Richard Himber - GENII issue?

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Joe Mckay
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Re: Richard Himber - GENII issue?

Postby Joe Mckay » February 27th, 2018, 9:17 pm

Wow - that is a great story, James. haha

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Re: Richard Himber - GENII issue?

Postby performer » February 27th, 2018, 9:36 pm

Somebody SHOULD write a book about him! I suggest Harry Lorayne! He knew him after all!

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Richard Kaufman
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Re: Richard Himber - GENII issue?

Postby Richard Kaufman » February 27th, 2018, 9:52 pm

I asked Harry about this years ago. He said he had published every story he remembered about Himber in Apocalypse.
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MagicbyAlfred
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Re: Richard Himber - GENII issue?

Postby MagicbyAlfred » February 27th, 2018, 10:20 pm

Here is what Harry said about Richard Himber on another forum back in 2010:

"Dick called me every night, middle of the night, not necessarily about the Himber Wallet, just in general. Discussed many, many, things. I put up with it a) because it was all interesting to me, and b) Dick would give me the shirt off his back. From all the people I've known over the decades, who knew Dick Himber, you either hated him or loved him. I loved him. I wrote a 'piece' about him and my experiences with him after each chapter in The Himber Wallet Book. He was the last of the 'characters.' HL."

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Re: Richard Himber - GENII issue?

Postby performer » February 27th, 2018, 11:24 pm

Richard Kaufman wrote:I asked Harry about this years ago. He said he had published every story he remembered about Himber in Apocalypse.


The way you do a biography is to interview people that knew the subject and get it all recorded. And you don't do that awful procedure that most magic biographers do where you list every bloody place the person has appeared. And you go into depth about the person and bring out their psyche as much as you can. You need to talk about the failures as well as the successes. Emotion needs to be brought out. FEELINGS rather than dry facts.

I have seen some awful biographies where some momentous incident is given a tiny paragraph or perhaps 3 or 4 lines. And a lot of these tomes are made very dry and boring to read. Exciting personalities are made to sound very dull in print.

I always thought that the best biography of Houdini was by William Lindsey Gresham. I have no idea about the accuracy of the work but he made Houdini come alive. Everything else I have read is just factual and very dry.

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Re: Richard Himber - GENII issue?

Postby Bob Farmer » February 28th, 2018, 8:37 am

The cover should be a Himber ad with two girls--and we need an interview with the girls!

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Re: Richard Himber - GENII issue?

Postby Mr. Charming » March 25th, 2018, 4:10 am

Richard Kaufman wrote:At this point, I don't think a cover story on Richard Himber would be of sufficient interest to most readers to justify the work involved.


So Richard Himber is not of "sufficient interest" to most readers but a random dude from the Magic Castle administration is?

Joe Mckay
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Re: Richard Himber - GENII issue?

Postby Joe Mckay » May 24th, 2019, 7:10 pm

Here are the references to the stories about Richard Himber in Apocalypse magazine:

Apocalypse Vol 1 No 8 August 1978 - Page 95 - Out to Lunch: Richard Himber story, working for tips

Apocalypse Vol 2 No 12 Dec 1979 - Page 288 - Out to Lunch: dangers of working bars, Richard Himber story

Apocalypse Vol 3 No 8 Aug 1980 - Page 383 - Out to Lunch: memory and another Richard Himber story

Apocalypse Vol 4 No 12 Dec 1981 - Page 576 - Ellipses...finding a medium between easy and difficult routines, book about Richard Himber, John Cornelius' The Magician's Date Book

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Also - there is some new work on the Himber Superbowl Prediction concept over on The Jerx.

http://www.thejerx.com/blog/2019/5/6/the-non-binary-binary-prediction-principle

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Q. Kumber
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Re: Richard Himber - GENII issue?

Postby Q. Kumber » May 26th, 2019, 7:51 am

Crandall wrote some stories about Himber in his New Tops column, later reprinted in the Crandall book published by Abbotts.

The compilation of Crandall's writings makes for one of the funniest and wittiest magic books. Crandall himself wasn't adverse to playing practical jokes, one of which was a full column describing, in great detail, a card trick that would be impossible to accomplish.

Himber and Crandall were two of the guest performers on The Magic Ranch that lived up to my expectations.


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