Andrew Pickard led the evening, which had the theme of
“Apparatus Magic”. He showed a nut
screwed on to a bolt. When he pressed
the top of the bolt, the nut eerily unscrewed by itself. The item was completely
examinable. Next he had a card chosen
and vanished in the pack, then used he pack to explode an inflated balloon, and
there was the chosen card, from inside the balloon !
The layout of metal apparatus in front of Al Hirschel was so
impressive that someone wondered if this was a metal-worker’s shop! He displayed two brass tubes, one long and
one shorter. After your reporter put a
pencil in the short tube, Al said the magic word and opened the two tubes, and
the pencil had moved to the longer tube.
Al’s father had given him the next item – the classic ball bearing
passing mysteriously through the too-small diameter hole.
John Ferguson caused a silk with a picture of a caterpillar
to vanish in a silk box, and then he tapped a crystal casket and a large
butterfly silk appeared inside it – the caterpillar had grown up! A “Foo Can” allowed John to pour water or to
show it empty at will. Next. a large
box was shown empty, and then from the inside were taken plates of sweets for
everyone – a bit of a surprise.
Another surprise was in store for us as David Whitson
brought out a round metal box that was labelled “sweets”. However, when he
opened it, an orange spring snake jumped out of it – a quick way to get our
attention! He then gave a demonstration of some pretty card fans. Next, using a whole pack of giant cards, he
told a story in which at each point of the story, the cards he showed
illustrated the story (e.g. the German waiter said “Nein, nein, Nein!” and
David produced three of the nines). We were really absorbed with this,
wondering each moment what he would say next and how he would work the cards
into the story.
Noel Clair was brilliant at handling a stack of brass coins
– make them appear and disappear on command.
He is clearly enjoying coin magic, and did other nice coin items for us.
The apparatus that Steve Irwin had brought was a cigarette
box. He opened it and three cigarettes
were present. He closed and opened it, and only one was present. He was able to control how many cigarettes
were in the box.
Michael Blakeman did a nice chosen card to wallet item,
showing the wallet empty to start, and then the card appeared in it. Smooth handling!
Smooth handling was evident too when Joel Howlett
manipulated two appearing canes – a visual surprise from thin air ! A colourful silk fountain led on to the
production of an elephant silk. Next he
put a needle and thread inside a wallet with a blank card, and he had a card
chosen (2D), then there appeared in the wallet a card with the two of diamonds embroidered
into it!
Dennis Norman had brought along an optical illusion of two
curved specimen plastic pieces to show us.
It resembled the well-known banana illusion, but this one also
had a measuring strip – when Dennis “stretched” the banana–like specimen, the
measuring strip showed it had lengthened!
He also asked for help with a “Silver Sceptre”, and Joel demonstrated
how he had used one. This is one of the
useful advantages of being part of a magic club – learning from each other!
