From ring reporter Peter Rodgers

Three members had agreed to present a mini lecture for our March meeting “Improving Your Magic”. Our MC for the evening was Jack Sharp. Jack had recently returned from the Blackpool convention and he interspersed the lectures with items that he had purchased there and was introducing to his new family shows. Jack started by displaying a birthday card, ideal for use at children’s birthday parties, however it looked very dreary as it was only in black and white. With plenty of “bits of business,” and audience participation jack magically and visually coloured the card in, ready to be handed to the birthday child. 

Jack then introduced our first lecturer of the evening, Anthony Dillon and his mini lecture “Eliminating Weaknesses”. 

Anthony commenced by asking us to compare two questions. 

1) Would you like to see a card trick?

2) Would you like to see something my grandfather showed me?

Everyone agreed that the second question is much more interesting to your audience and we had some discussion analysing the reasons. Anthony then discussed Michael Ammar’s “Two Coin Transposition” and asked the question, “Who Cares?” Its necessary to give the audience some meaning to your effects. Anthony then performed a ring through handkerchief effect that he had learnt from the Mark Leveridge Zoom lecture to our club during the Covid-19 lockdown. Anthony explained that, he always had a problem with one aspect of the effect. He explained that at an IBM social meeting he had raised his concerns with member Peter Wood, and Peter showed him the classic move which is now the way Anthony performs the effect. Thats one of the big benefits of belonging to a magic society such as ours. You can always discuss things over with your fellow performers. Anthony then showed us an effect with three plastic cards. A Visa card, A Social club membership card and a work/business card. He had a spectator very freely choose one of these cards and Anthony showed that he had predicted the outcome. The method, often maligned by magicians, but can be very astonishing for laymen was a three way out. The problem with this type of effect is that some of the “Outs” are always much better than others. After Anthonys performance he lead a long discussion on how to improve the weaker “Outs”.

Jack thanked Anthony and brought forward our next lecturer, John Kanawati and his lecture on Misdirection.

John commenced by quoting the great Tommy Wonder. Most magicians start to learn a routine by practicing the mechanics, then they add the patter then as a final step they work out the misdirection. Tommy Wonder told us that misdirection is integral to the whole effect/routine and should be part of your thinking from the start. John then performed his lovely multiplying billiard ball routine, explaining that it included 12 points of misdirection. He explained such techniques he used as mirroring, ie. placing both hands in his pockets at the same time but just palming one ball. He explained how he looked at his elbow or where he wanted the spectators to look. He explained Juan Tamariz’s Crossing the Gaze and what and where to watch and he referred us to Tom Stone’s Penguin lecture. John explained ‘what’s higher gets more attention’ and that ‘the bigger move covers a smaller move’. Performing a card effect John palmed cards as he asked a question, he demonstrated cover for the pass as he turned and gestures proving again that the large move covers the small move. He explained that what is closer gets more attention and the concentration of the performers attention will attract the spectators attention to what you want them to take in or away from what you don’t wont them to see. John concluded by referring us to both the Tommy Wonder  and the Tom Stone lecture notes.

Jack came back and advised that the Sydney Ring would be performing a family show for the Salvation Army in November and for all members to start to plan for the show. He then introduce our final lecturer of the evening, Barry Abkin to lecture on The Memorised Deck.

At a previous meeting Barry had impressed many of our members with his performance of Simon Aronson’s “Histed Heisted” which is Simon’s take on “The Miracle Divination” from “The Magic of Louis S Histed”. Its an effect from the 1940’s that users a Mem. deck. Barry had been using the Aronson Memorised Stack and tonight he said that a stacked deck was currently his favourite magic technique. He repeatedly had cards chosen and he apparently read the spectators minds to disclose the card. Barry was using a stacked deck, he was cutting the cards as the cards were chosen, he then glimpsed the new bottom card of the deck and he new the next card in his stacks sequence was the chosen card. Barry had originally learnt this method  from the writings of Gene Anderson, however it is standard procedures with a stacked deck. Although Barry was using the Aronson stack he did mention other memorised stacks such as Juan Tamariz’s Mnemonica and the Nikola Card System. He also talked about the Si Stebbins stack which could be used for virtually all the effects that Barry performed tonight, but it does not need to be memorised making it much easier to learn. For those still interested in remembering fifty two cards in order Barry suggested the Rick Lax Mnemonica Trainer or to just remember a few cards at a time as if they were phone numbers. He also suggested having an Invisible Deck in your pocket for a good finish or as a good ‘out’, when an effect goes wrong.

