In 1991, exiting a viewing of ‘Hook’ in New York City, I asked a passing kid what he thought of the movie, to which he answered ‘Mehh! That was crap; I don’t like this fake imaginary stuff’. I stood there, quite flabbergasted and was overcome with sadness… his magic had already faded, drowned by the constant noise of consumerist media in which imagination must bow to disguised verisimilitude and rubberstamped ‘genuineness’. On the eve of another rotation around Sol, the same thought struck me while on a walk in our steam-infused Florida Summer and refused to budge till I shared it on the digital latticework: One does not grow old when the long shadow of the setting sun precedes them on their windy path; one grows old when the magic fades, when the whimsical gives way to the rehearsed learned platitudes and to the embrace of the inevitable demise of existence. It has been over 30 years since I saw ‘Hook’ for the first time; the kid I talked to and his peers have grown and the world seems to have lost its spark, as if the collective step away from the fantastical robbed the environment of the ever-present enchantment. Despite the apparent society renewed interest toward high adventure, super heroes and fantasy, what passes for magical today is too often a mere commercial venture parading as a spellbinding treasure. Maybe the weight of years has dulled my senses but rarely do I encounter work that even comes close to quenching my inner thirst for the tales of old. Where are todays’ Tarzan, Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, Conan, Kimball Kinnison, Bilbo, Elric, Sonja The Red? Where are the stories that echo our soul’s fascination for sagas, quests, ancient powers, triumph of Good over Evil, victory of the wisdom of untamed barbarism over the horrors of decadent civilization? As the day grows long, I take a few moments to thank the ones who still hold the torchlight to the ornate tapestry of yesteryear Glamour (Aaronovitch, The Rogues in the House, Joseph Goodman, Whedon, Russo, Spielberg, Rowling, the wonderful cohort of misfits who populate my beloved tabletop gaming hobby, and others … you know who you are).
I hope that in the coming year the spark brightens, that children and adults start talking to the SIdhe again, that we walk in wonder in the enchanted forests, share the tales of ancient heroes and forge these of future ones, that we feel the quickening, draw from our savage nature to reach gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth and go forth to make the world a more magical, more poetic, more romantic, more vivid a place. Many walking among us are already long dead, their earthly remains ambulating long after the passing of their imagination. But if you feel the spark, if you remember the wonder, if you yearn for the questing winds, follow the path and find the others.
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