and and and i get that but for me,
• 25:54
  you know at least cards we have you know we there's a lot of precedent to why
• 26:01
  we're doing with playing cards and when you take it out of this it just becomes it becomes,
• 26:07
  and i don't say garbage as in it's a terrible trick it's not a terrible trick
• 26:11
  i mean it's literally garbage you're you're tearing up a loyalty card So now
• 26:15
  any inherent value that you had is gone now.
• 26:18
  So you don't have any inherent value in this half, any inherent value in this
• 26:22
  half. And then when you put them together, you still don't have it.
• 26:25
  You still don't have that value.
• 26:28
  There's no reason to do it for me.
• 26:32
  So I actually like to stay away from weird items. And I like to try to do weird
• 26:37
  things with normal items.
• 26:40
  You know, the weirdest thing I've used, I just, I wasn't really thinking about
• 26:42
  it, but during COVID, we were doing this challenge where someone would nominate something and,
• 26:50
  basically what would happen is it's like, okay, so if you want to do,
• 26:52
  like, if you want to know how our tricks are done, you've got to come up with one yourself.
• 26:56
  And it was performed with some local names around, around my part of the planet.
• 27:01
  We had Lawrence Leung, a great mentalist and performer and Nicholas J.
• 27:04
  Johnson, friend of the pod.
• 27:05
  And, you know, we would do stuff like tomatoes and we'd come up with different ideas. Mm-hmm.
• 27:09
  And I came up with a, with like a cherry tomato trick where it's like,
• 27:12
  I tossed it in the air, cat caught it, did, did one of these. Right.
• 27:17
  And bro, like I had to like embed a magnet in the tomato and then put it in
• 27:23
  the fridge with water and then freeze it.
• 27:25
  So the magnet would stay inside of it so that I could touch a thumb loop to
• 27:29
  it while it was, you know, cause I showed my hands empty.
• 27:32
  And then as I threw it in the air and caught it, like it connected itself.
• 27:35
  And then I used a thumb loop to, it was so crazy.
• 27:38
  And then another one was with toothpaste and the setup for that is,
• 27:43
  ridiculous i think i might have shared it on the discord because it's so,
• 27:46
  so ridiculous i'll reshare it again after the podcast it's gonna be cool about
• 27:51
  it and i'll send it to yourself carl you can have a look at it it's so well
• 27:54
  and the method is just out of control there's like
• 27:57
  magnets fishing line all kinds of stuff like it is out of control gaffer tape
• 28:02
  gaffer like it just yeah it was just,
• 28:05
  you know one of my favorite lines from a friend of mine he's in the music industry
• 28:10
  it's say that's right sex drugs rock and roll and gaffer tape and i'm like that is exactly.
• 28:17
  Yeah so creative wise i'm curious do you think that this like level of creativity
• 28:22
  is something that we all innately have and that can be cultivated over time?
• 28:29
  Yeah. Yeah, I do. I think it comes down to...
• 28:36
  That question reminded me of an online webcomic that I saw where there's this,
• 28:45
  girl who's drawing something and then off-panel someone says, wow, you really...
• 28:53
  You're an amazing draw. I wish I could draw like you. No, well,
• 28:57
  I practice," she says, right? And then the next panel, oh, it must be a gift from God.
• 29:01
  And then she said, well, no, I just practice a lot. And then she's like.
• 29:07
  I'll never understand how people are so talented.
• 29:10
  Well, I practice a lot, you know, and that's not to say that I don't believe
• 29:15
  that, you know, things are given from God.
• 29:18
  I'm a Christian, but I also, I don't,
• 29:23
  but it is frustrating to me when you hear all these tropes of what I just kind
• 29:30
  of, you know, suggested there of,
• 29:34
  I'll never understand how some people can do it. Well, yes, you do.
• 29:38
  Or if someone says, you know, man, I wish I could do that, you know,
• 29:43
  X, Y, and Z as good as, you know, said person.
• 29:47
  You either don't mean what you're saying right now or you do mean what you're
• 29:52
  saying and you're going to start
• 29:54
  practicing out the wazoo like the person that you want to do it like.
• 29:58
  You know it's i i you know it's it really is are are you willing to put in the
• 30:05
  the work to it and and i so i i don't believe that it's that you know,
• 30:11
  myself or anybody who is a legend in the field of creating magic or even outside
• 30:18
  the field i don't believe there's anything necessarily special about them. Sorry, guys.
• 30:26
  I just think that it's what they wanted to kind of devote their style of thinking
• 30:32
  towards and devote their lives to.
• 30:34
  And a lot of them have been able to reap the rewards of that.
• 30:38
  Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I've always said that, like,
• 30:42
  I think that the passion drives creativity sometimes. And what I mean by that
• 30:46
  is that, like, when you have a passion for something.
