I see a lot of people bemoaning the fact that Theory 11 doesn't have much of a focus on books. Given this, I've got a simple idea for something we can do to remedy the situation.
Every month, on a given day, I'll post up a thread about a classic book, including a brief history and summary of the contents. By classic, I'm thinking predominantly nineteenth-century works to begin with, as these are all public domain and will be available free of charge on Archive.org, Project Gutenberg or the free level of Ask Alexander at the Conjuring Arts Research Centre. So, no-one will have any excuse not to acquire and read these texts. That's another reason why I've gone "Book of the Month", rather than "Book of the Week", as a week may be too short a time for some people to read and digest the contents of a book and contribute to a conversation on it. This is key, as I don't want this to be an elitist thing; I'd like to encourage contributions from novices who've never even heard of the book before as well as seasoned pros who read it, learned it and subsumed it into their bloodstream twenty years ago. Fresh, unjaded eyes on a text may bring a new perspective and novel ideas, as well as interesting questions which may spark off interesting conversations.
The thread would be a place to share thoughts inspired by the book, discuss its ideas, the way it relates to modern magic and perhaps even share videos of performances of tricks and techniques from the book. The hope would be that some newer magicians were inspired to rediscover this treasure, and that cynical old hands had the flickering embers of joy rekindled by these classic works.
I'm tentatively proposing Modern Magic as the first of these texts, but if anyone has another suggestion that would be welcomed. Additionally, any thoughts about how good or bad an idea this is, or any supplementary ideas about how it should be implemented would be great.
Thanks!
Every month, on a given day, I'll post up a thread about a classic book, including a brief history and summary of the contents. By classic, I'm thinking predominantly nineteenth-century works to begin with, as these are all public domain and will be available free of charge on Archive.org, Project Gutenberg or the free level of Ask Alexander at the Conjuring Arts Research Centre. So, no-one will have any excuse not to acquire and read these texts. That's another reason why I've gone "Book of the Month", rather than "Book of the Week", as a week may be too short a time for some people to read and digest the contents of a book and contribute to a conversation on it. This is key, as I don't want this to be an elitist thing; I'd like to encourage contributions from novices who've never even heard of the book before as well as seasoned pros who read it, learned it and subsumed it into their bloodstream twenty years ago. Fresh, unjaded eyes on a text may bring a new perspective and novel ideas, as well as interesting questions which may spark off interesting conversations.
The thread would be a place to share thoughts inspired by the book, discuss its ideas, the way it relates to modern magic and perhaps even share videos of performances of tricks and techniques from the book. The hope would be that some newer magicians were inspired to rediscover this treasure, and that cynical old hands had the flickering embers of joy rekindled by these classic works.
I'm tentatively proposing Modern Magic as the first of these texts, but if anyone has another suggestion that would be welcomed. Additionally, any thoughts about how good or bad an idea this is, or any supplementary ideas about how it should be implemented would be great.
Thanks!
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