Jack Sharp thanked our three lectures and mentioned that they may be thirsty, he had a jug of water and a stack of glasses. He poured out three glasses of water for them, decided that he would have a drink too, but the water mysteriously turned to wine as he filled his own glass. Jack asked if any other members wished to perform. Phouc Can Hua is always keen to perform and he managed to balance a ping pong ball on the edge of his handkerchief. After a few attempts Phouc got the ball to roll along the top of the hanky. During the supper break, which followed, Peter Wood gave Phuoc a few hints to help improve his very old, but seldom seen routine.

Peter Rodgers

From ring reporter Peter Rodgers

Our February meeting was disrupted by a summer storm which often happens this season, but Sydney had missed out on many of them this year. We delayed the start of the meeting, which was a good idea with some members turning up fifteen minutes late drenched to the skin. They had just made a quick walk from the railway station in pouring rain.  Our topic tonight was “Cash Conjuring” covering notes, coins, credit cards, casino chips, gambling, betcha’s, pick pocketing, anything that could be loosely associated with money.

With the absence of our president tonight, Peter Wood took charge and ran the meeting. Before the main entertainment commenced at the request of a member requiring some family magic material for a future show in Alice Springs, a town in the middle of Australia, Peter showed a few routines. With a short length of plastic drain pipe with some strategically placed holes and two lengths of rope he tied a spectator up. The spectator then tied Peter up. We could see how secure he was then instantly the shackles fell away. Peter then performed and showed the workings of a very old effect that I’ve always called the paper tree production or the paper fir tree, but Gene Anderson calls the Corn Stalk. Peter then introduced our other Peter, Peter Rodgers who, with a cheating at cards theme, performed John Bannon’s Bullet Party then, encapsulated into a gambling routine, performed Twisting the Aces, The Last Trick of Dr Jacob Daley, The Dai Vernon Poker Deal and Peters own amalgamation of the Walter Gibson and Harry Lorayne’s Poker Deals.     

Phuoc Can Hua is a lover of Tenyo Magic, tonight he performed a version of Paul Harris’s Twilight. With the aid of a pocket mirror he made coins appear, multiply, change and vanish. Then with some Japanese music a small plastic pagoda he vanished the center of a 1000 yen note, or did it actually slide to one side like the classic ZigZag lady. 

Anthony Dillon then demonstrated a pen through an Australian twenty dollar polymer note which was wrapped in a post-it note. After his performance Anthony was generous enough to explain the full workings of the method which uses a normal pen or Sharpie which can be borrowed. With the assistance of Bailey and Phuoc, Anthony then had a coin wrapped in a silk. The corners were pulled through a finger ring, the silk trapping the coin, however, Anthony succeeded in removing it. Bailey was asked to choose an imaginary coin which Anthony produced. A card was chosen from a pack in new deck order, the pack cut, the card returned and the chosen card was miraculously discovered back in its original position with the cards back to new deck order. Another card was chosen and it appeared under a poker chip using a little bit of word play. It was Anthonys performance of Erik Tait’s Ultra Lucky Coin.

Bailey Baranenko joined our ring about eighteen months ago, however, because of the size of Sydney and his working commitments he has found it hard to get to meetings until tonight. With his phone he took a photo of Anthonys hand, he then drew a small cross with a Sharpie on Anthony’s palm, the cross vanished from his hand only to appear in the photo. With a bit more skullduggery Bailey made the cross appear on Anthonys other palm. The classic cigarette ash trick with smoking generally frowned upon in Australia is now rarely performed. Some years ago the effect was updated with MagicSmith releasing what is now his best selling effect, Double Cross, which replaces the ashes with a Sharpie pen. Only very recently has the digital effect of adding an image to a photo on your phone been added which shows that Bailey is keeping up to date with new magic and technology even whilst unable to attend many of our meetings. 

Peter Wood had been introducing the performers, it was now his turn to perform. We were all instructed to grab for an invisible object in the air, but Peter was the only one to produce an Australian hundred dollar note. It was padlocked between two sheets of  clear acrylic Perspex. A stand with five keys hanging from different coloured ribbons. With a well thought out comedy routine Peter had various spectators choose keys until only one remained. There was Peter’s key and it was found to be the only one to fit the padlock. Peter as usual with him has created a great routine that he uses for family audiences with the classic Pentalock.

It was now time to retire for tea coffee and supper and plenty of discussion about tonight’s performances and Magic in general.