• 30:50
  The work to to get the talent is not laborious anymore,
• 30:56
  because anyone can get talented at something right like talent you can build
• 31:01
  but passion you can't make like passion is there or it's not you know yeah i
• 31:07
  love that yeah yeah and i've always felt that that's kind of the key thing where,
• 31:12
  you know there's there's kids out there that can play the piano absolutely amazingly
• 31:15
  not because they love it because if you know they were forced to you know that's a really good example,
• 31:21
  yeah and so i think that when you have a passion for something,
• 31:25
  and you're self-driven to just constantly like just devour it you know there's
• 31:28
  people in this listening to this right now that just like
• 31:31
  love magic and want to like watch watch it when they get home listen to this
• 31:35
  while they drive into gigs you know and
• 31:37
  read books before they go to bed like they just devour magic in all forms you
• 31:42
  know and that's a passion that like you you can't really force upon someone
• 31:46
  you know it's something that be there and yeah it's it's interesting because,
• 31:51
  you know we all appreciate magic in different ways and we all express it in
• 31:54
  different ways and I think the creativity is a fun way to express it some people
• 31:57
  just express doing things with their own voice you know I get that,
• 32:02
  I was yeah and you make a good point of that in the book actually but I just
• 32:05
  wanted to ask like I think I think that the exercise we did earlier is that
• 32:10
  would you say that's probably the best way to just get people thinking creatively
• 32:14
  in which we'll just look at an object and go, okay.
• 32:18
  No, I don't think it's the best way, but it's my way.
• 32:23
  It's the way that I've discovered that my brain thrives on putting things together.
• 32:32
  And I think it's something I think you'll notice if anyone plays this video
• 32:36
  back. I've never used the word creativity to describe me because I don't consider myself creative.
• 32:44
  And I don't say that in a fishing for compliments way.
• 32:49
  Because I have this thing, and I do this in my lectures sometimes,
• 32:54
  where I'd say you don't need to be creative in order to create.
• 33:00
  And being creative is only one motivating factor in order to create.
• 33:07
  And I say there's kind of three main ways. You can be creative,
• 33:10
  you can be obsessive, or you can be desperate. Or any combination of the three.
• 33:16
  What does desperate mean? I wasn't really, I was with you until that one.
• 33:20
  Oh, desperate. As in, if you're on a stranded island, right,
• 33:24
  and you've never had any history of being, you know, a creative soul,
• 33:30
  and you only have, you know, a few sticks, some vines, you know,
• 33:34
  some sand, you know, and all the, and you don't have much to get off the island,
• 33:37
  but you need to get off the island.
• 33:39
  You're not going to be like, well, I'm not a creative person,
• 33:42
  so I guess I'm going to be stuck here.
• 33:45
  Right? You're in a desperate situation. You're going to be doing things that you don't typically...
• 33:51
  That you wouldn't typically be able to do or think to do. I was talking with
• 33:55
  Eric Tate on the Penguin Magic podcast, and he actually said that when he creates
• 34:00
  cool shit, that's the reason, that's his motivating factor, is that he is desperate.
• 34:05
  So when he needs to fill a spot in the show, for example, and he has certain
• 34:11
  things that needs to fit, but he doesn't have that, well, he's not just throwing
• 34:17
  paint at the walls because that's where his brain naturally needs to be.
• 34:20
  He's not obsessing over because that's where his brain naturally needs to be
• 34:24
  he's actually just solving a problem that needs to be solved for that particular
• 34:29
  part of the show so he's desperate in that particular way,
• 34:32
  that makes sense that makes a lot of sense yeah because i was sort of thinking
• 34:36
  like when have i been desperate like when i've had problems when i've got a
• 34:39
  problem that i need to fix right that's where the creativity comes from it's
• 34:42
  like i got this thing but it's not quite working and then i
• 34:45
  yeah i see it as a problem and i've got to polish it up right that makes a lot lot more sense.
• 34:50
  One more thing before we jump into talking about Eric's book and your other
• 34:53
  creations is just a quick question with regards to when you've come up with
• 34:57
  methods. And I found this very early in my career, and I'm sure that a lot of
• 35:00
  folks listening to this are probably going to go through the same situation.
• 35:04
  And it's when you create something only to find out that either the idea or
• 35:08
  the method or something about it has existed for the past 50 plus years.
• 35:13
  It's somewhere entire ballad somewhere in like you know.
• 35:18
  How many times has that happened to yourself all the time right all the time and if,
• 35:26
  And it doesn't go away, right? It's not like, you know, you're in the beginning
• 35:32
  processes of, oh, maybe I want to get into this magic invention thing.
• 35:35
  And then you come up with something and you're like, oh, that happened,
• 35:39
  you know, 50 years ago. Or, oh, this is a new one. But someone else just came
• 35:43
  up with that and they beat me by this much, right?
• 35:47
  You know, when I was in that part, I was trying to convince myself,
• 35:52
  oh, well, that's going to go away when, you know, I become more established.
• 35:56
  It doesn't. And now all the time you're coming up with something new.
• 36:00
  And now the thing that does change is you might get more of a well-defined spidey
• 36:04
  sense as of to what has been done before and what hasn't.
• 36:10
  Or you just might be more well-read and you'll just know more.
