{"id":9372,"date":"2013-01-06T09:13:42","date_gmt":"2013-01-06T17:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=9372"},"modified":"2019-12-23T15:54:32","modified_gmt":"2019-12-23T23:54:32","slug":"pickpocket-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2013\/01\/06\/pickpocket-magic\/","title":{"rendered":"Pickpocket Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:2942,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.newyorker.com\\\/reporting\\\/2013\\\/01\\\/07\\\/130107fa_fact_green#ixzz2HDQcrD6a&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20140716170120\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.newyorker.com\\\/reporting\\\/2013\\\/01\\\/07\\\/130107fa_fact_green&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-06 07:59:47&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-29 17:44:23&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-29 17:44:23&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:2943,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.newyorker.com\\\/online\\\/blogs\\\/culture\\\/2013\\\/01\\\/video-the-art-of-pickpocketing.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20140219023843\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.newyorker.com:80\\\/online\\\/blogs\\\/culture\\\/2013\\\/01\\\/video-the-art-of-pickpocketing.html&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-06 08:00:00&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-29 17:44:22&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-29 17:44:22&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:206},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>This <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/reporting\/2013\/01\/07\/130107fa_fact_green#ixzz2HDQcrD6a\" title=\"The New Yorker: A Pickpocket's Tale\">profile of a professional pickpocket<\/a> in the New Yorker is fascinating:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  A few years ago, at a Las Vegas convention for magicians, Penn Jillette, of the act Penn and Teller, was introduced to a soft-spoken young man named Apollo Robbins, who has a reputation as a pickpocket of almost supernatural ability. Jillette, who ranks pickpockets, he says, \u201ca few notches below hypnotists on the show-biz totem pole,\u201d was holding court at a table of colleagues, and he asked Robbins for a demonstration, ready to be unimpressed. Robbins demurred, claiming that he felt uncomfortable working in front of other magicians. He pointed out that, since Jillette was wearing only shorts and a sports shirt, he wouldn\u2019t have much to work with.<\/p>\n<p>  \u201cCome on,\u201d Jillette said. \u201cSteal something from me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>  Again, Robbins begged off, but he offered to do a trick instead. He instructed Jillette to place a ring that he was wearing on a piece of paper and trace its outline with a pen. By now, a small crowd had gathered. Jillette removed his ring, put it down on the paper, unclipped a pen from his shirt, and leaned forward, preparing to draw. After a moment, he froze and looked up. His face was pale.<\/p>\n<p>  \u201cFuck. You,\u201d he said, and slumped into a chair.<\/p>\n<p>  Robbins held up a thin, cylindrical object: the cartridge from Jillette\u2019s pen.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There&#8217;s also a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/culture\/2013\/01\/video-the-art-of-pickpocketing.html\" title=\"New Yorker: The Art of Pickpocketing\">video clip<\/a> of Apollo doing his thing. Amazing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This profile of a professional pickpocket in the New Yorker is fascinating. There&#8217;s also a video clip of Apollo doing his thing. Amazing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2028],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-9372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links","tag-links"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}