Peter Rodgers

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 summer holidays still in place our January meeting is normally smaller than most meeting with many members away. Tonight was no exception, however although our numbers were small we had a great night with some excellent magic.

Conway Restom had volunteered to be tonight’s host with the theme “Thematic Threesomes”.  He surprised the audience by producing a glass of beer bare handed before most of the members were paying attention. He then commented as he was removing his coat that many people suspect that the beer is up his sleeve. He said that can’t be true because thats where he keeps the glass of orange juice  which he now displayed and given away to a thirsty spectator. As Conway introduced Peter Wood, our next performer, he produced a hammer which made sense with Conways patter. Peter invited four people up to assist him. Lena shuffled the cards then Peter had her choose a card, it was the jack of clubs which was now returned to the pack. A marker card shoved part way into the pack proved to be next to the chosen Jack. Three of the  assistants then very cleanly each chose a card and returned them to the pack. Robert’s card was found by spelling to it, then Anthony’s  was found when he said “Stop”,  and John’s turned face up in the middle of the deck. Peter then requested Lena to play the part of the magician and Peter would be the spectator. He asked Lena to fan the shuffled card towards him so he could remove a card. Which he placed face down on the table. He asked Lena to deal cards in a pile and to stop anywhere. Then to take the dealt cards and to deal them into two piles. The top card of one packet disclosed the suit of the chosen card and the top card of the other packet the value.

Phuoc Can Hua was our next performer. With a small white stand with three coloured knobs, that could be removed, and an endless chain he started to scam a spectator although no money changed hands. The chain was looped around the knobs and two removed. If the chain caught on the remaining knob the spectator would win. Despite Phuoc showing how easy it was to win the spectator never succeeded. Even when the game was simplified with one knob removed and just two in play our spectators decisions were always wrong. Peter Rodgers explained how a pack of cards resembled the calendar with many similarities such as weeks in a year and cards in a pack. The number of suits and the number of seasons etc. He then asked a spectator to nominate a date that had a meaning to him. Peter picked up the cards that had been on the table from the start. He said the two jokers were somewhere face down in the face up pack. He fanned through the cards, removing the two jokers, when turned over one had the month and the other the day of the month written in big letters across the jokers faces. This was Peter’s performance of Mathew Knights “Invisible Date”. Quoting Arthur C Clarks third law, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, Peter showed an interesting property of the nitinol alloy. He then attempted a performance of Simon Aronson’s Past, Present and Future. 

Well known Sydney magician Bill Walsh was visiting our ring tonight and commenced his performance with the recorded introduction he used when he worked the Close Up Room at Hollywood’s Magic Castle many years ago. Bill commenced with the Gift Box Illusion where the lids of two different sized pictures of boxes still proved to fit when exchanged. He then performed his version of Peter Kane’s Variant with five small wallets. He placed a poker chip in four of them and some money in the fifth. His spectator kept trying to win the money, his odds increased and the money increased, but he couldn’t win. As a booby prize he won an eight ball and some big (stage) Money. Bill then concluded his performance with a funny routine with a roll of Australian currency and a pair of Golden Fun Shears, now an unobtainable classic prop from Supreme Magic who were a major dealer from the 1950’s through to the 80’s.

Barry Abkin is a very enthusiastic, but reasonably new member of the Magic fraternity. He impressed everyone tonight with his performance of Simon Aronson’s Histed Heisted. He gave virtually everyone in the audience a few jumbo cards. Everyone was asked to mentally select just one card from their packet. A standard pack of cards was shuffled by a spectator then Barry called them out in groups. The spectators had to indicate if they heard their cards called in each group. Barry then faultless divined their chosen cards. 

Anthony Dillon performed a couple of classic card location effects with a borrowed pack before performing a rendition of the also classic “Will the Cards Match” using five matching pairs of cards. Anthony did say that he likes to perform the classics and I agree with him. Effects become classics because they are the best effects, and yes, all five pairs of cards did match. To conclude his spot Anthony had a spectator deal a few cards into a pile, the spectator then shuffled his cards, dealt some more then dealt more, shuffled and finally dealt some more and he assembled the pack and cut the cards marking the spot where cut. When the top five cards were dealt from the marked position they proved to be the ace, ten, jack, queen and ace of spades. 