• 36:15
  But no, that just doesn't go away. But I think,
• 36:20
  the thing that you can do is remind yourself that it's much better to come up
• 36:27
  with a great idea that's already been done than to come up with a really shitty
• 36:32
  idea that has never been done.
• 36:36
  Agreed. now now and i i say that while still agreeing with like what blake says and you know like.
• 36:44
  Shitty ideas are are a good jumping off point but what i mean in this example of course is you know
• 36:49
  you're you become married to this idea that you don't think it should you think
• 36:52
  it's really good right you know that's i gotta yeah i gotta agree with that
• 36:55
  because i think you know one of the most interesting things that i learned
• 36:59
  in my more recent years like past three years was hanging out with mario lopez and he was saying like,
• 37:07
  when you're creating or when you want to work on something
• 37:11
  don't try to work on something that's perfect or been around for a thousand
• 37:14
  years like oh my version like invisible deck it's like dude the invisible deck
• 37:18
  is like stellar perfect leave it alone like what you should be doing is looking for weak effects,
• 37:23
  you know and challenging yourself to improve upon them if you want to make an
• 37:27
  impact or find a way to have the biggest impact is to find things that are weak
• 37:31
  and add strength to them.
• 37:33
  And I was like, that's a really interesting creative mindset to have in a means
• 37:40
  of fishing for an effect. So thank you, Mario Lopez. You're all right.
• 37:44
  You're all right. You're all right. In Eric, you have his book,
• 37:48
  Cultivating Creativity.
• 37:50
  Your title was chapter five. It's this, it's time to don your magic goggles.
• 37:56
  What does that mean to don your magic goggles?
• 38:00
  Yeah, I think I kind of teased it a little bit early, so sorry that I put my
• 38:04
  cart before the horse, but basically it means that it's….
• 38:11
  An effective way the way that it works for me to to to create new ideas isn't,
• 38:19
  okay i'm done with my nine to five i'm going to come down here and sit down
• 38:24
  turn on the clock the timer and for the next you know 45 minutes the next hour
• 38:30
  i'll be able to i'm just going to sit down and try to come up with ideas,
• 38:34
  But rather, it's always the case.
• 38:38
  I'm just seeing the world maybe a little differently than other people do.
• 38:43
  And so that's what I mean by the magic goggles. You see it through a magic lens.
• 38:49
  So when you go into a Staples store, do you have Staples in Australia?
• 38:55
  We have what's called Officeworks. Same thing. Oh, okay. Same thing.
• 38:59
  So you go to a Staples and you don't, you don't see, uh, you don't see stationary.
• 39:05
  You see, you see opportunities to build gaffes. You see opportunities to,
• 39:12
  to buy, buy an interesting item in bulk, right?
• 39:17
  Cause you know, you don't usually get opportunities to buy, you know,
• 39:21
  30 Sharpies, uh, but you can at Staples, right?
• 39:25
  So you see opportunities that other people just might not, right?
• 39:31
  And so you do that. And I think that's kind of the basis of the Dawn of the Magic Gargles.
• 39:39
  One of the things that really struck me in that book when I read it was you
• 39:43
  don't need an original method, but you need an original voice.
• 39:49
  And I'd love to get your perspective on that. Yeah. Because...
• 39:55
  Magic methods are you know, few and far between you know, there's very few new
• 40:01
  things under the sun, I still think there's new things under the sun,
• 40:03
  I don't believe, I don't agree with all the magicians that say there's nothing
• 40:07
  new under the sun, I think there's a few things left,
• 40:10
  but they are few and far between but,
• 40:13
  so it's very I always like to think just in life, in terms of likely and unlikely,
• 40:20
  right it's very unlikely that we'll come up with a brand new revolutionary magic method.
• 40:26
  But very likely we'll be able to use our voice to express something magically,
• 40:34
  that hasn't been done before. Yeah.
• 40:37
  You know, so the, you know, I like likely unlikely, I think in terms of odds,
• 40:41
  the odds of you, Nick K, being you are astronomical.
• 40:48
  The odds that you would even exist are so close to zero. It's statistically zero. You are.
• 40:58
  Yeah. Right. So as unlikely as that is, you beat the odds with that.
• 41:06
  So because of that, you actually have very good odds of using that unique voice
• 41:11
  that we've just proven is statistically very unique to express something that,
• 41:17
  no one's ever expressed before.
• 41:19
  Wow. Wow. Okay.
• 41:23
  It's really interesting, yeah, that you put it like that. Very unique perspective.
• 41:27
  Yeah. I've got to let that one marinate after this chat, I think.
• 41:32
  Too deep. Some people you chat to and you can belly wet your ankles.
• 41:35
  You chat to Kyle Purnell and the Magic Eyes podcast and you drown. No, don't drown.
• 41:44
  Okay, so,
• 41:47
  we were chatting before the show, and just given the time, there's so much I
• 41:51
  would love to chat to you about, but I've got to leave a few chats out as I
• 41:54
  only have an hour of your time.
