Ring NO. 46, OKLAHOMA CITY, OK – Seymour Davis Ring
Meets 7:00 pm, 1st Monday of the month at the New Beginning Fellowship Church, 15601 S. Pennsylvania in OKC
LEE WOODSIDE, Secretary. Email: WoodsideLee@hotmail.com.
Mike Stelzer was the featured performer for our April meeting. He began by causing a cell phone to vanish and then reappear. He then broke the cell phone, placed it into an envelope addressed to “Cell Phone Repair Shop” and pulled the repaired phone from the envelope.
Mike placed a wrist watch face down on the table. He showed a piece of paper cut into a circle and brought out a hole punch. He invited anyone to say stop as he moved the hole punch around the edge of the circle. When “stop” was yelled out, he punched a hole in the paper at that point. He turned the paper over to reveal a clock face and the hole marked a time of 9:30. When he turned the watch over, the time on the watch was indeed 9:30.
Mike wrote a three-digit number in red ink on a pad. He then traded the red ink pen for a black one and asked three different audience members to each call out a single-digit number, which he wrote on the pad. When he turned the pad around the number selected by the audience matched his prediction of 472.
Mike handed a locked combination lock to Cassidy Smith. He then asked Jim Green for a two-digit number. Jay Relkin and Brian Tabor provided two more numbers. When Cassidy dialed the audience-selected numbers into the lock, it miraculously snapped open. Mike concluded by donning a pair of handcuffs and asking Cassidy to cover his hands with a silk scarf with Houdini’s likeness on it. Almost immediately, Mike escaped from the handcuffs.
Justin Teeman led a discussion on the difference between a trickster and a magician. He finished with a quote from Jerry Andrus: “If I fail to fool you, I haven’t done my job as a magician; If I make you feel foolish, I haven’t done my job as a human being.”
Cassidy Smith wowed us with a coin matrix effect, where four quarters placed in a square converged magically into one pile of coins. He then taught us the moves for accomplishing this classic of magic. Cassidy then presented each paid-up member of Ring 46 with a close-up mat with the club logo and the member’s name on it. What a wonderful surprise!
Jim Green kicked off the member performances portion of the meeting by inviting Michelle Tabor to join him “on stage.” He gave Michelle a bunny nose to put on. He then waved his magic wand and the wand unrolled to show a giant bunny, with a hole where the face would be. He had Michelle hold it up to show that he had turned her into a rabbit.
Jim then showed a tray with six small face-down metal cups on it, numbered one through six. He asked Michelle to shake a die in a dice cup. Michelle rolled a 3 and when that cup was lifted, she found that she had won a piece of candy. J. David Teeman, Rick Johnson, Cassidy Smith, and Brian Tabor tried their luck and each also won a piece of candy. When Jim lifted the remaining cup, he showed that he, the magician had won the money prize. He said the effect was known as “Always a Winner.”
J. David Teeman presented a bar bet. He brought out five goblets and placed them in a line on the table. The three cups on one end each held a piece of candy. The goal was to move only one cup and have a piece of candy in every other cup. Brian Tabor figured out the solution.
David then asked if anyone could name a number that, when spelled, would have all of its letters in alphabetical order. That was a bit tougher. David next brought out his ball on cord trick. He could cause the ball to stop at any point along the cord, but when he handed it to an audience member, she could not make it work. Finally, David cautioned us about a three-card monte game going on nearby. He showed three jumbo cards, two black aces and a red queen, and demonstrated how he had been separated from his cash.
Lee Woodside handed out some of his business cards. Each card had a hole in it and the question, “Can you push a quarter through the hole without harming the card?” After giving everyone time to ponder the solution, Lee laid a quarter on the table, took out a chop stick and stuck it through the hole and pushed the quarter with it. Lee told about a bet he had heard about sixty years ago. The bet was that you could not cut a deck three times without cutting to an Ace, Jack or Deuce. It sounds fair, but the probability of doing it is only about 44.7%. (If you cut three separate packets.) He then told about a scam where three people flip coins and the odd man wins. The con is that you have a double-headed coin and your buddy has a double-tailed coin. Thus, one of you will always win.
Brian Tabor showed a small drawstring bag and said that he had something inside which had never been seen before, but you have to buy him a drink before he’ll show it to you. It turned out that he a had a peanut in the shell.
Jay Relkin invited Michael King to help him. He showed a Polaroid picture which had not yet developed. He borrowed Michael’s cell phone and took a picture of him holding the undeveloped photo. He then showed eight cards bearing drawings of landmarks from around the world. He had Michael “freely” select one, the Eiffel Tower. When the photo of Michael was shown on the phone, he was holding a photo of the Eiffel Tower.
Michael King laid several coins on the table. He and Brian Tabor took turns removing one or two coins at a time. Michael always won by taking the last coin(s). He then gave us the secret of always winning.
The names of all the performers were placed into a hat and one name was drawn. Brian Tabor was the lucky winner of an Alan Ackerman DVD.
Lee Woodside