I cringe at the memory of begging my parents to buy me the overpriced “Advanced Fine Edition” of Kreskin’s ESP. For their hard-earned money, I got a pendulum (with cards marked “Finance,” “Travel,” “Career,” and “Love”—this is science?), a board, some ESP cards, and a pamphlet—all junk. The pendulum, moved (ideomotor effect, like Ouija boards) and the other stuff just didn’t work. My parents sat with me many evenings and we tried to get some results. We were wasting our time.
After several weeks of disappointing “experiments,” I stumbled across a book on “mentalism” (I think it was Dunninger) and realized Kreskin had duped me. I felt humilitated and betrayed. It wasn’t until I was 18 that Teller, James Randi, and Martin Gardner restored my love of science. Since then, a good part of my career has been dedicated to making sure others are not bilked by scumbags like Kreskin.
—Penn Jillette, letter to The Skeptical Inquirer
The Amazing Kreskin will perform February 18 & 19 at the Downtown Cabaret, Bridgeport.
You really shouldn’t go without first reading about The Amazing Kreskin in one of the best celebrity memoirs of 2011: God, No! by Penn Jillette (Simon & Schuster).
The kick against Kreskin is that he doesn’t cop to being a mere illusionist, but instead suggests he has paranormal “mentalist” powers. There’s a whole school of magicians, such as Penn & Teller, who find such claims dangerous and unprofessional. Jillette, by reprinting the blistering letter excerpted above, then by describing a Kreskin performance which he attended in Las Vegas in 1994 (an anecdote which portrays the elder magician as dishonest and discourteous), establishes himself as the Amazing one’s foremost anti-fan.
Jillette also mocks himself, calling the Skeptical Inquirer letter the work of “an asshole” and describing the absurd lengths he’d go to in order to discredit and inconvenience Kreskin.”
Ultimately, Jillette’s account of the attacks and counter-attacks end up humanizing both himself and his “Amazing” antagonist.
On seeing The Amazing Kreskin in person, Jillette writes:
Wow. James Bond always has really cool, strong, smart villains. My nemesis was a thin, pathethic guy doing a matinee for six fully paid tickets, some twofers and bit of paper. I started to feel sorry for him It had been twenty-eight years since my parents bought me his shitty toy that I didn’t really need; maybe I could just get over it.
He doesn’t. Not much later in the narrative comes this deft appraisal: “Kreskin is a fucking weasel.”
Amazingly, that kind of makes me want to see Kreskin perform in Bridgeport. I guess I’m just not as jaded as Penn Jillette. Yet.
Geeze Penn, I understand how bad you felt as a kid. First you say he had a nothing audience and that he looked bad. Hint, I think putting such a statement in a popular book is probably more that an unequal form of humiliation for Kreskin. Don’t you think?
Penn says this product isn’t kosher? But it has been approved by the good folks at Milton Bradley. How can you doubt M-B?
I suggest that the game is a test of Penn’s ESP abilities. Only one failure with no more concrete evidence or surveys from thousands of kids. Hardly a true test of success….