• 41:55
  You were mentioning that you had a particularly interesting gig story.
• 42:02
  Yes. Are we okay to share that? Can we go into the segment? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do it.
• 42:08
  So gig stories is a section of the show where we talk about little magic moments
• 42:11
  either while performing in our day-to-day or while doing gigs and kyle.
• 42:17
  I i saw a child behind you a moment ago just make sure that like they're cool
• 42:20
  before you share this story are they cool i don't know,
• 42:23
  let me just check yeah yeah joe make sure that little people are okay and i'll
• 42:27
  tell the guys a story in the meantime so i i was performing uh this weekend
• 42:32
  at a at a corporate it was about two just a little banquet thing for a particular company,
• 42:38
  crazy unorganized, crazy unorganized.
• 42:40
  And I was supposed to be doing just a quick 20 minute, 20 minute set.
• 42:43
  And I was just going to do great. They told me like, we got a camera and everything
• 42:46
  like that. I'm like, you know what, cool. I'll do, I'll do my Ruby's cube stuff
• 42:49
  then. Cause that plays really nice to camera.
• 42:51
  And, and then I was doing my routine as per normal.
• 42:55
  And when I handed out for the portion of my routine where the cube gets mixed
• 42:59
  up, I was like, here, go ahead.
• 43:00
  Cause I was able to walk around the tables and have it on camera look great
• 43:03
  you know but i gave him the the cube to mix and what he did was he took the
• 43:07
  cube put it in his lap and then just started rotating the corners of every,
• 43:11
  cube like he didn't actually mix it like he was just purposely there to be a
• 43:14
  jerk so i had to remove like three phases of that routine just to combat that
• 43:18
  but it's just remarkable like every dude i brought up in the routine i would
• 43:23
  ask him to do something and they just like.
• 43:26
  Wouldn't do it. I'm like, that's not what I asked. I'm like, that's not what I said.
• 43:29
  And I would do it again. And I got to the point where it just became the throughput
• 43:32
  of the show because they were like the guys in this particular company and by
• 43:37
  the particular nature were just so, so egotistical.
• 43:41
  So, I don't know what was wrong with them, but I got to the point where I was just like.
• 43:46
  I was doing my cup and ball routine and I just said to him, I go,
• 43:49
  dude, are you married? He's like, yeah. I go, well, you are very bad at taking
• 43:52
  orders for a married man.
• 43:54
  And I see his wife light up and then I'm doing my bits. And then I do this whole,
• 43:59
  like I do this whole bit, you know, with the cups and balls where I put a ball
• 44:02
  down and I push the ball and it makes a little squeaky noise.
• 44:04
  I've got a little squeaky number here.
• 44:06
  And I just thought, I'm just going to, I'm just going to use this opportunity
• 44:09
  just to highlight how bad everyone I've chosen is to work with and to perform
• 44:14
  with because they were literally ruining my show.
• 44:16
  And in the spirit of Gregory Wilson, if you can't hide it, highlight it. And so I did.
• 44:22
  And I just put a spotlight on every guy who was just there to ruin the show, do the wrong thing.
• 44:28
  Every time I asked him to do something, they wouldn't do it.
• 44:30
  I asked him a question that would look like it was just like,
• 44:32
  they're just ruining the entire show. And then at the end of it,
• 44:35
  I just took it, won him over.
• 44:37
  I did my fruit shop act, ran, then I gave everyone a piece of fruit and I gave
• 44:41
  the biggest douche bag a lemon to say thanks for your hard work.
• 44:44
  And then I'm, you know, I finished up and left and they loved me by the end
• 44:47
  of it. So like I totally won them over, but they were just engineered to ruin
• 44:50
  the show. And, you know, sometimes it's going to happen in gigs and you got
• 44:55
  to learn to pivot sometimes. So I could, I've given them a better show.
• 44:58
  Yes. Did I put in a great show regardless?
• 45:01
  Definitely. And so these things will happen for the listeners going through
• 45:04
  this. Don't be discouraged.
• 45:06
  Awful people are going to awful people. And, you know, it's unfortunately,
• 45:10
  you know this guy who purposely ruined that cube.
• 45:13
  Robbed 199 people of an awesome piece of magic because of his actions and you
• 45:20
  know i will have to take some responsibility for choosing him but,
• 45:24
  i honestly thought i chose the nicest guy in the room and it was a very fellow
• 45:27
  centric room in a sense that there was lots of men and other than that there
• 45:30
  was like their partners so you can imagine what sort of company they were with
• 45:33
  that being said leave it to your own.
• 45:36
  So, Kyle, I'm interested to hear this story, dude. You have it before.
• 45:40
  Take your time. I got my coffee. I'm all ears.
• 45:44
  Actually, this is a fairly recent story. So I was just at a wedding doing a gig back in the summer.
• 45:50
  And I was hired to do my extended cocktail hour. So I did a cocktail hour meal
• 45:55
  and then, you know, just stayed around a little bit. It was called my all-night
• 45:59
  party pack, right? So I stayed around a little bit more and did some stuff.
