1. How did you meet Paul Harris?
I had read The Art of Astonishment, which contains Harry Eng's method
for putting a deck of cards into a bottle. I made up a few of them,
and I wanted to learn more. In the book there's a note that Paul was
working on a way to put a signed deck of cards in a bottle. As Paul
said, "Could be great, could be a disaster." So I posted a message on
the Genii Forum asking if anybody knew which it had turned out to be.
I got a response from Tim Trono, who passed my message along to Paul.
This was a thrill for me, because Paul was a god, of course. I
mentioned this to my wife, and I pulled out my copy of AoA, to look
at the write-up of the bottled-deck method. All of a sudden the phone
rings and it's Paul Harris. It was kind of surreal, talking with Paul
on the phone while I'm looking at his picture on the cover of Art of
Astonishment.
2. How did you get involved with the Reality Twister project?
I talked with Paul about his method for the signed deck in bottle,
which was very cool but had some technical hurdles to overcome. I
thought about it and emailed him some of my ideas, and we spoke on
the phone a couple more times. Ultimately we never fixed the hurdles,
although we did end up with a version where you put a funnel into the
bottle and force the deck through the funnel into the bottle -- you
could even see the deck going in through a glass window in the funnel.
I guess Paul enjoyed working on it with me and liked my ideas,
because even though we never solved the technical problems, he asked
me to work with him on the Reality Twister, developing ideas and
writing the book. Of course I said yes -- there was no way I was
going to pass up that chance.
3. What is the greatest story you have from working on the project?
Paul and I were working at my house on ideas for the book, and Paul's
phone rings. Turns out it was someone asking if Paul could produce
Britney Spears at halftime of the Super Bowl. I thought this was a
major hoot, but to Paul this seemed like the most normal thing in the
world.
That's one of the great things about working with Paul -- he'll talk
to the King of Spain, and then he'll talk to me, and there's
absolutely no difference in the way he treats us.
4. What is the funniest story you have while hanging out with Paul?
A couple of months later, we were having another session on the book,
and I asked Paul whatever happened to the plan to produce Britney
Spears. It turns out they had decided to do something else (and I
think it ended up being Christina Aguilera), and of course they
didn't call Paul to tell him he didn't get the job -- in the
entertainment industry, if you don't get the job, you just read in
the paper that someone else got it. Well I asked Paul what happened
and he said "I guess they're probably going to do something else."
And I said "I'm pretty sure -- the Super Bowl is tomorrow!"
That might be one way that Paul is able to come up with so much great
magic -- he doesn't waste half his life watching sports like the rest
of us.