Book Report: Tarbell Course in Magic Vol. 1 (Patreon)

From Penn's private book blog-

"Tarbell Course in Magic, Vol 1 – Harlan Tarbell – 210327 – This is THE course in magic. Nothing comes close.  Every magician of every level has this course on the bookshelf and goes to it often. Teller often says, “There’s something on that in Tarbell and runs and gets his old copy. I never read any of it. None of it. It’s the basic bedrock of magic. Written in 1929 as a mail order course and then updated into book form. There are now 9 volumes, and it covers everything.  You could do a whole show (and many have).  Yeah, it’s dated, but really only in charming ways. Kind of everything is in here and very clear. I mentioned to Teller that I should probably read it.  I don’t read paper, I hate paper, but it’s not electronic anywhere. I asked Teller where to get a good copy, and Teller said, “Don’t do anything.”  A few weeks later he gifted me the whole 9 volumes with such a wonderful inscription. So beautiful.  So, I’m reading a half hour a day and plugging through. It’s really well written.  Yeah, I’m reading it all, even the weird ass religion introduction. I’m not doing all the moves. I suppose learning everything in it would be the real performance art, but I hold the coins and cards and go until I understand what’s going on pretty well.  This is really wonderful and fun.  At the rate I’m going, I guess I’ll finish it all in a few years and that seems right.  The only paper I read and so sweet of Teller.

It’s tempted to wallow into the datedness. A lot of tricks are set up with some sort of racist Chinese premise, done by someone who would have never guess they were racist. “A great Chinaman taught me this trick.” That kind of things.  Other races brought exotic magic. And, of course, the sexism is constant.  But they were different times.

I read his history of magic, which is the first few chapters. Man, old Harlan was a Zoroaster and it all centers around that. He has to talk about all the real miracles. It’s goofy to read someone’s dated religion.

But with all this dated stuff... Well, even the first book is filled, just overflowing with great tricks.  I could go more that 3 tricks in a row without thinking “We could do a version of that.”  And “That would fool me.”  It’s really amazing that one person (with a lot of help) compiled this and put it in such great course form and even did his own, very clear, drawings. I see why people go to it all the time and I think it’ll be so good for me to read them all from cover to cover.

If I were younger, I might promise to learn every trick in the book, but it seems trying to build “Hippity Hop Rabbits” on my deathbed seems a little surreal even for me."