• 46:03
  But after the meal, a lot of people
• 46:05
  were feeling good with some liquid encouragement inside them, right?
• 46:11
  And so the dichotomy of.
• 46:18
  Beforehand and afterhand was quite stark.
• 46:23
  So I went up to this group of women who were drinking after the meal and started doing some stuff.
• 46:31
  And I have this piece in my walk-around routine where I do a one-coin routine,
• 46:37
  and then I produce another coin and another coin, produce five coins,
• 46:41
  then five more coins, and it's like a 10-coin production, right?
• 46:45
  So I'm done with those 10 coins. I give them to one of the ladies,
• 46:50
  then I turn to somebody else, and I start doing a card routine,
• 46:53
  and I start having them sign a card.
• 46:56
  As I'm doing this and I'm having him sign a card, I look up briefly and I see,
• 47:04
  streaks of silver just shooting through the air.
• 47:09
  And I'm like, this chick is throwing my coins through the air.
• 47:15
  It has to be what's going on. And I looked up. I looked over at her.
• 47:21
  And she was.
• 47:25
  She was throwing my coins. But specifically, she had taken it upon herself to,
• 47:32
  take these coins and chuck them at the exposed sweaty cleavage of the other female guests.
• 47:43
  And they were like 12 feet away. I mean, like this was not a short,
• 47:47
  a short distance and she was fucking nailing it.
• 47:52
  She was, she gets lefty. She gets righty. She gets right down the crack.
• 47:57
  It was phenomenal.
• 48:01
  And what I wanted to say was, ma'am, this is unbelievably hot and I would love to keep watching.
• 48:11
  This is also highly inappropriate and can you please make sure that i have all
• 48:15
  10 coins afterwards but she was getting it she was and they were sticking right
• 48:20
  because it was hot and sweaty and it was it was i've never i've never,
• 48:27
  i've never been in that situation where someone was drunk enough to do something
• 48:32
  so inappropriate but also,
• 48:35
  i guess be drunk enough to like gain a superpower and be like really good at
• 48:39
  what they're doing that's very,
• 48:43
  funny about that and so she was so she was doing it and when i asked her just
• 48:47
  make sure you have all 10 at the end she went around she got all 10 coins and
• 48:50
  she gave them to me like she,
• 48:53
  she wasn't like what you were just describing she wasn't she wasn't a dick or
• 48:55
  anything she was she just was not really in control of her actions,
• 49:00
  and yet still hyper in control of her actions it was the weirdest dichotomy
• 49:05
  of things I've ever seen, but it was phenomenal.
• 49:08
  I still haven't watched those coins. Kidding. Totally couldn't.
• 49:14
  That's a good one. Wow. So, Kyle, as we draw this interview to a close,
• 49:22
  you know, I want to take a moment to celebrate some of your creations.
• 49:25
  I mean, we've got, you know, a list as long as my arm.
• 49:29
  We've got Lightyear, Big Picture, The Brain Child, Crossfade, and Eagle Eye.
• 49:33
  Let's talk about some of them and maybe even talk about, and you probably won't,
• 49:39
  but I am that guy that will push and go, what's coming?
• 49:44
  You know what I mean? So grace yourself. I'm going to do that.
• 49:47
  Let's talk about, maybe we'll start with Lightyear. Yeah?
• 49:50
  Yeah. Fun fact about Lightyear, I just found out earlier this year,
• 49:53
  it has a patent. It has a U.S. patent, which is really cool.
• 49:57
  Yeah. Very few tricks have a patent. Now, you know.
• 50:02
  I don't know how useful it is, but it does have a patent. And so that's really
• 50:06
  cool. That's the trick that it did on Fool Us.
• 50:09
  And it's a trick that it's a great example of kind of how I create versus what
• 50:17
  I perform because it will probably always be one of my proudest creations,
• 50:23
  because it was such a nightmare to bring to fruition.
• 50:29
  But yeah i don't i gotta ask how how how even how even like how like yeah.
• 50:37
  Like how do you even prototype that idea like that well so i was i got a little
• 50:43
  ahead of myself with it because at first take half a second to explain the effect is people,
• 50:50
  imagine like little pieces of plastic with holes in them and then you basically
• 50:53
  square them up and you have a revelation where like all the holes come into
• 50:57
  a perfect alignment and right yeah and it's not a force that i think that's
• 51:01
  the important part right like it's
• 51:03
  it's a freely named two-digit number right,
• 51:07
  so what was funny is i i had the method in my head pretty much immediately and
• 51:12
  that's not a flex that's just it is it was the method the like the actual system
• 51:18
  was fairly straightforward,
• 51:21
  but the uh what was really fascinating was when I went into it and I'm like,
• 51:27
  oh, I know what this is going to be.
• 51:29
  So I just started taking some like scrap playing cards and a hole punch.
• 51:33
  I'm like, oh, I'll just make this right here, made a one, and then I make the
• 51:37
  adjustments that I needed to. Okay, now I'm going to make a two.
