By Club President Dale Trueman
Ring 102 Sydney NSW Australia – The Maurice Rooklyn Ring
Meets 3rd Tuesday Every Month at 7:30pm at Northside Chatswood Salvation Army Church Hall Cnr. Bertram and Johnson Street Chatswood. Dale Trueman President email daletrueman@me.com
With 20 people in attendance President Dale Trueman opened the July meeting and then handed it to the night’s host Peter Wood.
Peter introduced Conway Restom who took us on a tour through various methods of switching objects. His opening statement was that once you start learning to switch a few objects then before you know it you can switch a lot of objects.
He started by borrowing a coin, noting the date and then having it marked using a sharpie. He talked for a moment about the various ways you could switch a coin before revealing that the signed coin was now bent. He then demonstrated the switch he used and laid out his three M’s of switching
Mechanics
Motion
Misdirection.
Using these principles he demonstrated a card switch in which he showed the top card of a deck which then changed before we noticed.
He went on to demonstrate his own coin switch named “Conways Clip Switch”, the Bobo Switch and the Shuttle Pass. Then back to cards. A freely selected card was folded into a quarters and placed on a table. A new card was selected, signed then returned to the deck which was given to an audience member. The folded card on the table was then revealed to be the signed card. A short demonstration of the TK drop and the Al Baker Billet Switch were shown to be the method. Conway then demonstrated Bob Cassidy’s Moldavian Switch, his own “Lazy Man’s Second Card Switch”, the Push In Change and the Top Change. He ended his part of the evening with Juan Tamariz’s Crossing the Gaze in which he swapped a wristwatch for a second one.
Bruce Glen then gave a talk about the importance of performance and scripting titled “Tricks Are Not Enough”. He urged us to look beyond the tricks and spend time on the look and feel of your act. His premise was that most tricks or routines can be performed by anyone that knows the method but this does not make it magical and he reminded us that it is our job to make magic appear to be as it was before we pretended to grow up. Bruce said that one of the most important things we need to ask ourselves is why does our character do magic? He talked about the importance of scripting and urged anyone having trouble with it to reach out and find someone who can help. We need to have scripts and routines that can move the audience emotionally and connect with them. The show is all about the audience and never about ourselves.
Bruce then demonstrated a mind reading routine in which an audience member correctly divined that the word NO was written on a card and Bruce then invited the person up to learn some mind reading. A deck of cards were spread after Bruce announced that he had a particular card in mind. The guest then removed one card and left it on the table facedown. He announced which card he was thinking of and lo and behold it was the card that had been chosen.
Bruce then took us through the scripting for the routine and explained features and moments that helped to make it a magical experience. He ended with urging us to treat volunteers with respect and to avoid lazy tropes in our routines. As Bruce often does he also recommended that all magicians take some form of acting classes.
Peter Wood then wrote down the numbers one through to twenty on a white board and asked audience members to name common objects which were written against chosen numbers by a volunteer. Without looking Peter then recalled the objects against each number and the numbers against each object before reciting the list backwards. Peter then ran us through the memory technique he used and then gave us a chance to try out this skill with a list of objects he had prepared earlier.
The evening closed with supper and informal discussions.
Dale Trueman
Sydney Magic Club 