J.J. Abrams, producer of TV’s Alias, Lost, and the movies Mission Impossible III and Cloverfield, gave a TED Talk tracing a thread connecting his creative endeavors: Tannen’s Magic Mystery Box. It’s a sealed box he bought from a magic shop decades ago, but has never opened. As Abrams says:

The premise behind the box was the following: $15 buys you $50 worth of magic — which is a savings.

Watch Abrams spend twenty minutes talking really fast about movies, mystery, technology, and character. (Warning: he does use one four-letter word.)

(Via Daring Fireball.)