Posted by Ian on 2009-02-14
in Magician
There are many great performing magicians and many great inventors of magic tricks - but not many who combine the two. One such was Robert Harbin; and this weekend The Magic Circle is celebrating the centenary of his birth.
Robert Harbin was a great contributor to my magical career – but in a negative way: I always say he set it back at least ten years! I first began to get interested in magic when I was about nine or ten; and I was given a couple of books. One of these was by Harbin and was called How To Be A Wizard. It was written for the general public, as opposed to specifically for magicians.
Now most magic books written for the lay person (as we magicians like to patronisingly call non-magicians!) are a regurgitation of all the tricks in similar books. In Harbin’s case, however, being the inventive genius he was, many of the tricks were actually his own. Unfortunately they required some ability at D.I.Y., something I was quite incapable of doing.
After reading it, I assumed that all magic somehow involved skill with cutting, pasting and designing – and therefore gave it up as a bad thing. It was to be another decade before I found out there was another side to magic which required dexterity of fingers in a different way.
The fault, as they say, certainly lay with me rather than Harbin. When I got more into magic I discovered what I had failed to appreciate. His masterpiece of a book is called Magic of Robert Harbin, which was published in 1970 and cost £27 and 10 shillings – an unheard of price back then. There were only 500 copies produced. The book now exchanges hands for up to £1,000. The piece de resistance written up in the book is a trick called The Zig Zag Girl – a beautifully simple illusion in which a girl’s middle is pushed out when standing inside a box comprising three compartments.
It is probably the most ripped off trick in the history of magic. If there was any justice Harbin would have been a millionaire because of it. It is said he actually made more money from origami (his other love) than he ever did from magic.
Ironically Harbin was featured in the countdown of the one hundred worst clips of television, demonstrating his origami on a children’s TV programme wearing what looks like a grey boiler suit and speaking in a rather condescending manner. The compilers were clearly totally unaware that this was the same man who had wowed the country on a London Palladium televised show when he first performed the Zig Zag Girl.
Most of the tricks in the Magic of Robert Harbin are illusions, outside my own particular interest and skill. Far more accessible is a book called Harbincadabra, which is a compilation of all the tricks he produced for a weekly magic magazine called Abra. What is amazing is the sheer versatility on offer – magicians tend to specialise in one area, whether it be cards or coins or indeed illusions. Harbin was a master of all and ideas simply poured from him in a never-ending creative stream.
Harbin was actually born in South Africa, although he emigrated when he was nineteen and made his name in the UK. My favourite story about him concerns when he was about to leave his country of birth; and he went and saw a famous magician to get some advice. He brought along a publicity book to show his esteemed mentor. Opening it up, he revealed it was completely blank - apart from one very small cutting in the middle of the first page.
You’ve got to admire – and far more importantly like - a man with that degree of modesty and lack of guile.
Robert Harbin was a great contributor to my magical career – but in a negative way: I always say he set it back at least ten years! I first began to get interested in magic when I was about nine or ten; and I was given a couple of books. One of these was by Harbin and was called How To Be A Wizard. It was written for the general public, as opposed to specifically for magicians.
Now most magic books written for the lay person (as we magicians like to patronisingly call non-magicians!) are a regurgitation of all the tricks in similar books. In Harbin’s case, however, being the inventive genius he was, many of the tricks were actually his own. Unfortunately they required some ability at D.I.Y., something I was quite incapable of doing.
After reading it, I assumed that all magic somehow involved skill with cutting, pasting and designing – and therefore gave it up as a bad thing. It was to be another decade before I found out there was another side to magic which required dexterity of fingers in a different way.
The fault, as they say, certainly lay with me rather than Harbin. When I got more into magic I discovered what I had failed to appreciate. His masterpiece of a book is called Magic of Robert Harbin, which was published in 1970 and cost £27 and 10 shillings – an unheard of price back then. There were only 500 copies produced. The book now exchanges hands for up to £1,000. The piece de resistance written up in the book is a trick called The Zig Zag Girl – a beautifully simple illusion in which a girl’s middle is pushed out when standing inside a box comprising three compartments.
It is probably the most ripped off trick in the history of magic. If there was any justice Harbin would have been a millionaire because of it. It is said he actually made more money from origami (his other love) than he ever did from magic.
Ironically Harbin was featured in the countdown of the one hundred worst clips of television, demonstrating his origami on a children’s TV programme wearing what looks like a grey boiler suit and speaking in a rather condescending manner. The compilers were clearly totally unaware that this was the same man who had wowed the country on a London Palladium televised show when he first performed the Zig Zag Girl.
Most of the tricks in the Magic of Robert Harbin are illusions, outside my own particular interest and skill. Far more accessible is a book called Harbincadabra, which is a compilation of all the tricks he produced for a weekly magic magazine called Abra. What is amazing is the sheer versatility on offer – magicians tend to specialise in one area, whether it be cards or coins or indeed illusions. Harbin was a master of all and ideas simply poured from him in a never-ending creative stream.
Harbin was actually born in South Africa, although he emigrated when he was nineteen and made his name in the UK. My favourite story about him concerns when he was about to leave his country of birth; and he went and saw a famous magician to get some advice. He brought along a publicity book to show his esteemed mentor. Opening it up, he revealed it was completely blank - apart from one very small cutting in the middle of the first page.
You’ve got to admire – and far more importantly like - a man with that degree of modesty and lack of guile.
