Wednesday, January 23, 2019

What Happened at the Meeting on Friday 19th January 2019


The theme of “Free Choice” left much freedom to the performers.  The host was our President, David Whitson.

AL HIRSCHEL led off with a Card Trick from a borrowed deck. The trick had a naval theme, in which sailors were landing on islands with spades to search for diamonds until a hurricane stirred everything up, but, behold, a word from Al restored everything to normal.  He generously workshopped it afterwards for us, warning us of pitfalls to avoid.

JOHN FERGUSON did the Chicago Opener, in which the card chosen from a blue-backed deck changes colour to a red back.  He followed this with “Deck Stress”, in which the chosen card turns out to be the only card with a message on the back “I knew you would choose the  - - - “.  John congratulated the spectator for being able to read his mind.  He then workshopped Chicago Opener for us.

JEFFREY CLARK was able to magically stand a playing card on its edge and balance a Coke can on top of it !  He then showed us his version of Professor’s Nightmare, in which he finished by scrunching all three ropes together into a ball, and picking each out one by one – an ending which I have not seen, but which is easier, and more natural.   Inventive!

NOEL CLAIR -  Noel commenced by dazzling us with coin manipulation, in which he specializes, vanishing a coin in his hand, and producing it from a spectator’s ear. He went on to various Ring on String items, and then used the string to show us a vanishing knot.  He was able to make his finger ring disappear off his finger, and then reappear on it.
He said he had met a Sikh in North India who had warned him that the ivory handled pocket knife Noel was carrying was not legal.  The Sikh showed him, though, that if he passed the knife three times through his hand, then the ivory turned to ebony, and now it would pass through Customs.  A very clever story for the Colour Changing Pocketknives!

ANDREW PICKARD is displaying great ability in card magic !   He asked the spectator to push the chosen card back into the pack, then after a magical pass, he fanned the pack, and only one card was face up – the chosen card !
Next, he wrote two predictions on a business card, and cut that card into the pack.  When he spread the pack, the business card was in between the two predicted cards.
He had five cards chosen, of which one was memorized by the spectator.  All five cards were pushed into the pack so that other cards were pushed out, and this pushing out was repeated until one card was sticking out – and, yes, it was the (secretly) memorized card.
He wrote a prediction, and placed it in full view.  Taking the deck, he “Cut Deeper” so that one card was shown – and it was the prediction.

JOEL HOWLETT asked a spectator to draw in the air any outline he wished.  The spectator drew a love heart. (It could have been any outline.) Then Joel directed our attention to an envelope in full view the whole time.  Inside the envelope was a card which had a love heart drawn on it!

DAVID WHITSON had the theme of “Perverse Magic”.  This is magic that appears to be as much of a surprise to the magician as to the spectators.   The Silver Sceptre seemed to have a life of its own.  When David put it into its bag, it tried to jump out – surprise !  With another item,  David took an egg from the Egg Bag and appeared to put it under his arm. It vanished from there and appeared back in the bag – surprise !   He showed a card with black spots and the spots appeared to (perversely)  multiply when the audience didn’t expect it.