One frustration we’ll sometimes encounter as we go through life is that we’ll only hear about somebody impressive or fascinating after they’re already gone.
As annoying as this attitude can be, it at least makes it a little easier to understand where those who claim they were “born in the wrong generation” are coming from. It can be hard to form a connection with something or someone that you have no chance of ever experiencing in person.
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So when the news broke that an eccentric and surprisingly popular wizard was planning to retire, perhaps it was out of a similar lament that word of this reached corners of the world where most people had never heard of him.
Yet it seems that those who are now dying to see the official wizard of Christchurch, New Zealand in action can breathe a little easier since he apparently has no intention of hanging up his pointy hat.
Before he put on the wizard robe, 87-year-old Ian Brackenbury Channell taught sociology at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
As CNN reported , this was after he had taught English at the University of Tehran, served as an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and worked as a community arts organizer at the University of Western Australia.
However, it was in Sydney that he sought to start a “fun revolution” that would turn the university into a “theater of the absurd” and which would both make the world more fun and criticize its systems.
As Channell said, “Every day the world gets more serious, so fun is the most powerful thing in the world right now.”
Somewhere over the course of his fun revolution, Channell lost his job at the university.
As he told CNN, this is when he started making enemies that he claims number in the millions nowadays. In this case, it was with his fellow academics at the University of New South Wales who “don’t like silly, fun things.”
In response, he and the university’s vice chancellor apparently hatched a plan to instead make him the school’s official wizard.
However, not only did this apparently not pan out but diving headfirst into wizardry also cost him friends and even his wife at the time. After she kicked him out of the house, he invited some friends over to turn the scene into a ritual.
As he said, “To me it was fun, but not to her. She’s still furious.”
After moving to Christchurch, New Zealand in 1974, Channell eventually found a home for his eccentricities. But that only happened after a long, uphill battle.
He brought his wizardry to the city’s Cathedral Square and apparently sometimes wore a loin cloth instead of his wizard outfit as a means of emulating John the Baptist.
According to CNN , the Christchurch city council wasn’t any more receptive than the Australian academics at first and denied him permission to speak in the square. In response, he did so anyway — this time in French — while wearing a gas mask.
But after years of persistance on his part, public attitudes towards him seemed to change for the better.
As CNN reported , the New Zealand Art Gallery Directors Association considered him a living work of art in 1982 and he was celebrated by farmers in the town of Waimate six years later when a downpour that ended a serious drought came hours after he performed a rain dance.
According to the CBC , former New Zealand Prime Minister Mike Moore wrote a letter urging him to accept the mantle of the nation’s official wizard in 1990.
By 1998, the Christchurch city council seemed to reverse their previous decisions about him in a big way and officially made him their official wizard, a role he continues to fill to this day. He receives the equivalent of $10,000 a year from the city for “wizardry,” which functionally translates to promoting tourism and local events as well as welcoming dignitaries to the city.
And since he reportedly has a four-star rating on TripAdvisor, it seems he’s doing his job well.
Not only that but it seems that the wizard has since gained an apprentice.
As he told the CBC, this wasn’t his idea but rather the result of a musician named Ari Freeman showing up for training six years ago.
As Channell put it, “I had no choice in it. He just turned up. That’s how life is. Whatever happens, you have to put up with it. And he seems very keen and he’s got the right intellectual detachment, so I’m not going to object to it at all. He helps out quite a bit.”
He’s also commending Freeman for growing an even more impressive beard than his own.
Although Channell has made fewer public appearances in recent years, he assures his fans that reports of his retirement are simply not true.
As he said , “It’s put out by my enemies, of which I have millions. They’re bureaucrats and they want me to retire because they can’t stand that they’ve got a wizard here because nobody ever wanted a wizard in authority.”
As both Channel and Freeman see it, “retirement” is a word that doesn’t belong in a wizard’s vocabulary.
“I don’t think wizards are supposed to retire,” Freeman said. “I think they keep going until they fall off their perch.”
