20th July 2021.

Sydney is back in a Covid-19 lockdown so for our July meeting our president, Dale Trueman organised for Jay Scott Berry to lecture to our members and to the friends of The Maurice Rooklyn Ring via Zoom.

Jay Scott Berry born in the USA first came to Australia and lectured in Sydney early this century. He was so impressed with our lifestyle that in 2007 he returned to make Australia his home and he has lived in the small mid north coast town of Wingham NSW which is a little over 300 Kilometres (190 miles) north of Sydney. Jay has set up multiple video studio’s in his home and his lecture was run under very impressive professional conditions. He will be very happy to lecture to other rings or magic groups around the world if you contact him.

Jay’s magic is aimed at the parlour and small stage performer. He uses playing cards, coins, silks ribbons sponge balls etc. His effects under these conditions appear like real magic with items appearing and vanishing in his hands by using gimmicks from the era of Professor Hoffman, but using new and modern techniques.  Because of the small sizes of most of his props the effect may be lost on a large stage. The advantage of all of Jay’s material though is “that it packs flat, plays big”. 

Jay’s lecture commenced with a performance video, he then gave a full explanation going into complete details of his gimmicks and methods and the reasons behind his thinking. The routine commenced with a ring on wand routine and a torn and restored bill effect with a mis-made bill as an interlude. We then witnessed a silk scarf that changed to a sponge ball and more sponges kept appearing from his bare hands, they changed colour and then turned back into the silk. Jay kept reinforcing that many of his effects start clean and end clean, they go full circle. 

After a break Jay performed another routine, he produced large coins from his silk scarf and then vanished them. A joker was torn up, restored and changed into a jack using the same techniques and style of gimmicks used in the first half. He then performed a routine where the scarf visually and repeatedly penetrate a large ring. This was “reel” magic in both meanings of the word.  After the explanations Jay showed us how to make giveaway roses from tissue paper napkins. 

Jay concluded the lecture by answering questions that appeared to be never ending from his enthusiastic Zoom audience.

Peter Rodgers

15th June 2021.

Our June meeting was “Fantastic Plastic” a celebration of all those ingenious effects marketed by Tenyo and similar companies to entice beginners into our wonderfull art. Peter Wood, our host for the night commenced by performing his very funny routine with the Penetration Frame aka Tenyo’s Glass Board. Does Peter really have an uncle Lass that owns the firm of Class Glass down at Bulli Pass? We will never know but its a routine that Peter has been performing for some years. Michael Giblin then demonstrated and fooled most of the audience with Tenyo’s 2011 masterpiece The Tower of Dice. A small rectangular tube was shown to be just large enough to contain four small dice. He then produced a tower of eight dice and everything could be examined, a true miracle. Peter Wood then came back with a novel cut and restored rope which was held in a plastic frame.

Scotty (Eric) Flynn, our visitor from the Geniis Magical Society, Ring 102’s sister magic society based in Sydneys Western Suburbs joined in. He started with a delightful routine with a Sharpie pen. He broke the clip off the cap then restored it only for the pen to appear to be made of rubber. Scotty then visually changed a black and white picture of a clown on a silk to a full colour version in a clear plastic cylinder. Peter came back with two apparently chrome plated tubes, really plastic. He put them together with a playing card in between. Ten cent coins dropped in one end mysteriously penetrated the card one by one. 

Lindsay Gardiner had come along to sell some props, but he also took the opportunity to perform. A silk vanished from a clear tube when wrapped up. This was similar to Tenyo’s Time Capsule released in the mid 1960’s but Lindsay’s tube was a little larger. He then showed Tenyo’s Occult Board which is actually a small plastic version of Hen Fetsch’s classic masterpiece “Mental Epic” originally marketed in 1954. To conclude his segment Lindsay showed how he had doctored a plastic thumb tip to transpose a signed silk to the centre of an apparently ordinary apple. Between performers Peter came back with a small paddle routine.

Phuoc Can Hua, always has something interesting to show. Tonight he proved that he had X-ray vision and was able to deduce dice and playing cards leaning against a small metal frame. He then read the mind of a spectator with a little plastic clock dial. The spectator secretly moved the hand to his thought of time, then moved it back to 12, but Phuoc could still tell the time chosen. He then showed a cute Chinese doll with a colour changing mask. Our intrepid MC, Peter Wood came back, this time with three small plastic tortoises, one red, one black and one white. A spectator hid one in a small box, and the others in a hand or pocket. Peter by looking through his mysterious “X-Ray” tube was able to deduce their locations in increasingly harder tests. 

