What Happened at the Meeting on Friday 20th November 2020

 

The magic was hosted by Steve Irwin, on the theme of "Coins".  Steve commenced with a coin item arranged like "ring off rope", using three Chinese coins (because they have holes in the centre).  Each escaped the ribbon on command. The next item was a transfer of four coins from one hand to another, invisibly.  He finished  with a $20 note held between his hands, and it became suspended in the air at one end on one finger tip.

Kangaroos were the theme of the first item that Noel Clair did.  Calling the item "Jumping Kangaroos", Noel made the kangaroo coins jump from his right hand to his left one at a time.  Next, he showed a handful of "doubloons" and made one of these shiny coins transfer from his left hand to his right, and then repeated this twice.

Noel continued with a story to tell us – about the "Escape from Alcatraz".  Despite frantic attempts to stop four dangerous criminals (four bottle tops) escaping from Alcatraz, one bottle top does make it across from one hand to the other.  In the midst of alarm bells ringing, one by one the other bottle tops escape to join it.

He showed us the "Flying Eagles" – US coins moved across from one hand to the other.   Here were two different presentations of a transference item.

Al Hirschel spoke about Australian echidna coins. He laid out four $1 coins in a square matrix, and covered it all with a thin blanket.  The echidna loves to burrow, he said, and we could see his hand burrowing towards the other corner of the blanket – and behold, he showed us that the single coin was now two coins. Progressively, all four coins joined each other by magic  at one corner of the blanket.

Jeff Clark did not have his puppet this night!  Instead, he whirled a deck of cards around his head, and they opened out into a concertina.   Next, Jeff put two coins very cleanly in each of two candleholders.  He then poured them out on the table, there were three coins in one holder and one coin in the other.  He repeated this, and showed four coins in one holder and none in the other.  Your reported watched the handling very closely – there were no tricks, Jeff just poured the coins out and it happened !

Jeff selected a volunteer (Neil) using a pin poked into a notebook. The pin moved towards the person's name.  Jeff asked Neil to sit under a  small plastic bag filled with water into which Jeff poked biro pens without the bag breaking (thankfully, Neil said).

Steve Irwin, who was dressed in a Santa suit, danced and sang a Christmas song while his Santa hat  played the music, which worked in well with the Christmas party theme.  He also vanished a 20 cent platypus coin.

A floating credit card was David Whitson's first item – simple, but very baffling. Your reporter looked carefully at the credit card floating above David's hand and I could see nothing.  Next, David had a number chosen, and asked the helper to tell him which of several cards he showed to him had the chosen number on them.  David was then able to tell him the number.  Lastly, a coin was place into a circular box, and plastic needles were driven through the coin, even though it was solid.

What Happened at the Meeting on Friday 23rd October 2020

 

The meeting, with the theme "Apparatus Magic", was hosted by Andrew Pickard. Using a Square Circle, and showing it completely empty, Andrew produced several brightly coloured silks – a nice display.    Later, he carried out the "Great Wong Illusion".   In a quick trick, he waved his wand near a small scarlet silk and caused the silk to instantly vanish, at such speed that no-one could catch it!   He also had a card chosen, and then displayed a wooden frame filled with sand.  After covering the frame and uncovering it, the sand drained away to reveal the chosen card.

David Whitson used the corona virus theme to devise a trick. The colourful mask he was wearing to ward off corona virus was turned inside out four times to magically display a different patterned mask each time.   Next, he showed a bouquet of green leaves, and it bloomed instantly with red roses.  He showed the rising wand trick, saying it was one of the first tricks he had ever learned.  Then he showed us the item called "What's Next"  in which black spots on a jumbo card keep multiplying until the card is full of spots!

Jeffrey Clark did another routine with his puppet – a cartoon like crow figure, that is quite entertaining.  Jeff performed coin magic.  He showed us a calendar and did a mathematical trick on a square of  dates to achieve the date chosen by the spectator, and predicted by him.

Coin magic was also performed by Al Hirschel.  A bronze coin and a silver coin ware individually inserted in leather pouches, and shuffled.  By holding each pouch close to his ear and concentrating, Al was able to determine which coin was inside the pouch.

Neil Patrick Harris is an American actor/magician, and John Ferguson performed a card trick that Harris had published.  He asked the spectator who had chosen a card to carefully deal cards from the same pack on to the table.  The spectator ended up with his chosen card.  Again, a card was chosen, and John displayed a metal wire.  When he heated the wire in the flame of a match, the wire formed the shaped of the name of the chosen card – e.g. "K" and  a spade shape.  

John asked Noel and Diane Clair to assist with this next card trick – the Split Deck.  A jumbo deck cut diagonally was used, and Diane chose a card (a half-card).  Noel was asked to choose from the other half deck, and yes, he was able to get the other half of the same card!   The "Impossible Sheet of Paper" was a puzzle for us all.   Finally, a card was chosen from a deck by a spectator.  A card frame was displayed that showed a jumbo card that was a jack, and it was tipped out on the table – it had changed to be the chosen card !

Steve Irwin built a tower of three blocks each of which had pictures on the faces.  He covered the blocks with a wooden sliding cover.  When the pulled the cover off, the blocks had reassembled to make a picture of a monkey!