What Happened at the Meeting on Friday 15th April

The meeting had the theme “Silks and Handkerchiefs” and was hosted by Vice President Joel Howlett, who led off the magic.  Among several effects, he produced a rabbit silk from a top hat silk. 

Our President, David Whitson, rehearsed aspects of his Ecology show – the turtle puppet we saw last month came to talk to us again  with variations, and  David also showed us a seagull puppet and a round globe puppet of the whole world strangling itself in plastic.

Our newest member, Michael Blakeman, performed two clever card items.  We clearly saw him place the black two and the black three into the middle of the pack.  So how did he, with a flick of his hand, produce them from the pack as he tossed it on the table ?  Impressive.  In the next item, he had a card chosen but it did not match the prediction written on a piece of paper being held by a spectator.  No problem to Michael – he heated the paper with a lighter and the prediction changed to read the correct chosen card !

Joel came back with a red ribbon and a white ribbon pushed into his closed fist, and then they both changed into a red/white striped ribbon which he pulled out of his hand.   Next, he put a silk with a black horse picture and one with a white horse picture into a paper bag.  He burst the bag, and out popped a silk with a picture of a black and white striped zebra !

Steve Irwin loves colour changes in the hands, and this time for us he produced a blue ribbon from nothing, changed its colour and made it turn red in his hand, and then vanished the lot !

Handkerchiefs were the subject of several items from Noel Clair.  He did the amazing item that we have read about but never seen – in which a large safety pin, clearly pushed through a handkerchief, is pulled along to the other end of the handkerchief without tearing it.   It’s amazing when you see someone do what you’ve read about – and your doubts about it are removed.   He passed the body of one safety pin through another.  He made a white mouse puppet out of a handkerchief – and it “came alive” as it ran up his chest and round his neck. Wow it looked good !  He did a “world first” with linking rings passed through thumb tie.  His own thumbs, and also the thumbs of two spectators were tied together, but this was no barrier to Noel’s passing two linking rings through them.

John Ferguson started off briefly with an instant change of red coloured water into red silk (to keep the silk theme), and then told us about Möbius strips.  He took a strip of paper, gave it a single twist, and taped the ends.  When cut  down the middle, one long loop was formed.  Again, he took two strips that crossed each other, and joined the ends of the strips, first giving each a single twist, one of them to the left and the other to the right.  When cut down the middle, heart shaped loops were formed, and they were interlinked.  This is a good item to present around Valentine’s day, or for a Wedding anniversary.  There is a Youtube video of this at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xLFf_SwaK4&feature=youtu.be