Today's episode—my absolute favorite to date, after almost six years!—is a marathon session with Penn Jillette, the larger, louder half of the fantastical and magical duo Penn & Teller.
Since the 1980s, Penn & Teller have been part of a broad movement to freakify and weirdo-ize American culture in a way that is profoundly individualistic and idealistic. They have helped to create a world where conformity has increasingly given way to self-expression. Before them, to me at least, magic was something dull, something mostly old men did, with boring card tricks, hokey gimmicks, capes, and magic wands. It was Doug Henning on Broadway with feather bangs and Harry Blackstone Jr. making Jiffy Pop on the stove.