Peter then introduced your scribe. I started by showing the gathering my set of Richard Kaufman’s two volume (almost 1400 pages) Tenyoism which is printed in full colour and comes in its own slipcase with four DVD’s and three Tenyo effects. I started to perform a card effect but my cards moved away from the spectator curtesy of Mazo Escurridizo’s “Rider, the Runaway Deck”. After recovering the deck and having two cards chosen I demonstrated with Astor’s Zebra Code Prediction that the choices were more than fate.  I then demonstrated “Sakkaku” Scale, the Tenyo “Cat” Illusion – possibly the best version of Joseph Jastrow’s optical illusion (the Boomerang Illusion) first demonstrated in 1891. I then showed an air canon and explained how I thought that it would be the perfect prop to use in a ghost show or spirit magic exhibition. To conclude my spot I demonstrated an Intelligent Avoidance Drone, possibly not the usual magic that we perform but a few years ago it would have been labeled a modern miracle. 

Peter Wood came back with another effect with coloured plastic balls. Peter was holding a tray with the balls around a small glass in the centre of the tray. This glass was covered by a large upside down tumbler. A spectator named the colour of one of the balls, the tray was covered for just a moment by a silk scarf. When removed the chosen ball had miraculously transferred to the small glass under the large tumbler. Peter then welcomed  John Kanawati who performed a delightful trick shot bit of jiggery poker with two blocks of chocolate, one dark chocolate and one white chocolate. Chocolate broken off the blocks disappeared and the blocks were ultimately restored, however, the dark piece was on the white block and the white piece on the dark chocolate. Everything finished fully restored but John failed to share the chocolates amongst his mouthwatering audience. Otto Patterson concluded the evening with the vanish of a silk handkerchief and his equal unequal liquorice routine to a patter story based on Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

We then all adjourned to supper and fraternisation.

Peter Rodgers

18th May 2021.

Our May meeting, “Family Magic” was hosted by Jack Sharp and Peter Wood and included many of Sydney’s most experienced children’s entertainers. This was one of our great meetings of 2021. Jack and Peter had obviously both put a lot of thought and effort into preparing tonight’s meeting. To open they explained that virtually all shows for children have a scattering of adults and many performances for adults have children present. They emphasised that you should try to entertain everyone present and that includes adults at kid shows and kids at adult shows. To prove their point they promised to entertain us all with tonight’s program which was a complete show made up of children’s magic to an audience of “so called adults”. We are after all, all magicians and as such, we haven’t really grown up.  

Peter and Jack, with a couple of sight gags and a funny line which became a running joke throughout the evening introduced their first guest performer Michael Patterson aka Mr Bamboozle. Michael showed us one of his methods to open a show. He had a load of bits of business, first with his recorded music, then with the masking tape used to divide the audience from the performing area. He managed to tie himself up with the tape which stuck to his body and hands, he had fun with his headset and microphone and a yellow smiley ball which he uses to get the really little kids to get involved. He ended by producing a purse frame to start a sponge ball routine.

Jack then reintroduced Peter who showed an opening routine where a Band-Aid on his forefinger started to jump from one finger to another and then started to multiply reminiscent of a thimble routine. The Band-Aids were all dumped into a hat and they immediately vanished. Jack then introduced the new topic, “Helpers from the Audience”. Peter explained how to get the best helpers with the assistance of a couple of geriatric magicians and two signs. Jack then came back starting with a colour changing silk routine with hand sanitiser and a towel with dirty hand prints playing an important role. To make the silks change colour he needed a wand, the kids kept breaking them, “Mum, they are $10.00 each?”, then they started to get bigger from just a few inches to stage filling proportions. A great routine with plenty of “bits of business”. Peter then dressed up Mark Mercedes and Phuoc Can Hua, aka for tonight as “Fifi”. Peter managed to pass two ropes through “Fifi’s” body. As a continuation of getting audience participation the value of getting colours wrong was highlighted. Jack with the use of Christopher Barnes’s Two-Headed Prediction, one of the great children’s effects of recent years, showed that a kids versa grown ups is a beauty concept for a family magic routine. Peter then showed a wonderful routine with just three paper cups, one filled with water and young spectator from the audience.

