THE BLURB: MAGICIAN WES ISELI talks about the evolution of his craft - how integrating his (now) wife NATALIE ISELI into the act kicked it to new heights. How one MAGIC TRICK beat master illusionists PENN & TELLER. How does one even become a magician? More than anything else, creating illusions is a craft. And, as for happiness? Wes has that trick covered, too!

SHOW NOTES:

I met Wes Iseli via podcasting connections, but we have another connection, too. We’ve both worked with Penn & Teller. Teller co-wrote a superb episode of Tales From The Crypt with recent guest Colman DeKay called Staired In Horror.

Subsequent to that I developed a show at HBO with Penn And Teller that died in development – as most projects do.

Wes Iseli introduced himself to P&T via their show Fool Us where magicians are invited to confound these two master illusionists with tricks they can’t figure out.

Wes did that. Fooled Penn & Teller. And not only did Wes get the prize money promised, P&T paid Wes directly for the knowledge of how he’d fooled them.

As Wes will tell you, there’s no “magic” involved. There’s a ton of craft though. Which is why we’re talking about it here.

Now, Wes insists – as you’ll hear – that there’s nothing supernatural about magic. In fact, he hates the idea of supernatural magic. But there’s something about magic and creating the illusions of it that can spark a little – let’s call it “transcendent” – kind of magic.

There’s a ton of love in this story. Wes AND his wife NATHALIE sat and talked to me.

What Wes and Nathalie have created – along with their three kids – is a kind of great magic trick.

And that’s with the caveat that there’s no magic. There’s craft. Hard work and lots of repetition. But, I think you’ll find that the effect – the story itself - is magical. 

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