Hello London. The Moth is returning to Union Chapel on Thursday, September 28th for a night of vibrant true stories.

The main stage is the quintessential Moth experience, a two-act show featuring a musical act, where the storytellers and a notable host share true personal tales without notes.

Experience a night of unforgettable Moth tales as they're recorded for future episodes of the Moth podcast and radio hour.

Doors open at seven and doors begin at eight. Get your tickets now at the Moth.org Bowerslash, London.

From PRX, this is the Moth radio hour. I'm Jennifer Hickson. In this hour, stories from the world of performance and ritual, a musician, an undercover revolutionary,

an Iraq war veteran, and this first story from one half of Penn and Teller, the legendary magician.

Most folks would assume you'd be hearing a story by Penn, the garrulous half of the duo, but I'm really excited for you to hear, maybe for the first time, the quiet one.

The show was in Las Vegas, where we partnered with the University of Nevada Black Mountain Institute. Here's Teller speaking out loud, live at the Moth.

I get way too much credit when I talk. When I was five years old, I went out in the cold to make snow angels in the snow.

About a week later, I came down with a cold, and it went straight to my heart. I don't remember much about the stay in the hospital except being strapped to a bed for a transfusion in the dark,

and a cold shaft of light coming under the door, but they fixed me, and I went home to recover assisted by toast, tea, and television.

My favorite character from television was Howdy Duty. For those of you who don't know, he was a cowboy marionette with red hair and freckles,

and he had a burly pal named Buffalo Bob, and there was a Native American princess named Summerfall Winter Spring.

What most important to me was Clarebel, the clown. Clarebel, the clown, expressed himself without words only with facial expressions and actions and magic tricks, and I really liked Clarebel.

Howdy Duty was not shy about marketing to children, so when they offered a Howdy Duty magic set, I dutifully sent away my 50 cents and my three musketeers wrappers and my index card with my name and address on it and waited eagerly for the magic set to assist in my convalescence.

It arrived about two weeks later. It wasn't quite what I had pictured. I was sort of expecting a box, but instead it was a flat envelope, eight inches by nine inches, and on the front of it there was a picture, a drawing of a young boy wearing a button-up shirt and a huge magician's mustache.

He was pulling a rabbit out of a hat and had a whole bunch of magic props on the table in front of him, and he was exclaiming, here's your Howdy Duty magic set in a speech bubble.

I opened up the kit and what was inside was some pieces of cardboard about the weight of shirt cardboard, really quite colorfully and beautifully printed, and scored so that you could punch out the pieces

and make three dimensional magic props. In the magic set, there was a place where you had to sign your name and say you would never reveal the secrets, but that was 65 years ago.

I think the statute of limitations has run out, and my favorite thing in the kit was the magic chest, a small box that had in it, you guessed it, three miniature candy bars,

and you would show your friend the three candy bars there, and you'd shake up the box, and two of the candy bars would disappear, and it was really clever, it was really wonderful stuff.

For some reason, this just hit me in the forehead like a diamond bullet.

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