Just as we were going to print last month, the sad news of Ton Onosaka’s passing started to appear online. I admired, but never spoke with, Ton-san; though I did see him at various conventions (and, indeed, was present when he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Fellowship from the Academy of Magical Arts in 2015, though backstage having just accepted a Literary Fellowship), I missed the opportunity to say hello, something that I now regret. I am hugely grateful to Kei Izumi who has written and translated a feature that celebrates Ton-san’s life for this issue, as well as supplying some remarkable images. Given all that Ton-san did to connect magicians across the world it feels appropriate that Genii: The International Conjurors’ Magazine, pays tribute to his legacy and shares his story, not all of which is well known. His passing reminds me, and perhaps also you, how important it is to take advantage of the opportunities we have to say hello when the chance arises.
While on the subject of chances to say hello, I and several other members of the Genii team will be attending MAGIC Live in Las Vegas later this month. This will be the first U.S. convention I have visited since stepping into the editorial chair so I look forward to seeing some of you there; do swing by the Genii booth in the dealers’ room and, as ever, if you have feedback about or ideas for Genii I would love to hear them.
When one is flying thousands of miles from London to Las Vegas, the few hundred additional miles to Los Angeles are as nothing, so I will also be taking advantage of the trip by spending some time in Los Angeles and visiting The Magic Castle. I was last at The Castle in 2018, for a week of shows and lectures, and since then have only enjoyed spending time in the beautiful building vicariously, though Shawn McMaster’s column in these pages. It will be a real treat to visit in person, and I can’t wait to see some of the developments I have read about in the magazine, to meet old friends, and hopefully to make new ones.
Speaking of meeting friends, the last time I had the chance to visit John Gaughan’s workshop was in 2014, when the late Joan Lawton took me for a visit, pulling me into her plan to inform John that he was to be presented with a richly deserved Academy of Magical Arts Masters Fellowship (coincidentally in the same ceremony where Ton-san was honored). Over a decade later it is a thrill to know I will be visiting John once more, this time with the goal of seeing what plans we can cook up for his future contributions to the magazine.
Thinking back to that visit, I realize that at the time I was producing book reviews for Genii, which means it is almost a certainty that I was writing something for this magazine during my transatlantic flights. A lot may have changed in the intervening decade-plus, but as I write these words I realize that, once again, I will find myself working on Genii at 30,000 feet.