From Ring Reporter Peter Rodgers
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 our recently re-elected president back in charge he decided to try a new and untried experimental format for tonight’s meeting of “Speed Date Magic”. Instead of performing in front of the group, tonight everyone was asked to come along with a short close up routine, preferably no longer than about four minutes. We would all perform our acts one on one, magician to magician before moving on to another magician where all was to be repeated. Various tables were set up around the room but everyone was free to perform either sitting or standing and with or without a table. Performers and their audiences were free to discuss their acts, or not, depending on their desires.
Anthony Dillon performed a clever sandwich effect from Chris Congreave with a chosen card appearing between two stranger cards. He then showed the start of Martin Gardner’s All the Nonconformists which he had learnt from a Michael Ammar DVD where it was credited to Mike Skinner. The Gardner effect originally appeared in the Larry West and Verne Chesbro 1960 booklet “Tricks You Can Count On. Usually four aces are shown and then each ace is shown in turn to have an odd coloured back. Anthony showed it as a one out of four prediction effect with the named card having the odd back. Stephen Bell has been coming to most of our meetings lately and he always has something to show us. Tonight he passed four coins, one at a time, from his left hand to a small tumbler in his right hand where they landed with a nice ring. Steve Miller predicted a character/symbol by circling something on his master sheet. He then had the spectator choose a symbol from a set of cards and Steve’s prediction proved to be correct.
John Kanawati, always has something special and tonight it was an effect using two large coins, one copper and one silver. John very cleanly showed the coins both sides, he took one in his right hand and one in his left hand. With no fast movements the coins changed places. The effect was repeated numerous times with various handlings. This was Samoya by Rob Thompson. Dale Trueman performed his now familiar ring on cord routine. Phouc Can Hua had an Australian dollar and a ten cent piece. They were both placed in his left clenched fist, then one coin was removed and the spectator challenged, “Which coin is still in the hand”. The answer was never correct as both coins were back in the hand, the effect was repeated multiple times, sometimes with the dollar being removed, sometimes with the ten cent coin. Both coins were always back in Phuoc’s hand until the big finish when Phuoc’s hand was empty. This was Hopping Half which was manufactured in Australian coins by Tango. It looked great in Phuoc’s close up, one on one, performance, but because of the small size and dull appearance of the coins it wouldn’t be visible in a larger performance space.
Our new, but enthusiastic member Barry Abkin performed a couple of card routines. He had a spectator cut the pack into multiple piles then to note the top card of one of the packets, after the pack was reassembled in an apparent random order he discovered the noted card. During tonight’s performance Barry performed Devastation from Geoff Williams DVD, Miracles and the Gene Anderson’s Gene’s Card Routine from his Penguin Live Lecture. Peter Rodgers fooled the minds of his spectators by showing that one pack of cards was heavier than three packs using the Charpentier size-weight illusion. He then demonstrated the Short Long optical illusion and removed the four aces from a pack of cards. The red Aces changed places with the black aces and then each ace turned face up as Peter performed a routine he’s been performing for almost sixty years. It included The Last Trick of Dr Jacob Daily and Vernon’s Twisting the Aces.
Peter Wood brought his own small table that he carried around with him. He had two sets of five ESP cards. Although he dealt his packet first they proved to be in the same order as the packet mixed and dealt out by the spectator.
At the end of the night, during our supper, everyone agreed that the different format had been a great success. Performing this way we had the opportunity to talk one on one with each other, much more informally than at our usual meetings. Only having eight or nine performers probably helped with the smooth flow of the night. A larger number of performers may have been chaotic.
Peter Rodgers
Sydney Magic Club 