Jack & Peter then introduced our next topic for the night, Close Up for Kids. Paul Cummings commenced his spot with his performance of Jimmy Rogers paddle routine, “I’ll Start Again”, from the 1960’s. Originally this effect used a little blackboard bat and chalk, it is now done with a white bat and a whiteboard marker but it is still a lovely routine. Paul then performed a bangle and rope routine.  Peter came back attempting to produce a bunny from a hat but only found a hair. He then produced a sponge rabbit and with the use of a little wand it multiplied to two, then four before turning into one giant sponge bunny.

The next topic was “Closers”, the effect that signifies that this is the end of the show.  Joey Presto doesn’t like performing for magicians, but as one of Sydney’s leading children’s entertainers Peter and Jack convinced him that he would be well received tonight and he was. Joey commenced with the bit of business to get the audience to hold up their hands if they are here, and then to hold up their hands if they are not here. He then brought out a small step ladder/stand. Most performers would get the child to stand on this so that the performer and the spectator would be on the same level and could look each other face to face. Joey, because of his small stature stood on the stand himself so he could look at his spectator eye to eye. He then with the use of a large wand that unrolled turned spectator Lindsay Gardiner into a bunny rabbit poster. A wizards hat covered Lindsays eyes and left a toilet plunger on his head. Joey had plenty of bits of business and jokes with balloons, various strange wands, some of them multiplying, and Terry Herbert’s Tels Bells which rang for Joey but not his volunteer. Joey’s big final was the transformation of a sausage balloon in a box into Harvey, the most cutest bunny in the world.

Peter and Jacks final performer for the night was the very experienced Sydney entertainer Sean Taylor who explained his ideas in developing a magic act which applies to both family shows and all other magic shows. During his initial warm up where he produced donuts from his mouth he explained that he was prompting the audience to react, explaining his character showing that he’s not intimidating and he was getting the ground rules straight, “He is in Charge”. Sean then goes into a minor audience participation effect followed by a more intense major audience participation effect or routine. Another ten or twelve minute story effect is a good finale. Sean explained that he had followed this procedure from a young man and he later found out it is virtually the same as suggested by Harlan Tarbell in his famous course. To conclude his spot Sean showed three magic props.,  Where’s That Tiger, Clever Clowns and Tom Thumb that he had purchased from Terry and Norma Burgess in the United Kingdom well over thirty years ago. Although Sean rarely performs these three routines now he still treasures them and he bemoaned the fact that props of this quality are rarely available today.

To close the formal section of the meeting Jack showed one of his favourite closing routines. He gathered together a group of spectators handing each person a pipe on a loop of ribbon and a wooden spoon. He lined them up rearranging the order. He then conducted his Wooded Spoon Symphony on this human xylophone to play  Happy Birthday to one of our “very senior” children. This was Jacks rendition of Keith Fields great routine.

Peter and Jack and all their helpers were all given a rousing “thank you” for a great and very entertaining night. Otto Patterson, our oldest member and an always welcomed performer showed everyone a cut and restored rope routine before we retired to supper and the usual fraternisation that takes place after each meeting.

Peter Rodgers

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

16th March 2021.

Tonight’s meeting, hosted by our president Dale Trueman, was ‘Magic with a Story”. Dale welcomed everyone to the meeting then started the entertainment with his version of the famous Emerson and West effect “Colour Monte”. Instead of using the usual marketed version Dale chose to use his own cards. Dale’s first performer of the night was John Kanawati who performed John Carney’s Inscrutable where the jokers kept intruding as John tried to cut to the aces. The four jokers then instantly changed to the aces bring the effect to a great conclusion. John then performed Phoenix Aces, originally published in Cliff Green’s Professional Card Magic in 1961 and still considered by many to be one of the most difficult card effects ever created. 

Stephen Bell was the next performer with a rendition of the Cannibal Cards. The cannibals, or the kings to you and me, gobbled up three chosen cards with all the sound effects, the burps and the crunching of the bones. The kings the also vanished into the pack one at a time only to appear face up with the chosen cards between them. Stephen then performed Brother John Hamman’s Gemini Twins. Michael Giblin was on next. He told the story of a raffle ticket that he had acquired whilst having a coffee at The Dunes, one of his local restaurants. He had the audience as a group choose a two digit number. Miraculously the number chosen proved to be 37, the same number as the Dunes raffle ticket.