Conway returned with his routine for Sol Stone’s Abraviagra where a cork mysteriously stands up under an inverted coffee mug. John Kanawati turned a packet of chewing gum into a chocolate bar then he performed a twisting the aces routine where the aces turned over one at a time in his hands but it wouldn’t work for the final ace until the cards were placed in a spectators hands. With just three cards from the deck John showed that they were all aces of spades, then jokers then other aces. This was John’s version of Color Monte, said to be the largest selling three card trick ever. Sticking to his theme John removes three pieces of dinner cutlery from his pocket, a knife, a fork and a spoon. Before the spectator could choose the spoon there was another knife and no spoon then a knife turned into a spoon, then the other one and then the fork also changed leaving john ready  for his desert course with just three spoons. Wild Cutlery by Fujiwara Kuniyasu was a new effect to most of us and it was talked about late into the night. Our last performer was our youngest and one of our most skilled performers. It was Clement Kwok who used a borrowed pack of cards. After a few fancy shuffles he threw four cards face down on the table, he then quickly started to deal cards one at a time asking a spectator to say stop. When stopped they counted the dealt cards, there were ten, he showed the four original cards, they were the four tens. He then started to gather the dealt cards again asking the spectator to stop him. There were now six cards left, the four original cards turned over and were now the four sixes. This was the start of Clements fast paced medley of mainly Dani DaOrtiz material.

After the performances we all adjourned to supper and friendly discussions on tonight’s magic.

Peter Rodgers

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

Our December meeting, really a Christmas party, was again held on the deck at our treasurer, Peter Woods home at Lane Cove. Although quite close to the CBD with many main roads nearby the outlook of Peter’s deck is across the rooftops of suburbia into bush land and across valleys to Sydneys North West, and at dusk, into the setting sun. Although its summer in Sydney the weather was mild and we had a rollup of over twenty members and visitors. It was obvious that returning to a barbecue was more popular Christmas party meeting than last years experiment of having pizzas delivered. Dale Trueman is our president, but tonight he manned the barbecue cooking, steaks, sausages, lamb ribs, chicken wings and fish pieces. Peter, and his lady friend Michelle provided the nibbles, salads and multiple Christmas deserts and puddings latter in the night. Members provide their own drinks, but there was plenty of sharing on the night.

The entertainment commenced with Peter Wood welcoming everyone to his home. He then performed his favourite version of Paul Curry’s Out of This World which doesn’t need leader cards and doesn’t have a switch of piles in the middle. His presentation was based around intuition. He then got Bruce to shuffle the cards, he asked Wendy, a visitor, to think of a number and Anthony to think of a card, Anthony is to say stop when he sees his card. Its miraculously at Wendy’s thought of number. Bruce Glen was our next performer with his big budget act. He used two packs of cards, one red and one blue. He gave Robert a choice of decks, both Robert and Bruce held their cards under the table, a card was removed from the centre by both decks, turned face up on top of the decks which were then cut. When ribbon spread on the table both cards were the same. The piece and quiet was broken by the sounds of Australia’s iconic bird, the kookaburra laughing at us from a nearby tree. Was it amazed by Bruce’s effect?  It was soon followed by the cooing of doves, but these weren’t in the trees, they belonged to Peter and with his new bunny are part of his family magic show.

Our next performer was Conway Restom who claims to love science. He told us that 25% of the entire universe including earth is made up of Dark Matter. On his  phone Conway has installed a new prototype “Dark Matter App”, turning his phone into dark matter generator with the dark matter coming from his phone portal. He showed four blank faced cards, a hole appears in one, then another and another and then all four. The holes then turned into large black dots, or puddles of dark matter. This is Conways routine and presentation of “The Incredible Appearing Nothing” by Christophe Fouquet. Conway then borrowed two packs of cards, one red, one blue backed. Conway chose a card and a spectator chose one out of the other pack. They proved to be the same card. 

We have missed Clement Kwok at our recent meetings but tonight he was back with some very impressive magic. Clement had his cards shuffled, he located the two of spades, it vanished then appeared in the card box. Clements eye glasses vanished and they appeared in the box, then a fork appeared in the box. With the assistance of Bruce the fork started to bend in Clement’s hands, then it bends more, it is bent double. Clement straitens it and then mysteriously the fork is shown to have a twist in it, then one of the tines bends then all the tines bend. Clement then performed a medley of effects with two silver rubber bands and a safety pin. Clement linked the bands around the fingers of both hands forming the rungs of a ladder between his hands. The safety pin was linked over the top rung, it moved from top to bottom, then again in slow motion then again but at lightning speed. Clement then performed Crazy Man’s Handcuffs first with the two bands in his hands then with one band linked over a spectators two forefingers. Clement concluded by turning two bands into one. He then introduced his friend and visitor to our meeting, Chap who is a young back packer from Argentina traveling around Australia. He came out shuffling his cards, he asked Anthony to name a card, where do you want it, Anthony said top and there it was. Chap asked John to “name a card”, “where do you want it”, “second from the top”, and it was there. Chap asked Bruce to cut some cards, Chap said, “35”, the packet was counted and there were 35, he asked Robert to “name a number”, he said, “number 22”, “and now a card”, Robert chose the three of spades and it was at the twenty second position in the pack. Chap had just shown as a fine example of Jazzing with a mem. deck.  It was the day after Argentina had one the FIFA World Cup against France, so we all congratulated Chap as he returned to his seat. 

