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Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales
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About Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear And
Product Description Penn Jillette’s New York Times bestselling account of his “extremely funny and somewhat profane journey to discovering a healthy lifestyle…that will motivate others to seek weight-loss solutions” (The Washington Post). More than three hundred and thirty pounds and saddled with a systolic blood pressure reading at dangerous heights, legendary magician Penn Jillette found himself at a crossroads. He needed a drastic lifestyle change if wanted to see his small children grow up. Enter Crazy Ray. A former NASA scientist and unconventional, passionate innovator, Ray Cronise changed Penn Jillette’s life with his wild “potato diet.” In Presto, Jillette takes us along on his journey from skepticism to the inspiring, life-changing momentum that transformed the magician’s body and mind. He describes the process in hilarious detail, as he performs his Las Vegas show, takes meetings with Hollywood executives, hangs out with his celebrity friends and fellow eccentric performers, all while remaining a dedicated husband and father. Throughout, he weaves in his views on sex, religion, and pop culture, making his story a refreshing, genre-busting account. Outspoken, frank, and bitingly clever, Presto is an incisive, rollicking read. In the end, it is “undeniably inspiring” ( Booklist). About the Author Penn Jillette is a cultural phenomenon as a solo personality and as half of the world-famous Emmy Award-winning magic duo Penn & Teller. His solo exposure is enormous: from Howard Stern to Glenn Beck to the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. He has appeared on Dancing with the Stars, MTV Cribs, and Chelsea Lately and hosted the NBC game show Identity. As part of Penn & Teller, he has appeared more than twenty times on David Letterman, as well as on several other TV shows, from The Simpsons and Friends to Top Chef and The View. He cohosts the controversial series Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, which has been nominated for sixteen Emmy Awards. He is currently cohost of the Discovery Channel's Penn & Teller Tell a Lie and the author of God, No! and Presto. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Presto ONE-THIRD THE SIZE OF A COW DRESSED AS AN ELEPHANT In 2014 I made a movie called Director’s Cut. I wanted to play a bad guy. I wanted to be the psycho villain. I also wanted a villain who was an outsider. In the early drafts of the script, I named the character Herbert Khaury, which is Tiny Tim’s real name. Tiny Tim is a hero of mine, but he was also an obsessive nut and a bit of a stalker. Maybe he was a bit more than a bit of a stalker. Maybe Tiny was a little dangerous. Tiny Tim had his problems. For the movie, I parted my hair like him and shaved my stupid beard. Tiny Tim didn’t have a beard. Tiny was tall—not as tall as me, but still pretty tall, and Tiny was also pretty overweight by the time he was my age. So, being fat was good for the part. I was very happy being fat. At the time of that movie, I was the fattest I’ve ever been in my life. I thought fat was good for the part. If you’re reading or listening to this book right when Director’s Cut comes out, you might see me on some talk shows pimping this book or read an interview or two with me. If you do, you’ll hear me talk about gaining all that weight to play my character, Herbie, in the film. You’ll hear me spin how fat I was. I don’t like the word “spin.” I prefer the word “lie.” I’m going to be implying very strongly (lying) that I gained all that weight to play my character. It’s the worst kind of lie, because by the time I’m done with it, I’ll believe it. There will be some truth in it, so I can focus on that little truth until the big truth goes away. The weight sincerely was great for the character, and it really made everything perfect for that movie, but I hadn’t spent thirty years getting fat because I was planning to play Herbie. I wrote the script about ten years before we shot