We can always rely on Phuoc Can Hua to perform. Tonight was a home made effect based on a longer routine. He slid a jumbo evil black king into an open frame. As the card entered the frame it visually changed into a red spot card. The effect was so good we immediately asked Phuoc to do it again which he did. Peter Wood came on and appeared to be repeating Dale’s earlier performance with Colour Monte but the it was obvious that he had 4 cards and not 3. Peter had three blank cards and a red ace which no one could follow. The effect, known as “The Illinois Shuffle”, concluded with the cards  changing to  three duplicate aces and one blank card. Our new member Steve Miller told a delightful love story that started in war torn London in 1944. A photo of the loving couple was torn in half, the couple were separated by the war and they both began new lives with new partners.  Over 50 years later, they were both single again and fate brought them back together. When the two halves of the photo were shown the images of the couple were also shown to have aged.

Peter Rodgers then performed Dai Vernon Cutting the Aces from the Stars of Magic. Peter explained that he used to perform this routine as a teenager but hadn’t performed it for close to 50 years. He then ended his performance with “The Thirty-Second Sense” from John Bannon’s Destination Zero. Peter mentioned that as he was hosting next months meeting that he would discus the principal behind this effect then. Conway Restom told the story of when he was in Las Vegas. He got involved in probably an illegal card game with some members of the Mafia . He kept realising that he had an extra card but when he got rid of a card another appeared. Conway was actually performing Lee Asher’s “You Can Bet Your Asher” from Lee Ashers 1999 lecture notes. Lee’s routine is his variation of Tommy Tucker’s 6 Card Repeat with a Royal Flush kicker. Conway has added another kicker from a suggestion by French underground card worker “Bebel” to also switch his discards for the aces.

Dale Truman came back with a routine that he has been working on for some time. It is part of an East Sydney theatrical venture which is opening with the end of the COVID-19 pandemic in our city. To set the scene Dale gave us a history lesson of the 1920/30’s East Sydney gangster era. This time in our history included the Great Depression, the 6 oclock swill in the pubs and the availability of drugs such as cocaine. East Sydney with over 30 brothels illegal gambling casinos and the Razor Gangs was the centre of the Australian crime scene. Dale in character and playing the part of Snowy, a cocaine dealer produced a cut throat razor and handfuls of “cocaine” using the technique of the giant salt pour that most magicians know.

Bruce Glen, then showed a routine that he is developing for his “Gentleman Magician” show at the Sir Stamford hotel. The effect concerns postcards found in the Lost Property at the hotel. The postcards from 1962 tell a love story and photos of from the period vanish from an envelope and the writing vanishes from the cards. Was the whole story our imagination or did it really occur. We will never know. 

As is normally with our meetings we adjourned for supper and much fraternal discussions amongst the members.

Peter Rodgers          

16th February 2021.

This months Topic was “Out of Our Minds” and was hosted by Club Secretary and professional mentalist Conway Restom.

Conway opened with a his own version of Jon Allen’s “Silent Treatment” using signboards that led to an audience member choosing a playing card from a display. Later another board was displayed with every card in the deck except the chosen one which was then produced from Conway’s mouth. He then performed Bill Cushman’s “The Force” where every audience member read his mind to divine a four digit number using their phones.

Conway then shared with us the first of his top ten tips for performing mentalism and completed the list over the course of the night.

John Kanawati performed a comedy routine of his own devising in which he first claimed that he is always one off when finding a chosen card. The three of hearts was named by a vounteer and then from an envelope John produced an incorrect card. Followed by four further incorrect cards until the last card in the envelope was the four of hearts. One off as predicted.

Jack Sharp began by playing themes to famous movies on a keyboard and asking us to guess them. Then using a deck of cards that had movie posters on them, several chosen movies were correctly divined.  Both Jack and Conway then talked about using cards that are not playing cards in mentalism to take away the feeling that the routine is nothing but a card trick.

Anthony Dillon performed a routine where an audience member multiplied a large number of randomly chosen single digit numbers. The audience member was asked to read out the final result but to withhold one of the digits. Anthony correctly stated the value of the missing digit. He talked afterwards on how it was based on a little known mathematic principle.

Club Vice President Peter Wood asked audience member to choose a book and to open to a random page. They were directed to find the first word on the page that was an object. After spending a little time talking about the impressions he was getting of the word Peter named it as “shark”. However the word turned out to be “whale” which everyone agreed was very impressive all the same.

