THE GORILLA ON MY BOOKSHELF by Steve Trash®
I don’t remember ever seeing it, yet it’s in plain sight.
It’s literally on the first page of one of my FAVORITE MAGIC BOOKS of all time – Volume #3 of THE TARBELL COURSE IN MAGIC by Harlan Tarbell.
It’s right there, but I noticed it for the first time… just two days ago.
When I was a young magician I wanted to “know” everything possible about magic and I was told that The Tarbell Course in Magic was “the way to go”.
This is an 8 volume compilation of a magic correspondence course that Dr. Harlan Tarbell had written, illustrated, collated and produced way back in the 1920’s. The course is PACKED with lots and lots and lots of magic and the first edition was printed in 1927. It was very good and also very expensive. But I set my “eyes on the prize”: get those books!
I collected my pennies and purchased the entire set (used and printed in 1948) somewhere around 1980 from a gruff, old school Magic Equipment Dealer named Paul Diamond, who I found to be hilarious.
Each volume is filled with great illustrations and even better explanations of magical effects. I fell in love with it instantly! I got the books home from the Florida State Magicians Convention and dove straight in to my studies.
What’s really interesting to me now, however, is that I NEVER noticed I had an autographed copy by the author, Harlan Tarbell.
I was so engaged with the tricks I never even saw the signature. Of course, it’s possible that I did see it and didn’t remember because it wasn’t important to me.
This is similar to the invisible gorilla phenomenon.The invisible gorilla is an awareness test from Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris about focus and inattentiveness. The concept is covered in their book, “The Invisible Gorilla”, which is also a very good book.
Here’s a link to the experiment.
The idea behind this is that when keenly focused, we ignore (sometimes) very obvious stuff.
This seems to be the case with my Harlan Tarbell autographed book. As a young person, I was LOCKED with lazer-like-focus to learn magic and the idea that the author could have signed the book made no difference to me at all. I didn’t even realize he had.
I recently finished the first season of a national kids science show for PBS. The show is a combination of magic tricks and science ideas. I’m super proud of it. It’s called STEVE TRASH SCIENCE and I co-produced it in partnership with Alabama Public Television.
During the 11 months of writing, shooting, producing and creating it, I got into the habit of waking up VERY early (3:00-3:30am) each morning to get stuff done before I had to do my shows for that day.
As I said, I’ve finished work on season one of the show, but I’ve continued to get up early all the same. Only now, I’ve been getting up and relaxing on my front porch. I read some books for fun and watch the sun rise. It’s been a real pleasure.
A couple of days ago, I grabbed Volume #3 and sat down on the front porch for a read. The book flopped open and there was the autograph.
Wait… what? Harlan Tarbell signed my book printed in 1948? Seriously? Cool! Basically… there it was. The Invisible Gorilla… in autographed book form. I hadn’t seen it because I hadn’t been looking for it.
Our minds are shockingly wonderful things, but it’s good to remember that they are fallible, focusable and maybe even a little bit feeble.
For me, this is a reminder to have some humility about the things I believe and what I think to be true, ‘cause I’m aware… hey, I miss a lot!
Oh, yes… and… guess what? I have an autographed copy of Tarbell. Cool, right?
THE GORILLA ON MY BOOKSHELF by Steve Trash®
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