Our last performer was Barry Abkin, he told a story of coincidence, what is it? He used two packs of cards, one red, one blue. Anthony chose the blue, Barry kept the red. Despite both packs being handled and examined by Anthony, both Barry and Anthony repeatedly shuffled the same card to the top. For the finale a jumbo duplicate of the last card is produced from a large red envelope that was on display from the start. This was Barry’s performance of John Archer’s “The Laura Buxton Co-incidence.

After the performances it was time for our deserts before we wished everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy 2023 and we all again thanked Peter Wood for organising this amazing Christmas party at his home.

Peter Rodgers

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

Our president Dale Trueman was unable to attend our November meeting so Peter Wood, our long running treasurer and “general dogsbody” introduced our lecturer for the night, it  was Sean Taylor a great friend to our ring. Sean is a British/Australian magician who is one of the few Australian magicians who has regularly toured here and overseas with a lecture as well as authoring some well known books. The night was a selection of close-up and stand-up magic and mentalism. The first half was all new material and the second half, a retrospective of Sean’s better known effects. He mixed some of his dealer items with some things you can make with a little bit of arts and crafts and a trip to the office store. Sean is a worker and so not only are the tricks entertaining he’s also ironed out the wrinkles to make them into performance pieces.

4GONE Illusion and The Final Stop both use well known principles in a completely new way and are clever magician foolers. An experienced member was heard to whisper “No way” after Sean’s initial performance of The Final Stop an effect destined to become a classic. (I bought two of them), Four Eyes is a fun packet trick and FlipOut a card revelation which borrows from the venerable Insurance Policy and the Xerox deck. On Target is a 2 deck coincidence effect which proves that counting down 52 cards isn’t always as painful as we think.

The second half featured more parlour and stage effects with highlights being One, a named card in Envelope. PsyConFabulous which is Seans take on the Confabulation Plot, Sean’s Pro Envelope and Pineapple Surprise which was released 25 years ago, but still proves to be a winner with Sean’s audiences. 

Sean explained that he will embark on an overseas lecture tour in 2023/24. If your local IBM ring is looking for a fun entertaining night of clever magic which anyone can do, I’d recommend Sean Taylor. You can find him on Facebook or via his website.

The evening concluded with our usual supper whilst sales were brisk and Sean was inundated with our members questions.

Peter Rodgers 

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

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

Our September meeting is our AGM which we always try to get over quickly so that we can perform and see as much Magic as possible. Conway Restom acted as returning officer and Dale Trueman was re-elected as president, Jack Sharp as Vice President, Peter Wood as Treasurer. Conway was unable to continue as Secretary so Steve Miller was elected as our secretary. Our new board members are John Kanawati, Garry Davis and Anthony Dillon.

Garry Davis was tonight’s host with the theme of Close Up Magic and he started the entertainment by introducing our president Dale as our first performer. Dale passed on the hint that a great way to carry small packet tricks is to keep them in your phone case beneath your mobile phone. From behind his phone he produced three cards which he used to perform his version of Jim Temple’s Color Monte first marketed by Emerson and West in the late 1960’s. In Dale’s version he showed three Aces, two red and one black. The idea was to follow the black, but with many fast paced one dollar betts and the cards appearing at various times to be all red, all black and all different the effect concludes with the spectator owing the performer $14.00. It is said that over the years that Color Monte was the largest selling magic trick ever with Emerson and West selling many versions with corporate logos. Our next performer was our ex secretary and Vice President Conway Restom who performed a long medley of effects with various coloured rubber bands that he kept around his wrists. Conway gave the bands names, such as the red band was “Spider” band (later to be called “Super” band, the white was “Cutie” band, the yellow was “Canary” band. He had a “Cannibal” band, an “Acrobatic” band, and a “Steele” band. The routine had bands vanishing, jumping from hand to hand, fingers to fingers and even penetrating a “Houdini” pen, a Sharpie which at one stage was even held at each end by two members of the audience.

