Farewell...?

Sorry that there haven't been many updates lately. Truth be told, it almost feels like I've run out of things that are worth talking about. I think that between the Yin/Yang model for appreciating magic, the essays on exposure, and the 12 performing archetypes, I've pretty much tapped out whatever well of theory I had going on in the Ol' Gulliver.

I've been performing lately. I don't want to give away too many details yet -- either this will work out and it'll be worthwhile putting into a book, or it won't work out and it'll be worthwhile keeping it to myself. Suffice to say it's been fun and I'm learning a lot, although it's probably less about learning anything new, and more about getting insight on the stuff we've all been taught.

I joined the Vancouver Magic Circle earlier this year, and it's an interesting time every month. I remember thinking that one of the reasons I wanted to join a society was just to win a contest or something so that I could put "Award Winning" somewhere on my website, but unfortunately it might not be as easy as just showing up... the caliber of guys who perform stuff is actually not bad.

Been doing some editing -- mostly Tyler Erickson's lecture notes for his seminars (some great stuff in there if he ever decides to get off his ass and publish it), and I might be helping out another magician who's writing up his own book.

But I've felt almost no motivation to blog. I almost wonder what the point of blogging for our community is these days. I think part of the problem is a lack of proper dialogue that can occur on blogs, as opposed to the forums. I remember wanting to start a thread over on the Cafe asking people what they wanted to get out of the magic blogging community, and I realized that most of the answers that would be provided would either be things that the forums were already well-suited to provide (and probably better able to, given the size of the community), or else contentious, controversial things that I admit I find fun reading myself, but don't actually have the will to propagate. Can blogs generate new ideas? Maybe, although like I said, I think I've personally run out of those. Even if I had some, I can't help but wonder if in this new age of Twitter people don't want to read more than 30 words at a time -- an immense challenge for my verbal diarrhea condition. Can blogs foster debate? Maybe they can try kick-starting debates off, but I think the dictatorial nature of blog management makes it difficult for the really fun stuff to get off the ground. I think, for the most part, magic blogs are probably going to go the way of most co-opted media... push product, push celebrity status, push brand. Already, recent perusals of The Devil's Picturebook magic blog monitor feel like nothing more than scanning through commercials.

I don't want to be one of those douchebags who's going to make a big deal about future plans of posting. There's nothing sillier than reading a post from some blogger vowing to put more effort into updating their blog regularly, only to see that post dated "2007" or some such, and it's at the top of the main page because there's been nothing since.

I guess I just wanted to share with anybody who's read the blog with any sort of regularity that energy and enthusiasm is low, and there's not likely going to be any more coming for a long time, unless something earth-shattering happens. Don't know when that might happen, or even if it might happen. In all honesty, if I could imagine what might bring that about, I'd be writing about it right now.

So... uh... Farewell...?

UPDATE: A more recent post outlining some recent silly internet fights has been moved back deeper into the blog. If that's your bag, you may read it here. Upon reflection, I just figured it'd be best to have this "Farewell" post mark the blog's finale.