Conway talked about spiritualism and how the psychology behind the secrets triggered neurological responses that produce emotional responses that can make mentalism such a strong art. He then demonstrated this by having two peoples names written on cards. He asked for one alive person and one deceased. After burning one of the cards he correctly named both people.

Club President Dale Trueman placed a chosen card back into the deck and then back into it’s box and placed it under a lit candle. The volunteer asked to imagine the card in the flame and Dale pinched the flame leaving blisters on his thumb and finger that represented the three of hearts. It was confirmed as the correct card and then the cards were taken from the box and the three of hearts was found to be fire damaged.

Conway then had a house key selected and initialed with a marker. This key was then held firmly in the audience member’s hands. An audience member then held a pendulum made from a key above the closed hands until it moved in large circles. The hands were opened to find that the key had bent significantly. He then asked three people to come on stage and choose an envelope each from three envelopes. They were asked to choose characters and colours. When the envelopes were opened each person had matched the contents of the envelopes.

New member Steve then performed a multi staged book test that involved a calculator, a ball of paper and a deck of cards. First the cards were used to choose a book. Then a calculator was used to come up with the page number. He concluded with the thought of word being found on the ball of paper that he had previously thrown into the audience and when the word was entered into a phone using the alpha numeric key pad, it was also the page number chosen.

The final performance of the evening was Phuoc Can Hua who displayed five cards on a stand with their backs towards the audience. After an audience member chose one of the cards an envelope that had been in full view the entire time was opened and revealed to contain a five of diamonds, which was also the chosen card.

The meeting concluded with our usual supper and fraternisation. 

Dale Trueman

19th January 2021.

Dale Trueman, our president was the host of tonight’s meeting, the first of 2021. Dale had chosen the topic of “Gimmicks & Gadgets”. He opened the night by transferring his meeting notes into some genuine Australian currency. He said that no thumb tip was involved but he didn’t want to explain the method at this time. He then advised that full details of the gimmick would be explained in a lecture by Jay Scott Berry scheduled for our March meeting. Dale then introduced long term member Michael Giblin. Because of work pressure Michael has been unable to attend many meetings lately but he hopes that is about to change. He commenced his performance with Troy Hoosiers Charming Chinese Challenge as demonstrated by Joshua Jay on all of Australian lectures. Michael than showed us a Secret Servant which he finds handy to hold items such as coins under his coat for a future production.

Anthony Dillon showed that his Sharpie pen had curios magnetic properties by clinging to his fingers. He then had a die with a small hole through the centre penetrate a wooden stick as it slid through a tube. It was like a miniature Vampire Block. Anthony concluded his performance with Melting Ball by Sunil Batra. Dale came back and predicted a hotel room number with the use of a Swami Gimmick with a sharpie tip. Phuoc Can Hua always surprises us and tonight he visually changed a jumbo Jack of Hearts into a Three of Clubs in a skeleton frame. He then produced a large dice from a magazine. John Kanawati is always original with his presentations and his new routine with the very old Steel Ball and Tube was a delight. We now know that he has a very strange washing machine at his place.

Stephen Bell started with an empty purse frame from which he produced red sponge balls which then began to multiply. They then moved from hand to hand as he counted to ten. New member Stephen Miller showed us the Christian Grace gimmick for the vanishing deck effect, Level One, without actually performing the routine. Dale was back to vanish a bottle in a paper bag. He used a gimmicked cigarette lighter and flash paper for misdirection.

Peter Rodgers performed Mark Elsdon’s “NYC Open” but he only mentioned one of the gimmicks. He promised to explain the other gimmick in a forthcoming meeting he is hosting on magic with a set up deck.  Jack Sharp moved away from the meetings topic and showed his routines for three items, The Ball & Vase, Cut and Restored Shoe Laces and Die Vision that he uses as give aways in his children’s shows. For his final piece Dale produced a Harbin Style Production Table. He then introduced our final performer for the night, Conway Restom. Conway is generally known for his mental magic but tonight he made a chosen and signed card vanish from between two jacks and appear within the previously shown empty card case. The effect was even more miraculous because of the two centimetre holes in the Jacks which made the vanish visible and apparently instantaneous. This was all accomplished with the Solo gimmicks available from JBMagic and Mark Mason. Conways routine was enhanced by his own original “Gang of 9 Copper and Jacks” patter story.

