MY MAGICAL LIFE

BY BEN ROBINSON

I APPEAR

In December 2002 writer E. R. Rose provided a pictorial look at my 20 years performance in New York City. Our Jan/Feb feature article, "The Magic Business" centered on things I am most proud of in my career. In this brief essay I will go over what has been memorable and life changing. I note these moments because I've had a recent injury that has laid me up with time for looking backward so I may go forward.

I was born December 15, 1960, vastly underweight at 4 lbs 11oz. and put in an incubator. My mother asked, "Is he okay?" The Dr. replied, "He has everything he is supposed to have."

I came home December 24th, Christmas Eve.

My eyes opened the next day.

MY DEBUT I gave my first paid performance, not a great show by any stretch of the imagination I readily admit, on December 15, 1974, for the Briarcliff Manor, NY Recreation Center -- also my 14th birthday. I wore a clown face improperly set without powder. Hence, when I sweat my face melted into a weird sunset. No one thought my early performance art melting face was really very interesting.

COLLEGE

I'm proud that I paid for more than half of my college tuition by giving about two-hundred magic shows over the four years I lived in New London, Connecticut. Once or twice a week I'd travel between New York and Boston displaying my wares as a street performer in the Boston Common (when it was warm) and perform at private parties in Manhattan. Left: a letter from an ad man at one of the largest agencies in the world, Young & Rubicam.

He wrote, "I cannot recommend Ben and his magic too highly. He is that good." I was 21.

I decided a metaphoric goodbye to my classmates and professors would be to receive my diploma from Senator Christopher Dodd and then remove my mortar board and pull a rabbit from the interior. The newspaper caption was clever:

EVEREST

Seven years after my college graduation I stood at the desolate area of Gorak Shep (which translates to "dead crow") at approx. 16, 500 feet with Dick Bass in route to the Base Camp of Mt. Everest in Nepal. Dick had first seen me perform at a party in Southport, Connecticut

AN

On April 20, 1995 I was assisting a sculptor friend assemble an archive of his work in Connecticut. He told me that I should call a woman I'd met through his son for a date. The next day she called me unprovoked by our mutual friend.

On April 21, 1995 we went out. Drinks. Dinner. Goodnight.

On April 21, 2000 we were married in a small civil ceremony in Atlanta, Georgia.

We were married by a judge who used to be my wife's ride in a carpool she took as a child. Karma.

 9/11

Like everyone else on earth, I was affected by the horrific events of September 11, 2001.

My story is that I was on 38th and 8th at 8:45am when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. My meeting was abruptly canceled at 9:00am -- when the second plane hit -- and I ran six blocks to get my wife. At left, a picture taken from my wife's office. The two small stick-like buildings in the lower right are the WTC. The picture below is one I snapped before leaving the 23rd floor office of my wife's building directly across from the Empire State Building.

We witnessed the catastrophic collapse of both towers. All New Yorkers felt like we were under attack and did not know what would happen next. All we could do was go home and pack a bag to leave, though the island was quickly shut down, given that only five major bridges and three tunnels connect the tiny island of Manhattan to the rest of the US.

Below right, a picture of me next to the "Magritte Dog" in Union Sq. Park on September 11, 2002 during a memorial service.

September 11, 2002 Union Sq. Park Memorial TODAY 28 years later, I am still, on ocassion, fulfilling the most responsible role a magician can fulfill: entertaining children. I closed a show on 12/15/02 with my friend Larry White's Trisection illusion. I named this illusion, after finding it in Larry's

basement in 1987, and received it from him as a present. I was the first to bring it to the stage on October 31, 1987 at the Bass Rail nightclub in the Bronx, New York. Since that time Larry and I legally licensed it to another performer. After touring the illusion nationally from New York to Seattle and back, the illusion was stolen from my apartment building in 1996 and has since been illegally performed and manufactured. As my friend Dick Bass -- noted owner of Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort and the first to climb the highest peak of each continent once told me -- "Robinson, they may kick you and they may copy you, but remember -- FIRST IS FOREVER."

I am proud to be the first to have brought Larry White Trisection illusion to the stage. Believing in karma -- the universal law of what you sow, you reap -- thieves will always be thieves. Inventors and originators will always have real achievement.

Since 9/11 I have given many free shows to aid relief from the woes of these events. Houdini once said that "People don't like to see another killed, but they like to be near by." Folks in Seattle told me (last August ) that all they did for three days following 9-11 was watch CNN.

Houdini was right.

December 15, 2002, New York City Photo: Cecile Rothschild

Because of events in my life since 9-11, I have been dealing with a serious injury. In fact, I write from my convalescence bed in Atlanta about three months prior to the appearance of this rant.

I look forward to gaining strength so I may again pull rabbits from hats; ascend Himalaya heights; with my partner, in my magical life.