20th April 2021
After a brief introduction by Peter Wood, our treasurer and stand in president for the night, tonight’s host, Peter Rodgers was welcomed. Our meeting topic, “Close Up Magic including Card Effects with Prior Preparation” was chosen Peter explained, as the opposite of last November meeting on impromptu card magic.
Peter repeated his opinion that he believes that there is no such thing, from the performers point of view, as impromptu magic. You should always be prepared and ready to perform, even if somebody hands you a shuffled pack of cards. Peter commented that tonight’s topic had proved to be popular and that we had fifteen performers that night. He produced a box of two dozen books from the Estate of our past country member Jack Grant and said that everyone performing could have a book of their choice from the collection. He then opened the proceedings by performing the Boris Wild version of the Open Prediction.
The first performer Peter introduced was Conway Restom who performed a Mark Leverage effect where two cards, freely thought of by the spectator and Conway, appeared fully printed in an otherwise totally blank deck. Anthony Dillon followed up with his version of Stewart James classic effect Miraskill originally published in the great The Jinx magazine in 1936. Mark Mercedes performed Triple Helix, the multiplication of decks of cards followed up by a Card to Pocket effect. Peter Wood performed David Regal’s Sudden Deck, an All Backs Routine and Versions of Vernons Last Trick of Dr Jacob Daly and Twisting the Aces.
Conway came back with his rendition of John Guastaferro’s ‘Truth in Advertising. Conway’s version differed from the original in that the spectator, to his own surprise, correctly named the unknown card selected from a blank deck, which then turned out to be completely normal. Bill Walsh started with a mathematical tongue twisting effect followed up with a 12 Card Poker Deal routine. Bill added comedy to the routine by using a set of Golden Fun Shears, a beloved prop from the 1960’s long sought after by many performers but now virtually unknown by most younger members of our fraternity.
Michael Giblin used the Gilbreath Principle and Lennart Greens Rosetta shuffle to explain the historic and mathematic design of playing cards. Jack Sharp in his comedic and well received “School Master” persona performed Richard Saunders Any Card followed up by the Invisible Deck. He then stunned everyone present by handing the cards out proving that they were just a normal pack of cards with no sign of R & S.
John Kanawati in his alway interesting manner performed his own novel routine of the Nudist Deck (Mental Photography). Steve Miller using two packs of cards proved that everyone has their lucky cards then he and his assistant both managed to cut to the four aces in unison. Phuoc Can Hua put together a jigsaw puzzle which disclosed the value of a previously freely selected playing card. He then showed the jigsaw of the Jack of Diamonds required an extra piece when assembled face up.
Peter Rodgers came on for another stint, this time performing James Swain’s Capitulating Queens and Caleb Wiles FACT (Fully Automatic Card Trick). Our visitor Bella Donna performed Martin Lewis’s Cardiogrphic with the spectator appearing to make the animated card rise by turning an egg beater in the same manner as Clayton Rawson’s Little Wonder Thought Projector from Hugard’s Magic Monthly.
Peter Rodgers
Sydney Magic Club 