Secretary Report – January 2016

Ring NO. 46, OKLAHOMA CITY, OK – Seymour Davis Ring

Meets 7:00 pm, 1st Monday of the month at the Contemporary Arts Building, Oklahoma State Fairground.

LEE WOODSIDE, Secretary. Email:  WoodsideLee@hotmail.com.

www.okcmagic.club

We kicked off the New Year with a lecture by our very own Lance Pierce.  In addition to being an accomplished magician, Lance has authored books on the magic of Roger Klause and John Cornelius.

This was a free lecture for paid-up members of Ring 46.  We were pleased to see so many members show up and pay their dues at the first of the year.

Lance concentrated on close-up magic with knives, coins and cards.  He began by showing a routine that he called “Find the White Knife,” which used four knives made by Joe Mogar.  Lance said that Mogar’s knives handle very well and should last a lifetime.  The routine was very well structured.  Starting with just one white knife, Lance kept adding knives and then climaxed with a very visual and unexpected color change.  As an added bonus, the props were automatically reset at the end of the routine.

Next Lance performed a very strong coins-across routine using eight silver half dollars and a Chinese coin.  He also performed and taught a copper/silver/brass routine using a silver half-dollar, a Chinese coin, and an English penny.

For the icing on the cake, Lance brought out a deck of playing cards and proved to us why he is so well known among underground card workers.  Lance is a very humble and low-key kind of guy, but he just makes everything he accomplishes look so effortless, no doubt through countless hours of practice and hard work.

Far more worthwhile than the routines Lance taught were his insights into how to get into the minds of the audience members and know what they are thinking.  If we, as magicians, can anticipate the questions they’re going to ask before they ask them, we can structure our routines to totally blow their minds.

Lance said that as close-up magicians we are having conversations with our audience and the tricks that we do are to support the conversation.  He also said that “laughter is blindness,” meaning that when our audience members are laughing, we can get away with murder.

If you have never seen Lance Pierce perform magic, I hope that you will one day get the pleasure.  If you ever get the chance to experience him lecturing about magic, do yourself a big favor and don’t pass up the opportunity.

Lee Woodside

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