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.
We were very pleased to host a lecture by William Rader. William is a past president of Ring 46 and had moved to Denver, then Hungary, then Georgia (the country). He started his own company: Artisan Tarot.
William began by challenging Grant Vinson to a best two-out-of-three game of rock-paper-scissors. After the game, William removed a prediction from the envelope that had been in view the whole time. It correctly predicted that William would lose the game with his scissors being beat by his opponent’s rock.
William handed pendulums to several audience members and instructed them on how to use the pendulum to answer a “Yes/No” question. William then used his pendulum to divine an ESP card chosen by Brian Tabor.
William asked John Shack to think of a person he is close to and write the name on a blank business card. The card was then shuffled face down into a pack of business cards. William now went through the cards one at a time and placed each card onto the table, asking John to say stop at any time. When John said, “Stop,” William asked him to verify that the card held the name he had thought of. William then divined the name.
William asked Derrick Beeson to think of a phobia that he has and to write it on a piece of paper and fold it twice. He told Derrick to imagine that the fear is shrinking. He told him to put the folded paper in his pocket and to bring it out twice during the break, each time folding it one more time.
After the break, William asked Derrick to remove the paper from his pocket. The phobia he had written was no longer on the paper. William then named the phobia.
William asked Rick Johnson to join him “on stage.” He performed several experiments showing that a coin with the fourth and fifth Pentacles of Mercury would provide Rick with super-human strength.
William shuffled a deck of Major Arcana Tarot cards and offered them to Justin Teeman to cut. He then had Marty Ludlum, Shaun Clark, and Keven Brasier each take one of the Tarot cards. William offered a reading for each of the participants and then divined each card.
We highly recommend William’s lecture to anyone desiring an introduction into the world of pendulums, ESP cards, Tarot cards, billets and body magic. Even those magicians who do not intend to perform such effects would do well to include them in their knowledge base.
Solomon Strauss (AKA Brian Tabor) kicked off our February meeting as featured performer. Using two sets of five ESP cards, he had Cassidy Smith make several decisions, yet when pairs of cards were turned over, they all proved to be matching symbols.
Mr. Strauss laid several playing cards in a circle and placed the card box on one of the cards. He said that counting would commence from that point. He handed Rick Johnson a pair of dice and asked him to roll them several times to be sure they weren’t loaded. He then asked Rick to roll the dice one final time and the dice came up as a one and a four. He gave Rick the choice of the one, the four, or the total of five and Rick chose the number five. Solomon counted five places and turned over the card thus chosen. He turned it over and “Rick” was written on the back of the card. The other cards were turned over to reveal that there was no writing on the backs of them.
Solomon showed a deck which contained a different symbol on each card. He invited half a dozen audience members to each take one card and remember it. Solomon collected all the cards and mixed them. He was then able to divine the symbol chosen by each participant.
Michael King gave a glowing review of the magic show recently performed by Jen Kramer in Stillwater, OK. Cassidy Smith led a discussion on romantic magic effects. He then demonstrated how to make a napkin rose and produce a Hershey’s Kiss from it. He said that the multiplying rabbits effect was also a great trick.
Jerry Bowzer handed out decks of playing cards to those who did not get one at the January meeting. These were the Bicycle “Black Tiger” decks.
Cassidy Smith announced that he would like to come up with a magic effect with a ukulele. Several members offered suggestions.
David Teeman showed a four-sided, open-ended prop that looked like a traffic signal light. Red, yellow and green silk scarves were threaded through holes on opposite sides of the device. And end view showed the middles of the scarves blocking the passageway. However, David was able to place the device down over a soda bottle without disturbing the scarves.
David showed seven tiny plungers, each a different color. By a process of elimination, he and Derrick Beeson arrived at the pink plunger. David invited Derrick to reach into a sack full of the plungers and bring out one. Sure enough, the plunger was pink. (Yes, these would normally be used for a card routine like the one that fooled Penn, but not Teller on “Fool Us”.)
Lee Woodside asked that everyone look back in time and think of a year that had special romantic significance for them. Cassidy Smith volunteered that he had a year in mind. Lee asked him to write it on the back of a business card and hand it back to him face down. Lee placed it into his business card wallet without looking at the year. Lee then removed another card from the wallet and began writing. It turned out that he had written numbers into a 4 X 4 grid. Lee asked Cassidy to sum the numbers in any row, column or diagonal. The sum was 2014, which Cassidy said was the year he had in mind.
Cassidy Smith shared a two-ring linking ring routine that he has been working on. He said that the routine is a metaphor for relationships. He performed the beautiful routine to the music “Time After Time, by Cyndi Lauper.
Lee Woodside