"A thin, tiny sparrowlike man perches at the door, peering into the gloomy reddish glow of the room. He hesitates only a moment and then strides in.

Within the room he finds elements of new space. Everything he once held secure he has dropped at the door, for he no longer needs them.

The Man who dares -- the wild explorer of equally wild spaces, is Samuel Avital -- distinguished by no title, no diploma, no degree, no special honors, no awards of recognition -- but only the fact that he is genuinely, truly alive.

The great contribution is that others who have been touched by him, even though they were asleep and walking in shadow, also become alive by virtue of his gift.

Is he a mime? Only if Salomon, Merlin and Gandalf were mimes. He does not move through space; he creates it as if solid and real.

He finds new uses for old things, and make new things with new uses. The universe does not exist for him beyond the moment, and for those who walk with him, the universe becomes new, freshly made, and ancient beyond memory.

He forms mass, makes it appear in space, moves within and around it, stirs up realities that never were, until he thought of them; reflects absurdities that no one looked at until they appeared in his mirror of life; conjures people that no one has seen because they are the self...in short, he is master of the universe, yet can be claimed by no object within it. He knows, remembers, understands, feels, senses with all his heart.

What more is there to say about a man?

E.J. Gold
June, 1977

From the Forward to The Mime WorkBook