Come oh come ye tea-thirsty restless ones -- the kettle boils, bubbles and sings, musically. ~ Rabindranath Tagore
Good evening, Kibitzers! My dad had his 85th birthday about ten days ago. Since he enjoys going to the theater and loves magic, I bought two tickets to the limited-run Penn & Teller show on Broadway, for this past Sunday evening. While I was at it, I made a dinner reservation in the fancy revolving rooftop restaurant of the very same giant Marriott where the Marquis Theatre is located. And then I booked a limo to bring us door to door, because walking very far isn't his best thing these days. And then I didn't bring along a camera, so please bear with me as I tell you this story without any of my own images. Join me below the orange velvet ropes for more about what happened.
So, the restaurant, called The View, proved to be a good choice. Their menu isn't very exotic, making it a good place for a somewhat cranky 85-year-old man to eat, but the food was of good quality and prepared nicely. I really am sorry I don't have food pr0n photos. The salad was a wonder of composition.
I had noted on my Open Table reservation that it was his birthday, so without further prompting, they showed up at dessert with a complimentary small chocolate mousse cake, inscribed in gold leaf and encandled. They could not have been nicer.
Also, as mentioned, the place rotates, about once an hour. It was daylight when we were there, so the video below isn't indicative of what we were seeing, but the timing was just right, with the sun getting low in the sky, to make the top of my favorite building sparkle. Chrysler's cars may get hacked, but their building is just fabulous. (The picture at left doesn't do it justice -- it glitters.)
This video is a full rotation, speeded up to take only a couple of minutes.
If you are not familiar with the work of Penn & Teller, I can't see how I can acquaint you properly in this little diary. (Here's a profile and an interview.) They're very talented magicians who could not be more clear that there is no such thing as magic, or mindreading, or, for that matter, God. They're funny and obviously smart; I would probably not like to hang out with them, or who knows, maybe I would, but in any case I enjoy their act. I first saw them live in the early 80s, in a little off-Broadway theater, because I'd heard some buzz, and now, they're a big deal.
They didn't do this trick in the show, but here's an example of what they do. John Cleese is the helper in this case. Teller never speaks, even when not submerged in water; Penn Jillette more than makes up for him.
And here's a tiny bit of a trick they do do in the show. It opens the show, in fact. Let me set it up for you. They call for a volunteer from the audience, one who knows how to shoot video on their cell phone. This person, they say, will shoot video onstage from an angle that shows how the trick is done. Someone is selected, and when the volunteer comes up, they're asked to have a friend in the audience call, so we can hear their phone's ringtone.
This done, they take the phone and do a bunch of business with its video, shooting selfies and the audience, then bringing on (and off) a big cardboard cutout of fellow Las Vegas magician Criss Angel for the volunteer to pose with. Then they take the cell phone and drop it into a large empty styofoam cup with a lid. There's some more business, during which the audience sees, but the volunteer does not, that the phone is popped out of the cup and tossed into a giant bucket that's hanging from an overhead hook, one that is quickly raised to some 20 feet above the stage, still in view of the audience. At length, Penn sets the cup on the floor and stomps it, but of course the phone is gone.
Then he asks the friend in the audience to call the phone again, and instructs the audience to point to the source of the ringtone. Everyone's expecting to point to the hanging bucket. But no! The ringing is way back in the audience. It's coming from under a seat. A small foam cooler is extracted and passed hand-to-hand to the front, and up to the stage. In the cooler, packed in ice, is a whole tilapia. Teller chops the head off the fish, and out from the center, sealed in plastic, comes the phone. Another call confirms it's the volunteer's.
This video is not from our specific performance of the trick, but it does indeed show how at least the main part of the trick is done. As usual when tricks are explained, it makes you go, Duh! And, of course, LOL, when they announce at the end that the trick is entitled, "Cell Fish."
If you can't play video, I'll tell you. The audience member's phone left the stage early, on the back of the Criss Angel cutout, where a replacement phone was stashed. (The ruminating over which volunteer to pick was about who had a similar phone -- potential volunteers were told to wave their phones in the air.) The volunteer never held the phone or saw much of it after that. It was the replacement phone that got tossed into the bucket.
The assistant in the wings got the real phone early, wrapped it up and stuffed it into the fish. How the cooler got under the seat in the theater, we are left to figure out ourselves.
At some point, Penn talks about people who can't stand mystery. He's not talking, he says, about scientists or other people who study to learn the truth. He's talking about people who are so disturbed that some things are not known that they dive for cover in a system that doesn't allow any questions or any thinking. I always wonder how many people go to those shows and nod their heads and laugh at the jokes, never realizing that speech is about them.
Anyway! Good show! Near the end, they disappeared a live cow dressed as an elephant, which was probably worth the ticket price right there. Discuss!
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Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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