Teller

This is a decent read for Penn & Teller fans. The level of tricks presented tended to fall in a "dad joke" range for me. Some of the tricks were simply beyond my capacity of appreciation and left me with a feeling of "why, just why?" I'm too old, too cynical, too female, or need to bear children.

That being said, there's amusing bits and certainly sections that made me laugh. The writing is a little iffy in spots, but when the topics get slightly more serious (there's a few discussions about show more freedom in entertainment and travel) the voice gets a lot stronger and more engaging.

To those interested in reading this, I would suggest a chapter-at-a-time approach to keep everything lively and fun. show less

Typical Penn and Teller, i.e., interesting, irreverent, and hilarious. The reader gets a basic list of interesting things to do with food, including how to make Jesus appear on a tortilla when you heat it up, how to eat tref, and the classic poke-your-eye-out-at-the-restaurant-table-and-have-white-goo-squirt-all-over-while-you-scream-in-agony trick.

The original issue of this work came with several props including an "untearable" sugar packet made of kevlar. You're supposed to surreptitiously show more put it in a bowl of such packets at a restaurant and wait for the unsuspecting victim to encounter the "untearable" packet. I put "untearable" in "quotes" because it turned out that particularly stubborn people could actually tear the packet open! To make matters worse, in the initial printing the overseas publisher had filled the packet with some caustic agent instead of sugar (or sugar substitute) which could have caused some non-humorous poisoning. The same year on an NPR interview, Penn and Teller mentioned this, and gave out a toll-free number to call for a replacement kevlar packet that did not use poison.

My favorite? A tie between the electric pickle and the experiment with the high powered rifle and watermelon (with a gruesome tie in to the assassination of JFK).

Bon appetit! show less

When I was working at Random House, there was a big to-do because included in each book was a packet of impossible-to- open packet of "sugar" so you could prank your friends by giving them a sugar packet they'd go crazy trying to open at a fancy restaurant. The packet was supposed to be made of Kevlar so it couldn't be ripped. Well, not only were the packets relatively easy to open, but the sugar substitute inside turned out to be toxic. Oops! So they had to recall the books. A-hahahahahaha. show more Still, this is a really fun book -- I entertained people at a few dinners with the ghost sugar cube trick. show less

I love Penn & Teller, but this is not my favorite of their books. i'm thrilled to have the entire script for their movie in the book, but it's so hard to read the script...and unfortunately, much of the material sandwiched between the script is not up to their usual standard.