Richard Kaufman, the Chief Genii at Genii Magazine, is good for any number of outstanding quotes going back decades. Here’s one that’s mere hours old:

It doesn’t matter how much you think about magic, or practice, in isolation: nothing makes you a performer but working for real people on a regular basis.
—Richard Kaufman

The commercial side of mystery entertainment (that is, the side which offers for sale tricks, books, DVDs and the sort to teach others) relies on the fact that, for many purchasers, it’s quite enough to just be able to imagine being able to do this stuff for others without actually doing this stuff for others. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just don’t confuse that with being a performer. A performer performs.

It’s been a long two days. I’m not much for celebrating Christmas, but that’s a post for another blog at another time. I will say this is a time that naturally causes me to think about people I hold very dear to me. In this strange little world, that includes two people I haven’t spent nearly enough time with lately — two real world performers I call my friends — Jim Sisti and Richard Osterlind. Among the other things you may have done today, I hope you’ve spent some time thinking about people like that in your life.