What Happened at the Meeting on Friday 23rd June 2023

The theme of the meeting was “Bar Betchas” hosted by Jeff Clarke, who led off with several items.  He did the “Giraffe turn around” and the “Fish  turn around” using kebab sticks.          Next, he dropped three dice into a glass of water.   Drawing attention to the numbers visible on the dice, he asked us to predict the total of the numbers on the bottom of the dice.

David Whitson  displayed mismade flags – A Union Jack without blue colour, a Union Jack with red but no blue, and the flag of Australia, correctly coloured.  These he produced from a change bag.  He also showed us large posters – “Stop Pollution” from his antipollution show.

One item performed by Jeff Clarke was repeated by David Blunden – he did the Fish again with kebab sticks.  He also did the “squashed dog”.  Laying out a mathematical equation with the kebab sticks, he showed how to solve it with a minimum of moves.   He asked a spectator to “Do As I Do” – to copy his moves, and the spectator was unable to do so.

Steve Irwin has been preparing for our show later in the year, and he rehearsed his introduction for us.

Joel Howlett did a Spiderman Card trick. In this he used a deck with a card that had a spider inked on it. The he exchanged torn corners of playing cards.  He tore a corner off, gave it to a spectator to hold, tore a corner off a different car, and then magically swapped the corners over.

The “Piano Card Trick” is fully explained in “Royal Road to Card Magic” page 119, and this was performed by John Ferguson.  Two piles of card are dealt, and one odd card is added to the pile chosen by spectator.  Magically, the magician makes the odd pile become an “even” pile, and you can’t see the odd card magically move over.  He gave us two URLs of youtube videos – performance and tutorial :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFY7YOv-zEg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCRY5Guppck

What Happened at the Meeting on Friday 21 April

The theme of the evening was “Colour Changes and Classics”, and David Whitson (our host for the night) performed Pavel’s colour changing records, in which small vinyl records change colour to match the colour of the silk that has been threaded through the central hole of each record.  Then he did a Duane Laflan effect  in which a large black and white silk with a sad drawing of a clown changes into a fully coloured silk face of a laughing clown. Great fun !

John Ferguson performed a couple of items from his Chemistry Magic show – the explosion of lycopodium flame using a lighter, and “red water to silk” – a red solution is poured into a glass, which is then turned upside down and instead of the water falling out, a (dry !) red silk floats down instead. He did a card item in which a  thin wire is heated and it forms the initial letters of the chosen card. He next showed us a comic item -  Karrell Fox’s magic glasses – a chosen card cannot be found by the magician, who then puts on his magic glasses, which happen to have the chosen card pasted on their lenses.

A square of paper was displayed by Steve Irwin.  It had a small hole in it.  The hole was obviously far too small to allow a playing card to go through, until Steve cast a spell on it – then the card went through with ease !

Noel Clair did colour changes with his usual flair.  Holding a yellow silk, he made a red centre appear  in his hand, like a hibiscus flower.  Then the colour of the “flower” changed to blue !

The well-known card item “Card Warp” was nicely performed by Jeff Clarke.  A card folded inside another card appears to turn inside out just by itself every time it is pulled through the outer card, and this left us thinking “this can’t be happening”.

This great night of magic was wrapped up by Joel Howlett.  Showing us a blank deck – cards with both sides plain white – he magically printed the faces and backs. The great “Ambitious Card” routine was extended by Joel to feature a card with the spectator’s signature.  He then launched into the “Cups and Balls” using a routine devised by Jim McKeague.  It was a romantic story  that made the cups and balls item really come alive, and was a fitting tribute to Jim McKeague.

What Happened at the Meeting on 19th August

Joel Howlett led off the magic with manipulation of ping pong balls.  Joel has spent a considerable chunk of his life training himself in manipulation for magic tricks, and it showed !  We just could not take our eyes off his presentation, it was so gripping.

Next, Noel Clair, the host for the evening of magic “Balls and Things”, multiplied sponge balls and also vanished them.  Using a United States half dollar coin (because it is larger and easier to handle), he did the “paddle move” with it.

John Ferguson poured red liquid (water with food dye) into a plastic cup, then upended it and pulled out a (dry)  silk handkerchief of the same colour – had the water solidified ?

Our President, David Whitson, started his presentation with the vanishing cane. Rolling the cane up in newspaper, he suddenly crumpled up the newspaper to show the cane had vanished. He did a routine with the Linking Rings.  He showed the “Silver Sceptre” item.

David then performed Pavel’s “Knots on Rope” – a favourite of his. He displayed a rope in a cylinder, and as he pulled the rope out of the cylinder, knots formed on the rope – true knots that he had to unravel to present a plain rope !

A full magic routine was road-tested by Steve Irwin.  Using a small Buddha statue, he did a prediction of a card.  This produced the wrong card, but then he burnt the card to show the chosen 4D.  Using flossing thread, he plucked off piece of thread, and gathered them into his hand, and then straightened them out to show they had all joined together. With a volunteer, he launched into a “Do As I Do” card routine, and despite the swap-overs  they ended up on the same card.  Next, with a beautiful “Aladdin Lamp”, he levitated a silk, and did colour changes as part of a story.   With a small “Las Vegas” illuminated sign, he used Casino cards, and the chosen card matched the correct gambling chip.   All in all, a very enjoyable collection of fascinating items.