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.
Our June meeting was devoted to our annual close-up contest. Numbers were drawn from a fedora to determine the order of performance.
Jim Green was the first contestant and he amazed us with what he called his “Stupid Bean Trick.” A tin can was filled brim-full with jelly beans and a paper sack was placed upside down over the can. When the sack was removed, the beans were gone and Jim poured blue liquid from the can into a cocktail glass.
Brian Tabor placed a single M&M into each of several coin envelopes, but in the final envelope he placed a cockroach. After mixing the envelopes, he had audience members point to one envelope at a time. He would tear the top off the envelope, and without looking inside first, pour the contents into his mouth. When only one envelope remained, he opened it and out came the cockroach. Brian then had an audience member cut a packet of cards off a deck and turn the packet over on top of the remaining cards. He spread the deck and removed the first face-down card, the nine of clubs. He showed a small round mirror, and as he did so, smoke began rising from a cup he had on the table. He lowered the mirror into the smoke and when he brought it back out, “9C” appeared on the mirror glass. He called this effect “Smoke & Mirrors.”
Jim Short explained that he sometimes read books so many times that they fell apart. He showed the separated pages and the cover of one such book. He passed out a stack of pages to each of several audience members and asked each person to mix up the pages. He handed the book’s cover to another person and a dictionary to another volunteer. All the pages were retrieved by an audience volunteer and mixed again. Jim asked the person with the cover page to insert it anywhere into the stack of pages. He then showed his prediction, which was three numbers. He showed that the first word on the page next to the cover was “here.” He asked the person with the dictionary to go to the page, line and word using his prediction numbers. Sure enough, the word in the dictionary matched.
Michael “Magical Mike” Stelzer showed a stack of business cards that he had collected. As audience participants picked cards, Mike would divine the name of the person or business and the phone number on each card. Mike then removed a deck of playing cards from its box and placed the cards and box onto a table. As Mike turned away from the audience, he invited four volunteers to each choose a card and place it into the box. However, when it was his turn, wise guy Lee Woodside took a deck of ESP cards from his pocket, selected a “circle” card, and placed that into the box on the table. When Mike turned around, he held another playing card box. The cards inside that box exactly matched the ones chosen by the volunteers, including the “circle” ESP card.
Shaun Clark performed a very entertaining routine with four “Ninja Rings,” which were linking rings about four or five inches in diameter. He was able to link to a ring held by Jerry Bowzer and was also able to cause one of two linked rings to unlink onto his arm. Shaun then asked Rick Johnson to cut a deck of cards, complete the cut, look at the top card and set it aside face down on the table. He then asked Rick to look through the deck and find the first card of the same suit as his selection. Rick continued to do this as Shaun divined each of the cards and then finally divined the original chosen card.
Lee Woodside asked the audience to go back in time and pretend they were walking down the midway at the San Diego exposition in 1932. He told them to imagine that they saw a man wearing a fedora and holding a deck of cards with a crowd of people around him. He then reminded them that this was supposed to be close-up magic and invited them to leave their seats and crowd around his table. Lee then proceeded to perform the venerable Svengali pitch, as described in THE EXPERT AT THE PITCH TABLE book and accompanying video. For some reason, every card selected was the three of clubs. Penn & Teller would have approved.
Audience members were asked to rate each performer on a scale of one to ten (no decimals or fractions, please) and the votes were tallied by our Treasurer Michael King while the rest of us took a break. After the break, President Cassidy Smith announced that Shaun Clark was the third-place winner; Brian Tabor took second-place, and Lee Woodside won first-place. The prizes were cash money (to be spent on magic, of course) plus a trophy to be presented at a later date.
Cassidy Smith showed us the “Amazing Coffee Cups and Beans” set that he had recently acquired. Although the cups looked like regular porcelain cups you might find at a diner, they were actually made of a very strong material that is almost indestructible. The set included giant coffee beans to use in place of balls and allowed for a final load of hot coffee or individual coffee beans. I can’t wait for Cassidy to get this worked up so he can perform it for us.
Jim Short reviewed the SPELLBINDERS book by Jim Stott that explains variations on Jim Steinmeyer’s “Nine Card Problem” published in one of his IMPUZZIBLITIES books. He said that it contained many great routines and ideas. He also said that there were a number of gospel routines.
Michael King showed some plain-looking black cards. He borrowed a cell phone and had the owner of the phone hold one of the cards as Michael took a photo of it with the cell phone’s camera. The resultant photo showed him holding a playing card instead of the black card. Michael said that in addition to various playing cards, landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower could be selected. He told us this was “Rainbow,” by Higar and does not require an app on the participant’s phone. It leaves the audience member with a memento of the performance on his or her own phone.
Our business meeting for the month concentrated on planning for our annual public show: Pandemonium. Michael King announced that professional magician and life member of Ring 46 David Thomas had volunteered to close the show. The show will take place on June 18th.
David Teeman led off member performances by inviting Abby Bickle to open a sugar packet and pour the contents into his fist. After much squeezing of his hand and concentration, David opened his hand to reveal a “sugar bunny.” David then showed four four-sided wooden sticks, each of which had four one-digit numbers printed vertically on each face. He invited Brian Tabor to arrange the sticks so that four four-digit numbers were shown. David announced the total of the four numbers before Brian had time to key in the first number on his phone’s calculator app. David then admitted that he was a graduate of the Evelyn Wood speed-adding course. That reference went right over the heads of some of the younger members.
Michael King handed a Rubik’s Cube to Brian Tabor and asked him to randomize it and then hand it to Abby Bickle. Abby joined Michael “on stage” and mixed up the cube some more. Michael brought out another cube and amazingly, all the sides of the two Rubik’s Cubes matched perfectly. Michael then threw his cube into the air and when he caught it, it was solved.
Lee Woodside