Studying human nature by picking pockets: A Q&A with Apollo Robbins:
How did you start learning magic tricks?
The first time I went into a magic shop, I didn’t know anything about magic. I had a little prop I had found, and I wanted to see what it could do. I asked this old man, and he started doing sleight-of-hand, and I thought, “If this old man can do this, I can do this.” Then he did some card tricks and told me, “You have a choice. Here’s a deck of cards, and you can do 50 tricks. Or, here’s this book: J.B. Bobo’s Coin Magic. It’s gonna cost more, but it will last years, and you can start studying the craft of sleight-of-hand.” I didn’t have the money with me, so I went back home, sold some stuff at a pawn shop and got the book. It was my bible for the next couple of years. I still have it.