Our long standing treasurer, Peter Wood was our next performer. He commenced by producing a sponge ball from an invisible purse with just its frame been visible. He showed a spectator how to saw the sponge in half with his hand, he now had two which changed places, then one vanished to join the other in the spectators hand. Peter tried to get rid of the sponges into his pocket but the kept returning to his hand until suddenly they all vanished. Peter then showed us “Hot Rod”, A Rod with six coloured spots on each side. Peter fooled some of our members by asking someone to call out a colour and suddenly all the spots changed to that colour. Originally it was just on one side of the Rod, but then on both sides then just one side again. The Rod was then handed out to be examined. Tony Croft has been a member for quiet a few years but we are losing him as a regular. He will soon be moving to Port Macquarie, a lovely sea side town about four hundred kilometres to our north. As his swan song Tony would have fooled most of our members with his rendition of the Rick Lax effect, Binary Code 2. Rick Lax performed his original Binary Code effect where he appears to memorise a shuffled pack of cards on Penn and Teller’s Fool Us some years ago. Binary Code 2 goes further and Tony appeared to memorise the order of two packets of half cards as the cards were torn in half. The half card packets were held under the table by two spectators, they were cut multiple times, a half card removed and sat on by each spectator and the packets cut again. Tony went through the packets again and he was able to disclose the missing halves, proving that he had memorised the cards in each packet. 

Jack Sharp is a skilled entertainer and tonight he performed Christopher Wiehl’s ‘Arthur’ which was a new effect to most of us. A chosen card, called Excalibur was inserted half way back into the pack of cards, the cards returned to the case with Excalibur sticking out. The spectator then tried to remove the card from the pack but it was stuck fast. The pack was removed from the case but the “sword” was still sticking fast but at Jacks word, the card just slid out of the deck like butter. We don’t see Joey Szabo at many of our meetings, he’s a busy family entertainer and doesn’t like performing in front of magicians but tonight he performed a delightful chop cup routine producing a lime and then as a double surprise a potato to end the routine.

Barry Abkin Is a new member of our ring, he invited Conway to think of a card. He then handed Conway a pack of cards and asked Conway to indicate the value of the card to the audience by dealing the number of cards equal to its value onto the table whilst Barry’s back was turned. The pack was restored and then cards were dealt to indicate the suite and again restored. Barry then faced the audience and by looking through the cards deduced Conways mentally chosen card. The surprise climax was to show that the cards were all blank. This was Barry’ rendition of an effect that was in the magazines and was very popular about twelve or thirteen years ago and was the forerunner of such effects as Joshua Jay’s “Out of Sight” and Stephen Bargatze’s “I Hate Card Tricks”. 

John Kanawati with four blank faced cards said he would show us an optical illusion. As he showed us the cards round holes, about two centimetres in diameter appeared on all four cards one at a time. The holes then all appeared to turn into black dots. This surreal effect in John’s hand’s was Christopher Fouquet’s “The Incredible Appearing Nothing”. Peter Rodgers demonstrated John Bannon’s latest version of his Origami Poker, “OMG Super Morigami”. He then proved that he could see through his fingertips by divining the colours of cards from a genuinely shuffled pack, he concluded by sensing the value of a card hidden in a card case. His routine was based on methods devised by Ian Rolland and Luke Jermay.

Anthony Dillon made three predictions whilst Conway cut the pack, he then performed a routine were four coins passed through a metal disk between two rings one at a time. Phuoc Can Hua used a Boston Coin Box to make four coins penetrate the back of his hand. He then commenced a long and involved routine with four Mahjong tiles, two green and two red. The tiles changed places, travelled from Phuoc’s hand to his pocket and the back to his hand. Steve Bell used a large paper cup to produce a toy mouse, and then challenged us, is the mouse in the cup, or in his pocket? The chop cup type routine concluded with the production of half a dozen rubber mice.

Tonight’s host, Garry then performed a medley of card effects. A card chosen from a small packet vanished and reappeared. With a full pack of blue backed cards Garry had a card chosen. It proved to be the only card with a red back and was set aside. Another card was chosen and now the red backed card proved now to be this second chosen card. This was Garry’s rendition of Chicago Opener, also known as Red Hot Mama first released by Al Leech in 1950 as Hot Card Trick No 1. This effect is now a true classic with various routines and variations by such performers as Walter B Gibson, Frank Everhart, Frank Garcia, Jim Ryan, Mike Ammar and Whit  Haydn. Our final performer tonight was Bruce Glen. With just four cards they started to turn face down one at a time, but Bruce is a con man and he set up a friendly bet with John’s Toyota. What card is face down? What’s the colour of the backs of the cards? Bruce then showed that no one could guess that because now all the cards had different coloured backs and the motto of the night was to “never play cards with Bruce, the Gentleman Magician”. 

