The Prestige – Part 3: The Prestige (archive)

(archived from January 6, 2010)

by Scott Creighton

“Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” Antoine de Saint Exupéry 1943

In 1996, a self-proclaimed terrorist and thief fled the reach of Osama bin Laden and ran right into the outstretched arms of the FBI, where he probably couldn’t have felt more at home.  He had stolen money from bin Laden, some one hundred thousand dollars it is said, and so the FBI offered him shelter, money, and new life.  For three years the American tax-payers shelled out nearly one million U.S. dollars to protect the thief in hiding. It was then, under the tutelage of FBI agent Jack Cloonan, that the very mythology of Al Qaeda was born. It was then that the craft of the first part of the Grand Illusion took shape.

The Prestige – Part 2: The Turn (archive)

(archived from January 5, 2010)

by Scott Creighton

“But, you know, this guy (Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab), looking at it in some respects, looking at it in retrospect, probably did us a favor.”  Thomas Kean, Co-Chair of the 9/11 Commission Report

It’s fitting, isn’t it? It’s fitting that one of the leading architects of the most elaborate cover-up in American history comes out the other day and offers up this quote right in time for my second part of the The Prestige. You can’t ask for better timing than that.

While I appreciate the rare candor from Commissioner Kean, I figured I would list a few of those people who would probably agree with Mr. Kean’s statement (there are so many others from stock market CEOs to Blackwater mercenaries); those who think Umar DID do us “a favor” on Christmas day (let’s call it “The Christmas Day Miracle”)…

The Prestige – Part 1:The Pledge (archive)

(archived from January 4, 2010)

by Scott Creighton

Now you’re looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be fooled. The Prestige 2006 

It is said that every great magic trick has 3 distinct “acts” and as we leave the previous Decade of Magic, I thought we should take a look at one of the greatest illusions ever accomplished in the history of mankind; how it was created, who created it, and how it is still being performed today by new practitioners of the craft with only slight variations but the same overall result. 

A truly great illusion is transformative. For some, it reinforces fanciful hopes of the existence of the mystical and for others it serves as a puzzle to be solved. Some take it at face value, the intended magical perception alone is enough to satisfy while others become unconsciously determined to understand the impossible, to force it make sense; to impose the concrete limitations of reason on an illusion crafted for pure fantasy.  But in either case, a masterful illusion lingers with the audience for a lifetime, it’s effects indelibly branded on the audience like the painful memories of a witness to a horrific crime.