• 51:40
  What I didn't account for was.
• 51:43
  When you're trying to make certain punches, a hole punch only goes so far into a card, right?
• 51:51
  So you can't make all the holes that you need to. It's also,
• 51:54
  proportionally speaking, a
• 51:55
  hole punch is very big. It makes very big holes for the size of the card.
• 52:00
  And so I was running out of room. And I couldn't get to make the actual number.
• 52:06
  So I was having to fold the cards in half and make one in there.
• 52:11
  And then I would go back to the one, and then it didn't look like a one anymore
• 52:15
  because now there's all these extra holes.
• 52:18
  And I'm like, oh, okay. So that's a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.
• 52:25
  And so I actually explained it to my dad. And my dad is not a magician,
• 52:29
  but he is a very logical thinker.
• 52:32
  And so sometimes when I'm stuck, I ask him some things. and i forget what he
• 52:36
  suggested but it was the thing that made me think,
• 52:41
  graph paper so i took so i'm like let's use graph paper for this so we took
• 52:46
  a piece of graph paper and i put it into like quadrants,
• 52:50
  and then i then i plotted the coordinates of where every single hole had to be,
• 52:56
  and i and i made an x on that coordinate and then depending on the rotations that i had to make i would,
• 53:04
  flip the coordinates and put
• 53:06
  the inverse of the coordinates in whichever quadrant had to be that and.
• 53:13
  And then so and then i realized that was working and i wasn't doing the overlap
• 53:16
  thing and i wasn't going to accidentally make extra holes and all that stuff
• 53:20
  i was realizing it was working and because of the actual method i only really had to get to,
• 53:27
  eight i had to get one two three four five six seven and eight because a nine
• 53:31
  is just a six upside down right so i already had a six so i was like so i got
• 53:37
  to seven i got seven all plotted and it was really full and i thought,
• 53:43
  if i get this eight,
• 53:46
  This is the happiest day of my life.
• 53:51
  This is what I find interesting. There's a patent for this. Who is following this?
• 53:56
  This is the master Jedi level thought process.
• 54:01
  AI couldn't figure this out, dude. This is just so gross.
• 54:08
  So I finally plotted the eight. And there was one coordinate that wasn't perfect, but it was good enough.
• 54:16
  And I got it and I can't, and I just, I kept sitting there thinking,
• 54:21
  I can't, no, I can't believe I just did this.
• 54:24
  I can't believe it happened. Because this is like months on end.
• 54:28
  And in the back of my head, I'm like, I'm pretty sure it's possible, but it might not be.
• 54:34
  And then when it was, like when in the same moment, I realized two things.
• 54:39
  One, it was possible. And two, I did the thing that was possible. Right.
• 54:43
  And so that was just an amazing, amazing moment.
• 54:47
  But then all I had was these coordinates. Right. So now I had to actually make the things.
• 54:51
  So but because they're all plotted, I can't just use a hole punch.
• 54:55
  And I needed something a lot smaller. So I went to Michael's and got a leather punch kit.
• 54:59
  And so now I'm here with this template of graph paper over top of what I'm actually
• 55:06
  going to punch the cards in.
• 55:08
  I put that on top of a board and I take the leather punch and a hammer.
• 55:12
  And I start hammering out these holes by hand one at a time.
• 55:17
  And until I got the first functional set of light year cards. Unreal, dude. Yeah.
• 55:24
  Yeah. It was wild.
• 55:27
  I was on a mission, but because I didn't think that it would,
• 55:31
  I didn't want to die without it being a thing.
• 55:35
  It sounds weird, but.
• 55:38
  If you contrast that with something like Dropped Call, my vanishing cell phone
• 55:42
  thing, I do that all the time.
• 55:45
  But I don't consider that one of my proudest creations because I knew that if
• 55:50
  I didn't create that, somebody else would have.
• 55:53
  It's vanishing crayons with a cell phone. Anybody could have come up with that.
• 55:57
  And so, but with Lightyear, I was like, it needs to be something that exists
• 56:02
  on Earth. And I don't know if anybody else would do it.
• 56:06
  So that that was the biggest thing that kind of kept propelling me to to get to that point wow,
• 56:14
  you know what you're right yeah it's like if not you then who you know there's
• 56:20
  that 12 monkey notion that's like oh look i created this thing and then sure
• 56:23
  enough someone on the other side of the planet's done it but you're right like,
• 56:27
  i wonder how many folks of the billions of folks we have on this planet are
• 56:32
  punching holes in leather or using leather punches rather into cards to,
• 56:37
  yeah you know you're right and there's there is a sort of like a duty almost
• 56:41
  that you probably felt in order to be like i have to give birth to this,
• 56:44
  well and i did find out then too not the same thing but somebody else the other
• 56:48
  side of the world in spain dante i think it's the name he uh he.
