The theme of the meeting was “Close-up Magic”. It was hosted by John Ferguson who
led off with Tenyo’s “Invisible Zone”, in which the middle of a biro pen
vanishes. He had been circulating
around the room earlier showing an illusion – a finger ring that appears to
grow larger as it is turned around the finger (from grandillusions.com).
David
Whitson, our President, recalled his earliest years in magic as he did his earliest items - spikes
through coin, a coin vanishing in a slide, and Professor’s Nightmare with woven
ropes that looked like wands. Cheerful nostalgia!
One of our recent visitors, Elliott, asked a
spectator to give a number, then he dealt cards to that number, and there was
previously the chosen card face up in the deck. Clever!
Andrew Pickard, who loves bill
changes, made a spectator’s $20 change into a $5 bill, then handed the $5 back
to the spectator! After making a hole
in a bill with a pen, he showed it had healed itself. Finally, the poor spectator was rewarded with his money back when
Andrew restored his $20.
A visit to Disneyland for Steve Irwin had enabled him
to buy a tower of three blocks with a picture of Mickey Mouse on them. No matter how he threaded them in the
holder, they reassembled to form Mickey Mouse again – mysterious! He displayed a stage size “Hot Rod”, and the
colour chosen by the spectator took over all the colours on the rod. We groaned when he produced a finger
chopper – but he made it highly amusing as he got a poor victim – um – a
volunteer - to risk their finger in this device…. and it all worked out nicely.
Noel Clair did a whole range of close up, starting
with rubber band through finger, and
then revealing a chosen card using a crystal ball. He loves the coin matrix,
and he did that for us, and then moved on to another coin effect, “Escape from Alcatraz” the script for which
he had invented, in which the convicts are trying to escape and the guards
trying to stop them. Then he gave us
the pea and shell game using walnut shells, and another matrix effect using nuts
and screws ending with a nut on a screw (how the heck?), and then a
commercial item - the rising metal ball in the tube effect. Most of these items
were not commercial ones, but ones he had developed himself.
John Ferguson came back to do an item made up years ago by
our Club’s founder and famous early magician, Rex Sinclair – a counter
elimination game, with the instructions written by Rex himself. John did Tenyo’s “Tunnel of Darkness”, and
another similar dice-change item. Water
poured into a cup on Elliottt’s head vanished, but reappeared when he poured it
out of a jug (i.e. a Foo can). A tiny
metal can (“Particle Chamber”) caused a Singapore 5 cents to disintegrate into
particles.
New member Josey Yan did several items for us this
time. One was a sweet romantic effect, Love Heart (“two hearts beat as
one”). She tackled the cups and balls,
using her knowledge of Chinese language to advantage as she taught us the
Chinese words for the colours of the cups she was using! The dice box with big dice in it she
successfully shook into lots of smaller dice.
Her final items were the svengali pack and penetrating Chinese money
(naturally!) with a pen, showing it undamaged.
Elliott, and a new visitor Joe Stallard, were
bursting with enthusiasm and rounded off the evening very nicely with a clever
assortment of card items. These included Joe finding a chosen card stuck under
one of the tables in the room – don’t know how he did that undetected, since
the room was locked before anyone arrived!
Did you miss the joyful and mysterious time we had? Oh, you must come to the next meetiing, on "Self-Working Magic" !