The meeting concluded with our usual supper and fraternisation. 

Peter Rodgers

15th December 2020.

With the Covid-19 Pandemic virtually eliminated in Australia and only occasional outbreaks of one or two people each month Sydney is returning to normal. The efficient tracking of the virus via the sewerage system and contact tracing is allowing us to have normal meetings and family our entertainers are having a normal busy Christmas. Most performers have had nine months of virtually no shows but this December is almost as busy as previous years.

The December meeting was our usual Christmas Party, this time a barbecue on the deck at the home of our treasurer Peter Wood in the Sydney suburb of Lane Cove. Ladies, Michelle and Laura cooked the steaks, sausages and chicken which were served with the usual accompaniments of fried onion, salads, bread rolls and sauces. Much later a large array of hot and cold deserts including Christmas pudding, pavlova and apple pie with ice cream and hot brandy custard. Drinks were available to wash everything down.

The performers included Peter Wood with his own routining of a burnt, signed bill to Lemon. The routine commenced with Larry Becker’s Monte Inferno which was taught to Peter by our own great Clifford Warne. Instead of the signed note appearing in the remaining envelope however Peter discovered it in a lemon. Conway Restom then performed the very involved Woody Aragon’s Dorset which is based on Paul Harris’s Reset.  He used just eight cards four queens and four Aces, the Aces were placed in the card case, the queens became double backed cards then changed places with the aces. The routine was performed with just the eight cards, all just normal and un-gimmicked. Peter Rodgers performed Star Warp, Howie Schwarzman’s version of Roy Walton’s Card Warp using a dollar note and just one playing card as published in Harry Lorayne’s Apocalypse magazine during the late 1970’s.

Bruce Glen asked us all to follow along and nearly all of us were successful in producing four aces face up in his presentation of Virtual Triumph by Adrian Lacroix. Our president Dale Trueman discovered three chosen cards by starring into the chooses eyes. Stephen Bell made a great attempt at the Linking Coat Hangers but he thought that he should offer his apologies to Mike Caveney who performed the routine in Sydney almost thirty years ago. Phuoc Can Hua performed a delightful ring on rope routine to music. Phuoc explained that he had learned the moves from a video tape in the German language.

That concluded the performers but our visitor, Daniel Shields showed a cheap but substantial lightweight table stand available on eBay. He offered to make table tops for anyone interested. Jack Sharp with the assistance of Joe Szabo then played Santa Clause and gave gifts of magic props to everyone in attendance. 

We all agreed that this was a great meeting to conclude a very ordinary and in many parts of the world a disastrous year.

Ring 102 has organised for a large group of members to attend “James Galea’s Best Trick Ever” at the Sydney Opera House in early January. It will feature five of Australia’s top magic entertainers including the great Raymond Crowe. Currently with the pandemic audience numbers are still restricted, however theatres can now be filled to 75% capacity  as long as COVID-19 health requirements are followed.

Peter Rodgers

17th November 2020.

Anthony Dillon was the host for tonight’s meeting which was titled “Impromptu Card Magic”. Whilst Anthony has been attending magic events in Sydney for many years he has only recently become a member of our Ring. This was his first experience at hosting a meeting and was very successful and it was a great meeting.

Anthony commenced the evening by giving away duplicates of a few new magic items that he had acquired. He then discussed his opinions of impromptu card magic pointing out that he believes that it is an important segment of our art and that it should be held in higher regard and not to be thought of as inconsequential. He then performed a Max Maven card discovery and introduced Peter Wood. Peter cheated, as good magicians do by being well prepared. He performed Chad Long’s Shuffle Lesson, had a spectator miraculously work out the identity of the prediction card and concluded with Jay Sankey’s Helter Skelter. Phuoc Can Hua doesn’t normally perform card magic but he showed how his father could psychically deduce playing cards without looking. A very old but still great bit of magic. 

Our visitor to the meeting, Daniel Shields, located a chosen card with a business card. Youngest, but one of our most skilled performers, Clement Kwok, caused a spectator to stop him on a prediction card and then he produced the other three cards of the same value. He then duplicated Max Maven’s Pocket Nightmare routine, however he used a normal borrowed pack of cards and used sleight of hand. We don’t see Stephen Bell as often as we would like but he is always welcome. We all enjoyed his performance of Red Hot Mama aka Chicago Opener. Conway Restom was very fair in his performance of Benjamin Earl’s Red Herring.