• 56:55
  He was he came up with a very similar premise but it was with a deck of cards
• 57:00
  instead of just things like that and it wasn't a number it was a card,
• 57:05
  like a freely named card now obviously the mechanics are a lot different and i think he has to like,
• 57:12
  don't quote me on this and dante if you're listening apologies if i'm wrong
• 57:15
  about this but i think i think he has to not use the entire deck for whatever card is named, right?
• 57:22
  The cool thing about this is that all cards are used every single time. Wow. Crazy. Crazy.
• 57:30
  Yeah. I mean, look, there's so many to, let's, let's speak upon,
• 57:33
  uh, if you guys have a question, by all means, ask which one you know about,
• 57:35
  like, we've got like Crossfade, we got Eagle Eye, you know, your choice.
• 57:38
  Like, what would you like to sort of share?
• 57:41
  Crossfades i i really like crossfade because it kind of goes along with
• 57:48
  this it's a really good example what i like to talk about i was talking about
• 57:52
  in eric's book where where i talk about like the magic sponge and that's sponge
• 57:56
  being the the the resources that you have,
• 58:01
  and we will try to squeeze as much magic out of the magic sponge as possible right,
• 58:07
  but then the question is okay great you squeeze as much as you can now let's
• 58:12
  take some scissors cut the magic sponge in half,
• 58:15
  And can you squeeze as much magic as you just did out of half a sponge as when you had a full sponge?
• 58:24
  And that's what I like with CrossFit, because really it does something very
• 58:28
  similar to a lot of those, like Eric Jones has Twisted and all these vanishing
• 58:34
  card in a sandwich type thing, right?
• 58:37
  But the idea here is you have, I didn't want an extra card, an extra thickness.
• 58:46
  I didn't want breakable material that might not square up flush all the time.
• 58:52
  You might have to maintain it. You might have to fix it. You might have to replace it, right?
• 58:56
  So with this, I got rid of that, right? So you're cutting the sponge in half.
• 59:02
  But because I'm doing a different method now, you get a very crazy slow motion
• 59:08
  advantage that you didn't get with the original right so you're,
• 59:13
  you're taking away some of the sponge but still getting not only the same but
• 59:21
  in some ways of thinking about it you're getting more right,
• 59:25
  so that's that's why crossfit is pretty special to me but it's also it it plays
• 59:30
  really well in the real world too so that's one of those that I do like to just,
• 59:34
  keep in my deck and do at the moment. So it's a big game.
• 59:39
  Now, buddy, we are going into overtime and I don't want to push our friendship,
• 59:42
  but I had like some rapid fires and one very interesting question.
• 59:46
  Can I keep you? Like, do we have to go? Yeah, of course. All right.
• 59:50
  I'm going to try rapid fire this and I'm so sorry if it breeds into like a massive
• 59:53
  Kevin Costner speech, but I want to know like, what's one trick that you wish
• 59:58
  you invented? Like most folks like, oh, I wish I did double cross.
• 1:00:00
  Oh, that's a great question. I wish I had a good answer for you,
• 1:00:03
  a trick that I wish I invented.
• 1:00:07
  For me, it's toolbox, David Stone's toolbox. Toolbox. Oh, tool.
• 1:00:11
  Oh, tool. Yeah, the tool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:15
  I'm going to go with Paul Harris's PH Breakthrough. Ah, interesting choice.
• 1:00:22
  Another one? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:24
  Who is the creative magician you've, well, let me reword that a bit better.
• 1:00:29
  Who's the most creative person magically you've ever met?
• 1:00:34
  The most creative one I've ever met?
• 1:00:39
  I'll give you Tobias Dostal of course and then I'll give you one as well Felice
• 1:00:46
  Ling new name yeah she's fantastic if you don't know her work you need to look her up she's phenomenal,
• 1:00:54
  her name again is Felice Ling Felice Ling she's also in Eric's book actually,
• 1:01:01
  alright yep actually yeah I remember her chapter being quite interesting so let's go with uh,
• 1:01:09
  what's the worst idea you ever had for a trick.
• 1:01:14
  I it's probably my my my newest idea,
• 1:01:19
  which is a a cup a copper silver transpo right it's just one oreo cookie and
• 1:01:25
  it's the two halves of the cookie so one's the cream side and one's,
• 1:01:29
  one's the uncreamed side and they keep switching places okay that's fun Mm-hmm.
• 1:01:38
  What's an everyday object you've always wanted to turn into a magic trick but
• 1:01:42
  haven't quite figured out how to do it?
• 1:01:45
  I don't know if that's exactly what you're looking for, but I've always wanted
• 1:01:48
  to come up with a good two-deck trick. Oh. Right.
• 1:01:54
  I haven't found any two-deck tricks that I really love. And that's an area that
• 1:02:00
  I think I can explore and come up with a good two-deck trick.
• 1:02:02
  So it's not a unique item, but it's something that I am actively trying to figure out.
• 1:02:08
  That's a good challenge. If you were banned from performing card magic for the
• 1:02:11
  rest of your life, what else would you be performing with?
• 1:02:15
  Dollar bills with what dollar bills dollar bills.
