Joel Howlett was leading the meeting, and the theme was
“Silks and Handkerchiefs”. He commenced
by showing us Silk from Rose, then Coin from Silk. This Coin production led into him producing multiple large
coins. Showing us a circle with paper
across it, Joel punched a hole in the paper and from it produced a silk
fountain. He turned a black sash into a
rainbow streamer. What a cascade of
colour !
Steve Irwin, the next performer, showed his right hand
empty, and then asked Al to imprison that hand in a plastic bag and tie the bag
to his wrist with rope so that nothing could get in. Steve then took a red silk in his left hand, vanished it, and it
instantly appeared inside the plastic bag held in his fingers in his right
hand. Everyone gasped with amazement,
because it was so unexpected.
Next, Joel showed his ability with the Massal tube. Showing
a square of material empty, he twisted
it into a tube, and from the tube produced a black and white silk picture of a
flower in a pot. Asking us to throw the
colour from our clothes at it, he then produced a silk picture similar to the
black and white one before, but with coloured splotches over it. Then with a magic word, he produced a silk
that not only was a fully coloured flower in a coloured pot, but also was of a
size that was four times as large.
We know the zigzag effect with cards, with a banknote, and
even with a woman. The next performer,
Noel Clair showed us a zigzag with rope – a device that gave the illusion that
the rope was pushed sideways into two pieces, then he restored it. He did ring
off rope, and made the ring disappear.
He did his rope routine, in which knots appear on a rope and
disappear off it; the ends disappear off the rope; he tied a knot in the centre
of the rope and removed the knot, then he put the ends back on the rope. Next he made a rope pass straight through
his finger. A ring tied firmly on the
rope came off easily, then went back on firmly. When he threw the ring at the
rope, it went on to it immediately.
Joel produced a silk from his bare hands, vanished it, and
made it reappear from mid air. Next he
did the Twentieth Century Silks.
Brad Burgoyne did a nice classical sponge ball routine: he
appeared to break one sponge into two, transposed one sponge then two from his
hand to the spectator’s, and multiplied two sponges to three. The old classics have an inherent magical
power !
Another classic is the Gung Ho Silk Box, which was used by
John Ferguson to produce green, then red, then green, then red silks and so on
as an introduction to “Traffic Lights”.
This is a chemical magic effect in which a liquid, swirled in a plastic
bottle turns red in colour. Then when
the bottle is shaken, the liquid suddenly turns green. The colour change can be
repeated many times – as long as there is air in the bottle !
Anthony Roberts showed us a small box, empty. Opening it, he produced a silk. These small silk production boxes are very
useful. Next he dealt cards fairly on
to the table for one to be chosen – the 2D.
Opening a box in plain sight on the table all the time, he showed us the
prediction he had written – the 2D.
The very useful prop, the Change Bag, was used to good
effect by David Whitson, who used it to vanish red, white and blue silks, and
then to produce from the empty bag a 2 metre silk Australian flag. Noting that we should be welcoming to
others, he said that the bag was made in Japan, the silks in India and the
Aussie flag in Indonesia….. From the
change bag he next produced silk costumes of various animals such as a gorilla,
that could go around our necks – and he challenged the spectators to put them
on !
A new use for a classic prop, the Money Printer, was shown
us by Andrew Pickard. He used it to
vanish a silk, by winding the silk into the printer. Taking a tubular cover off a wine bottle, he showed the bottle
was normal. When he covered it up and
removed the tube again, the vanished silk had appeared tied around the neck of
the bottle !
What a night of magic !