John Kanawati performed a routine including a card trick that he could do and the follow up of the card trick that he could not do. He then transposed the four kings for the ace of spades. John concluded his set with a version of The Last Trick of Doctor Jacob Daley and an Invisible Card to Pocket routine. 

Peter Rodgers performed the controversial 51 Faces North (The Open Prediction) multi-phase routine said to be the Stewart James solution as published in the first issue of Penumbra magazine (May-June 2002). James original described his 51 Faces North in Issue #3 of Ibidem (August 1955) along with his 18 now “infamous conditions”. James didn’t disclose his method and he did not want his version published. It did not appear in the massive Stewart James in Print or The James File Vol 1 or 11. Allan Slaight announced that he had found James method and thats what appeared in the Penumbra and thats what Peter performed but, was it really the Stewart James solution?

Jack Sharp told some bawdy jokes and then performed a card discovery routine using the Klondike Shuffle. His final routine was his version of Clayton Rawson’s (The Great Merlini) iconic “The Little Wonder Thought Projector” originally published in Hugard’s Magic Monthly Vol. V. No. 2 ((July 1947). To conclude the evening Daniel Shields came back  and performed Mark Mason’s Stuck Up Monte.

Another great meeting concluded with supper and plenty of talk all conducted whilst we followed the COVID-19 social distancing regulations.

Peter Rodgers

20th October 2020

Killara

Our October meeting was given a Halloween theme this year even though Halloween is not celebrated in Australia to the same extent as the USA and parts of Europe. It is a further anomaly with our seasons reversed to the Northern Hemisphere, this been our spring with summer now quickly approaching.

Our hard working treasurer, Peter Wood, held the meeting together acting as the MC for the evening. He started the meeting by performing a Wild Card routine with a spooky theme by producing images of invisible ghosts on blank playing card. He followed this up by levitating a small straw voodoo figure on his hand. Making a pin dance around a sketch of a hand in his performance of Voodoo Needle amused the audience and concluded Peter’s performance. Jack Sharp showed a broom through body prop then gave it to the first person that thought they could use it. He then brought out his washing and performed a new comedy routine designed for family audiences culminating in a routine using socks and large images of more socks. The Routine was based on the recently released close up packet trick “Socks” by Michel Huot.

Bruce Glen performed routines from his “The Gentlemen Magician, A Soirée” which Bruce creates twice weekly at the Sir Stamford hotel in the city. His performance of the Joel Mirander Haunted Box was perfectly targeted at our Halloween theme as was his demonstration of his close up effect “Dead Queen” which is a routine devised by Bruce using a switching gimmick from the french card craftsman Mickael Chaelain. Bruce was followed by a visitor to our club Andy Nunn who performed some Rubic Cube magic. He got member Garry Davis to solve a cube behind his back then he managed to sort 4 Rubic cubes to display the exact number of seconds in digits that were chosen by two throughs of a dice and he did it in that time.

Your scribe followed with an attempt to read the thoughts of a few members who were thinking of glimpsed playing cards. This was followed by my routine with The Hades Finger Chopper. Tony Croft performed card magic using the Black Jacks to locate a chosen card and then to prove that he predicted another chosen card to show that he already had it displayed as an image on his smart phone. Phuoc Can Hua was the only performer dressed for the night. He performed his complete act with skeleton gloves including demonstrating a model of a skeleton stirring a cauldron. He showed a Wobblestone, a plastic canoe type gimmick that mysteriously spun counterclockwise when pushed clockwise. He showed a Caucasian  Diver in the form of a small plastic squid that sank and rose in a sealed water bottle. His final effect was to unscrew a nut by the power of his mind.

John Kanawati then performed a wild card routine where ants appeared all over a packet of blank both sides cards. He concluded by showing his sleight of hand skill by vanishing and producing a sponge ball in a routine he called the Invisible Ball. Anthony Dillon failed in his attempt to hang himself with a rope then a double rope which kept passing through his neck. He then showed his powers extended to rubber when he caused a rubber band to penetrate the wrist of a willing spectator. Garry Davis ended the main part of the meeting with by causing a chosen card to travel to his pocket and then he performed an impossible card discovery.

Another successful meeting concluded with impromptu performances and discussions whilst tea and biscuits were served.

Peter Rodgers