Year in Review :: By Jonathan PendragonHerodotus, albeit an important historian, is someone I often refer to as "the Wikipedia of the ancient world" because he believed everything that he was told. He was famously gullible when it came to the sensational. Dan Brown often follows a similar tack in his novels, such as Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code. As a child of Tycho Brahe, I can tell you with absolute certainty that Galileo and Isaac Newton were not members of the Illuminati, and you won’t find Mary Magdalene’s bones in the pyramid at the Louvre ("Spoilers!").
I am pictured sitting in front of the aforementioned pyramid. I thought it was as good a place as any to reflect upon the past year, as this is the 12th column on my Grail quest for Magic Newswire.
- I finalized my divorce. Contrary to what you may have heard elsewhere, this was an action I initiated and pursued unilaterally. I will always be proud of the magic I created with Charlotte. We brought a new style to the world of magic: Physical Grand Illusion, but now it’s a time for chang
- Chip Romero and Gregory Chin now have the illusions that were sold to them by my ex-wife, despite the fact that she had left them in Trinidad. It took me a year to recover them, and I neither received (nor asked for) compensation, but I felt it was the right thing to do.
- Jim Steinmeyer has continued to define what it means to be a good friend, with generous advice and help in reconstructing my life and my career. I am currently rehearsing Puppet Horror, Jim’s new illusion, which I will present at the Genii 75th Anniversary Bash in Orlando. Puppet Horror is quite a departure from anything I’ve done (or even seen) in the past. To be able to collaborate with Jim is always a privilege.
- While teaching in Sweden, I made a new friend, Tom Stone, whose magic is brilliant. More importantly, he helped me deal with my struggle to understand the pandemonium that my life had become over the previous several years. This is a rare friendship that carries a magic all its own. He gave me a dremel; with it, I have constructed a Hindu basket (!) and a floating table, while rediscovering my knack for bringing form to fantasy.
- Trying to define myself as a hyphenated magician... I remembered my dislike for hyphens. I am an Illusionist, and always will be. And yet, I have been able to integrate my work on “savant” mentalism into that character. I spent too much time trying to explain my work, instead of letting it speak for itself. Neil Gaiman, upon receiving a Necronomicon I created for him, described me as a “magical person,” a comment that resonated deeply in me. It is a simple image, and yet one that contains a world of possibility; it speaks to the whole, and not the parts. It does not define me by the style of my work, but encompasses an existential image of who I am.
- I fell in love.
- West and I have set a date for our marriage: appropriately, on the first day of Autumn. Change can be a good thing... and, for an artist, essential.