We then all adjourned to supper and friendly discussions of tonight’s events.

Peter Rodgers

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

Club President Dale Trueman opened the meeting with a reminder that next month is our AGM.

He then introduced the evening’s host Phouc Can Hua with the theme Silent or Musical Magic.

Phuouc and John Kanawati came on dressed as Siegfried and Roy dancing to lively music and with the help of audience members tied up Roy (John) with a rope around his neck and wrists. To great fanfare Roy easily and impossibly escaped.

Next was Conway Restom with some smooth Jazz music and an antique top hat. Conway displayed a blue backed deck of cards and one by one all the aces magically appeared. The backs of the aces were shown to be blue but in a moment all turned red. Next thing you know the entire deck had changed to red backs.

Peter Wood then peformed Joshua Jay’s balance to music of his own making and afterwards asked if he should leave it on the table, the music disagreed so he quickly packed it away.

Stephen Bell entertained the group by producing a number of items from behind a jacket held stretched out in front of him. This included a clown’s nose, a top hat, flowers that then bloomed, a toy rabbit, and evil toy rabbit and finally a cockatoo! (Puppet)

John Kanawati spoke about a relationship between learning closeup magic and learning to play music before showing off a one coin routine that used a sharpie as a wand. Both the coin and the sharpie appeared and disapeared from his hands repeatedly until out of the blue the coin became a wristwatch.

Jack Sharp then played the part of a hapless magician peforming a number of routine beginners tricks set to It’s a Kind of Magic by Queen. He was hilariously “accidentally” exposing the methods as he went. Thanks to Jack we now know the mysteries of solving a rubiks cube in a paper bag, the two card monte, the card with a changing number of spots on each side, a floating zombie ball style bread roll.  a prediction of the three of hearts as a chosen card, the ball and vase, a disapearing silk and linking rope rings.

Phouc returned to the front and cut a sheet of newspaper at various angles. When he finished what was left was two rings of paper linked together.

Peter Wood then performed a perfect version of Losander’s floating table with Phouc as his volunteer.

Andy Nunn broke the theme for the evening and correctly divined a name, a four digit number and a picture all written/drawn on paper by volunteers. He recommended the Mark Paul masterclass to anyone wanting to learn more about it.

Garry Davis performed an Aldo Colombini routine where four blue backed cards changed one by one to red and then back again to blue.

Finally Otto performed a version of a Hot Rod routine with a “diamond” on a stick.

We finished with supper and chat.

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

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

Our June meeting was opened by Vice President Conway Restom in the absence of President Dale Trueman who was unable to attend tonight’s meeting. After discussing and announcing some past and future ring 102 events Conway welcomed our visitors and introduced Peter Rodgers who was hosting tonight’s meeting, “Pasteboard Prestidigitation”.   

To start the night Peter performed Star Warp, a “Card Warp” variant using a dollar note and just one playing card published in Harry Lorayne’s Apocalypse magazine in 1980. Peter had added some of his own moves and some ideas of Mike Close. Peter then welcomed Lindsay Gardner who showed The Shuffle Prophecy, a version of Simon Aronson’s “Shuffle-Bored” using a small booklet to disclose the multiple predictions, some of which were wrong but everything worked out in the end. Our next performer was our hard working treasure Peter Wood with a nice routine of gambling starting with a two card transposition, then showing a hand of poker that appeared to be made up of five jokers which changed to five aces and then to a royal routine flush. With some gambling patter Peter showed how to get a great hand by dealing to himself off the bottom of the pack and then using methods claimed by Walter Gibson, Harry Lorraine and many others he dealt himself a Royal Routine Flush. To conclude his set Peter defeated Phuoc from the audience in a game of ten card poker.

