David did it for real, didn’t he? I thought he worked on it with a doctor(or x-ray technician) who helped him determine the path that would avoid major veins/arteries and he re-pierced himself over and over until he built up scar tissue straight through.
I thought the lady on Fool Us also did it for real and it was the “real” part of the act. Then again, I thought she also really pulled the thread from her sternum.
The “fake” part is her eating the thread, which is just a gag.
Off-topic (and I’m not mad), but Mahaloth, you attributed a quote to me that was actually originally posted by Oneilla. It’s trivial in this case, but still probably something the mods wouldn’t like. Cheers. 
I have no idea if what you said about David Blaine is true, but I would believe it. That doesn’t count as magic in my book. What a freak show.
Did you guys see Shin Lim’s final on America’s Got Talent?
Latest episode - S05E12 (9/24/18)
Alexandra Duvivier - charming French card shuffler. This seems like the kind of magic trick I could do! I can only assume she orders them by touch (what Penn suspects but doesn’t actually say out loud) since her hands are inside the bag for such a long time, but can it really be that simple?
Christine Barger & Darlene Hollywood (& Carrot Top) - ventriloquism mentalism prediction. Wow, this act was underwhelming. It had so much going for it! The ventriloquist act itself was cringeworthy, the trick anticlimactic. The word my eye focused on was “heart” – but Penn insists it’s all a matter of perspective.
Jamie Allan - iMagician, “digital art.” Neat to watch, but we’ve seen a lot of these tablet tricks on the show before, and I assume it’s the same concept here (Penn made mention to “traditional” camera magic). I’m guessing it’s mostly about choreography, timing and sleight of hand.
Christopher Grace - mentalism phone number prediction. Okay, so I have no idea how this is done, but it’s clear that the guy isn’t even looking at P&T’s keypad and rotary miming while he arranges the post-it notes. Is the number somehow forced beforehand (maybe he swaps phones), or does it have to do with writing it out on the marker board?
Penn Jillette - solo act. Card memorization/differentation through process of elimination. This was pretty impressive. Are we to believe he can memorize all four suits just by looking at half a deck? Juggling trick or magic trick, it’s skillful either way.
I got home late and only saw part of the last fooler and Penn’s trick so far.
My guess is that Penn switched in a prepped deck on the way back to the stage, after all the handling the cards/shuffling part is done, so then its a question of his knowing which half of the deck went to which assistant … and didn’t he get the woman to show or tell him what one of her cards was?
I’d have to write down all the cards each held and look at them for a pattern, something that would make it easier to remember which half each card was in.
Ugh, mentalism and ventriloquism in the same act. Kill me now plz.
Alexandra Duvivier’s act was lovely. I suspect she had a second deck secreted in a pouch inside the bag, but that’s just a guess.
I’m sure Penn switched out his two half decks with ones he memorized when his back was turned and he was walking back onto the stage.
What I got from the Reddit crowd about these tricks…
Alexandra the fooler, they didn’t know. Someone pointed out that they saw Penn bend a card when he put them in the bag and the bent card was in the final deck so the deck wasn’t switched.
The phone number guy either switched out the phone with a lookalike or somehow used a QR code to get it to bring up an app or a webpage that had a fake contacts screen. All of the contacts had different names but the same number. There’s no way they’d put a real random person’s number in a tv show. 926 isn’t even a valid area code. So all the trickery was over and done with by the time Penn had the phone.
The iPad guy was just good sleight of hand accompanied by fancy video.
The ventriloquist’s poster used lenticular printing so that all the words Carrot Top saw were either dog names or stuff you couldn’t easily draw - dog, poodle, honesty, sincerity, collie… and the angle we saw was all different words. So his only choice was to draw a dog like thing while we were like “why not an avocado?”
Penn’s trick - he really did memorize but not on the fly. He split the deck in to A and B and he knows which cards are in each. He let the audience shuffle B. He handed the participants either A or B. In the 10 seconds he looked at dude’s stack and saw which half he had. He then rattled off his well-practiced memorization. Magic!
I have one Alexandra the fooler theory, but I’m hardly expert magician so I’m prepared to be completely off base.
If one corner of every card was cut differently and then all the cards were shaved (with the named cards being shaved in the opposite direction) then in the bag she would have to pile up the cards so they all lined up and then turn them. In order for the named cards to line up they’d have to be upside down from the others.
She didn’t let Penn and Teller mix up the deck until she spread them out onto the table so it wouldn’t have been as noticeable as if they’d shuffled them.
They wondered if she rounded the cards, but seemed to dismiss it. There is definitely a way to feel the 5 cards she needs. No idea.
Did you all notice that the overhead shots of the French magician’s trick were sped up slightly? It wasn’t to hide anything. Looks like she ran long and they chose to do a 10-15% speed-up on her above shots. Or that camera had a really weird frame-rate.
Penn & Teller’s trick: if you don’t have kids you might not be aware, but children can hear tones that adults cannot. My 9-year-old could hear Teller’s signal indicating who had which ball even though I couldn’t. It’s kind of unnerving to know you’re not hearing everything!
So anyone know how Bryan Saint, the VO guy, was able to do the phone charger trick? I know he’s essentially using rope trick techniques, but there’s one move where he ties the shorter cable onto the longer one and merges them and I couldn’t see the break. Also, was Teller able to “charge” the phone after Bryan left? I wasn’t able to see Penn’s screen, but it seems very bold for Saint to leave the evidence with them (and still get the win).
I don’t know if it’s the webrip copy I was viewing, or the speakers on my TV, but I could definitely hear the high-pitched frequency loud and clear. It hurt my ears. (Or maybe I’m just a 9-year-old.)
It would seem to be as simple as putting a battery in the charger block with a switch that activates when the contacts are connected by a conductive material, such as skin.
I’m pretty sure that’s why Teller kept pushing it - and Penn’s phone didn’t indicate it was being charged.
The tape measure trick: He must have the tape set in a way where no matter the distance, it comes out to 178 1/2 inches. He must figure that is about how far away people will move the person. Not sure beyond this.
I heard it fine and so did my wife.
I think it works like a rope trick, where he has a short section of tape in his hand that he can slide along the real tape.
Penn was innuendoing pretty hard that the guy had a little piece of stuff — which he then vanished, without folks noting he vanished anything at all — right? So I’d figure he uses a little slip-over-the-tape section of tape, marked for a distance that’s close enough as not to be laughable, and blocked the join with his hands while showing it, and then palmed that little piece right off, so anyone looking at the tape measure after the trick only sees, well, an ordinary tape measure.
Which does raise the question, how exactly do they decide “fooled”. If I recall correctly, they have said that if they don’t know specifically how its down, it counts as a fooled, even if they figure it out generally. I think the French lady’s trick should have been limited in the ways that it could have been done.
She was a great showman thats for sure.
I’m still catching up on this season, but I wanted to comment on Alexandra Duvivier from the penultimate episode. I loved her! She was funny, self-deprecating, and charming, and she did a great trick!
My first thought was that she slipped in a prepared deck when her hands were behind/inside the bag. But if what ZipperJJ said about the bent card is true, that couldn’t have been the case.
I’ll have to go back and check, but did we ever see the backs of the five reversed cards? Those could have been double-faced cards, and all the cards may have had a textural difference between front and back. Then she could face the cards by feel and show all the backs, except for the five cards that had no backs.
Not certain that’s what happened, of course, but it’s one way it could have been done.