• 1:02:21
  What's one trick you perform that still genuinely like fools you even though
• 1:02:25
  you know how it works oh brainchild kind of fools fools you when you're like
• 1:02:31
  there's no way this actually worked and it does work and.
• 1:02:34
  We're talking about not my own material david jonathan has a trick called threesome
• 1:02:39
  which fools me every single time what's that effect it's basically a card is
• 1:02:44
  selected and just genuinely lost in the middle you're not controlling it it's genuinely lost,
• 1:02:49
  in the middle and then three other cards are randomly selected they are added up,
• 1:02:56
  and the total of those three cards is the position down that the selection is,
• 1:03:02
  wow surprised me every time and when when you learn and i recommend everybody
• 1:03:07
  going and purchasing that.
• 1:03:08
  I think it's still available on
• 1:03:09
  Penguin, or you can go on David Jonathan's website and buy it, I'm sure.
• 1:03:13
  When you learn it, it'll fry you too. You'll do it, and it'll work,
• 1:03:17
  but you won't know how it works. Wow.
• 1:03:19
  Okay, two more questions. The best piece of advice another magician ever given you?
• 1:03:24
  I'm going to have to go back to the Dan Harlan thing. I'd rather manipulate
• 1:03:28
  the world around me than have a gimmick for me.
• 1:03:30
  Yeah, perfect. Now, this last question, it's something that I found out about
• 1:03:34
  yourself I was totally unaware of, and I came across some information about
• 1:03:39
  you back in 2021 i was whilst researching yourself,
• 1:03:43
  this has nothing to do with magic but you donated a kidney to someone that you,
• 1:03:49
  didn't even know wasn't related to,
• 1:03:52
  yeah i i know her now actually but but no i didn't know her before i knew her
• 1:03:57
  daughter but i didn't know her wow okay so the legends are true man like.
• 1:04:03
  Let's let's let's finish with this story just to yeah and then we'll close it
• 1:04:07
  out so tell us what happened back in 2021,
• 1:04:10
  you literally gave a big piece of yourself yeah i so i used to love watching
• 1:04:16
  the show american ninja warrior and there was a,
• 1:04:20
  guy on there who i think was younger than me and he was doing really well and
• 1:04:23
  he would always come up he would always wear his shirt that says share your
• 1:04:27
  spare because he had donated a kidney,
• 1:04:30
  and I hadn't thought of it as a spare prior to that.
• 1:04:34
  And I thought, yeah, if you only need one, I would feel guilty about having
• 1:04:37
  two when some people don't have any that are working properly.
• 1:04:41
  So I decided that I wanted to do that, but I didn't, you know,
• 1:04:46
  I didn't really have a preference as to who, to whom.
• 1:04:48
  And so I, I, when I found out that she was looking for one via a facebook post from daughter,
• 1:04:57
  she must be one of the most beloved people in the world because like 15 i forget
• 1:05:02
  what the number was 15 to 20 people like reached out or willing to donate a kidney to her,
• 1:05:09
  and it wasn't going to be me it was going to be a another lady who was a perfect
• 1:05:14
  match and they were moving forward with her then she got pregnant so she wasn't
• 1:05:20
  able to donate in the timeline that they needed her to,
• 1:05:24
  so then it went to me wow yeah.
• 1:05:28
  That's the type of guy carl pernell is everybody that's the type of guy he is
• 1:05:32
  like big hot healthy kidneys,
• 1:05:38
  all around great dude one singular yeah.
• 1:05:45
  Yeah. Like I said at the start of this chat, there's always one person that
• 1:05:51
  really affects me after a hangout at Magic Live. There's typically one.
• 1:05:56
  And this year's adventure was meeting and hanging out with Kyle Purnell.
• 1:06:01
  And after this interview, I just admire you and adore you 10 times as much as
• 1:06:08
  before I caught the plane and flew home.
• 1:06:10
  Kyle, again, thank you so much for being on the show and friends,
• 1:06:14
  if you enjoyed it, do scope out all Kyle's stuff. We'll of course finish this
• 1:06:18
  episode the way we do all of our episodes by giving you, Kyle,
• 1:06:21
  the final word. Again, everyone loved it. The chat is fully lit.
• 1:06:25
  Please do come back for another in chat sometime. Would you do that for us? 100%.
• 1:06:30
  Amazing. All right, buddy, I'm going to leave you with the final word.
• 1:06:38
  Hey Kyle Pernell here And I just wanted to thank Nick and everybody With the
• 1:06:42
  Magic Guys for having me on Remember that it's always better to manipulate the
• 1:06:46
  world around you Than have a gimmick for you
• 1:06:49
  Feel free to check out all my stuff on Penguin Magic And Vanishing Inc.
• 1:06:53
  And wherever you buy Magic Any support is fantastic This is the way that I support
• 1:06:58
  myself and my three kids So thanks so much for being a part of it Let's be Facebook
• 1:07:03
  friends And until next time, we'll see you later.
• 1:07:07
  Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now. Disappear now.
• 1:07:13
  But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.