Steven Bell asked who were fans of Star Trek the long established SciFi TV series. With related patter he had the audience raise his hand by telekinesis. He then invited three spectators up and performed a cards across routine with a “Beam me up Scotty” patter. Two chosen cards vanished from one packet of ten cards only to appear in the other packet. Our next performer was Joey Szabo, a well known family entertainer in Sydney who rarely performs at our meetings. Tonight he had cards chosen from two packs of cards, both cards proved to be identical. Conway Restom came back this time to perform. He explained how important it is that the cellophane wrapper around a new pack of cards should never be disposed of. He carefully removed the wrapper from his card case gently handing it to a spectator. The card case disappeared leaving Conway with just the pack of cards. The case proved to have transported to his jacket pocket. Conway then had the cellophane wrapper held by the spectator on his open palm. Conway then performed a version of the Last Trick of Dr Jacob Daley with the four kings. The two black kings were placed into the cellophane wrapper only to transpose with the two red kings. To conclude his set, Conway changed the complete deck into just the four kings.

Although Phuoc Can Hua claims that card magic is not his thing he always has something to perform. Tonight he started with a fan of cards that in a flash turned into a fan of jumbo cards. He then took a normal pack of cards, he cut the pack into three piles which were all shuffled and a card on the top of one pile noted by a spectator. The plies were again shuffled and assembled, however, Phuoc was successful in locating the chosen card. Daniel Shields had a novel presentation of the classic Triumph routine. He very cleanly riffle shuffled half the pack face up into the other face down half. He cut the pack in half handing one half to an assisting spectator. Both halves were shown to consist of face up and face down cards and Daniel challenged the spectator to a race to restore their respective halves so that all the cards were facing the same direction. The spectator was given a ten second start and finished before Daniel had even started. Daniel then showed that all his cards had magically restored themselves and yet the spectators cards were back to their topsy turvy mixed condition.  

Anthony Dillon was next. Anthony had a card chosen and returned, it was found reversed. Anthony started to explain the method but it was just a sucker explanation with a surprise conclusion. He then had a card chosen, it was returned to the deck and four cards removed. Anthony apparently read the spectators mind and disclosed which of the four cards was the spectators. We had just witnessed a fine performance of One Card and Only One Card by Larry Hass. Following Anthony was John Kanawati who always amazes us with his performances. Tonight it was with just four cards, the ace, two, three and four of clubs. It started when the ace on being inserted into the middle of the packet repeatedly kept rising to the top of the packet, then the same with the two followed by many gyrations of the cards which finally changed to diamonds.This was John’s version of the Larry Jennings’ Ambitious Classic with borrowed elements from James Swain, Bebel, Bruce Cervon and Derek Dingle.

Stephen Miller was our next performer, Steve has an eye for great magic had a card chosen and signed by Conway, the card was very cleanly returned to the pack and all the cards were dumped into a paper bag along with the card case. On shaking the bag the chosen card managed to jump into the card case. This was Stephen performing one of the many effects possible with the JP Vallarino’s Unhanded. 

Two of our performers tonight were visitors, the first was Daryl Vears. Daryl is from Perth WA and is a member of WASM. He started with the old effect of having a spectator cut the pack into four piles, three cards were taken from the top of each packet and a card dealt to the other piles. After this mixing the top card of each packet proved to be a king. He then took to cards out of his pocket and the spots from one card vanished and appeared on the back of the other. Chris Zhang our second visitor is a Sydney local, but this is his first visit to our Ring. We hope that it wont be his last as he proved his skill with the pasteboard’s. Chris commenced by  going through the pack with a spectator to show that the cards were well mixed. He then performed a version of Out of This World without using any leader cards. His use of a cull and novel switch at the end were discussed by members later in the night.

Our host Peter Rodgers returned to fulfil his promise of teaching a card routine at tonight’s meeting. With his aim to get our members interested in reading books he taught two effects, “Ulterior” and “Bluff Oracle Aces” from John Bannon’s book, Destination Zero. His main aim is to highlight great authors and books but tonight he covered the Balducci (cut deeper) Force, retaining a stock of cards in a shuffle, an open cull, and the Ose False Cut. He recommended that anyone interested in these routine should either track down the book or purchase the video’s of the book which are still available from BBM in the United Kingdom. 

Our last performer was Jack Sharp who commented he had only had a few minutes to prepare for tonight, but he proved to be the consummate entertainer by starting with a very funny joke. He had two cards, just mentally selected, one a red suit and one black. With a bit of telepathy he deduced the red card and then made the black card vanish from the pack to appear in his pocket. This was Jacks rendition of Leo Reed’s Divine and Conquer. He then showed his own excellent routine incorporating a colour changing deck with the chosen card appearing face up in another deck which just happened to be of the Brainwave variety.

Peter thanked all the performers for making our annual card night so successful and everyone helped themselves to the supper of tea and biscuits. Groups of magicians quickly formed to talk magic.