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.
After a long dry spell without live lectures, we were very pleased that Jeff Corn was willing to stop in OKC on his way west to the Magic Castle and give a lecture. Jeff began by showing two playing cards, with his hands otherwise empty. He rubbed the two cards together and produced a half-dollar. He proceeded to do a “coin flurry” and then performed a coins across routine.
Jeff invited Jerry Bowzer to join him. He showed a one-dollar bill and a twenty-dollar bill and asked Jerry to hold both in his fist. Jeff removed the one-dollar bill from Jerry’s hand and magically changed it into a twenty. Jerry opened his hand to reveal the one. He showed us how to make the very deceptive gimmicked bill.
Jeff brought out three ropes of different lengths and performed a three-stage “Professor’s Nightmare” type routine with them. He next showed a deck of playing cards made up of cards from different casinos in Las Vegas. He shuffled the deck and then asked Grant Vinson to cut off about half the cards, leaving the other half for Jeff. After some shuffling, cutting and dealing, each person ended up with four piles of cards. Grant turned over the top card of each of his stacks and found that they were all kings. Jeff turned over the four aces from his stacks. Jeff then showed that all the remaining cards in the deck were tens of clubs.
Jeff set up two paper match books to use as card easels. He showed two two aces and placed them backs-out on the easels. With a magical flourish, the cards switched places. He did it again, but this time the two red aces appeared in their place.
Jeff finished with a trick he called “The Lucky Coin.” He had Jerry Bowzer select a card (the two of hearts), which was then lost in the deck. Jeff spread the deck on the table and asked that Jerry place a casino chip where he thought the two of hearts was. Jeff removed the cards not in the vicinity of the chip and spread out the few cards that were left. He asked that Jerry place the chip on one of these cards. Sure enough, the selected card was the two of hearts. As a kicker, Jeff asked that Jerry turn over the casino chip. On the back was the index off a two of hearts.
We were very excited to host an IBM Jam in February. We got to meet IBM President-Elect Chuck Arkin and enjoy lectures by both him and Michael Dardant. A ring event article was submitted about the “Jam.”
President Cassidy Smith was our featured performer for March. Cassidy used a Golden Nugget (think Michael Skinner) matchbook as a card easel. He invited David Teeman to select a card, which was the two of hearts, and return it to the deck. Cassidy shuffled the deck and then showed the queen of spades, which he placed on the “easel.” With a magical flourish, the card turned into the two of hearts.
Cassidy showed four red-back aces and a blue-back blank card. He placed the blue-back card back-out on the easel. He showed that the four red-back cards had become blank. When he turned the blue-back card around, it had the pips from all four aces on it.
Justin Teeman led a discussion on magic mentors. Professional illusionist Rob Lake was able to attend our meeting because he was in town to visit family. He said that he had learned a great deal from both Kirby Van Burch and the late Jim Smithson. Several other members said that they had learned a lot from Jim Smithson. The late Harold Todd was also mentioned as a mentor.
Cassidy Smith asked members to name something they want audiences to perceive about them in addition to being magical. Some of the answers included: funny, silly, fun-loving, respectful, grandfatherly, connected to the audience, and energetic.
During our brief business meeting, Lee Woodside sold copies of our annual Grimoire, which were hot off the press from our magical scribe, Malaki Dracwin (AKA David Swanson.) The Grimoires were distributed on flash drives this year, since most computers no long come with CD/DVD drives. Those who contributed to the Grimoire had already received a free copy.
Our performance theme for the month was “A Tribute to the Masters.” Lee Woodside led off by first performing his version of the professor’s nightmare, using blue Dacron sailing rope. Lee then talked about his early years in magic as he performed Tenyo’s “What’s Next.” He said that he has been doing that routine for over 25 years and was surprised when he found out by reading FROM BEYOND that Eugene Burger was using his own version of the spot card in a somewhat similar routine.
James Graham showed four what he called “spaghetti strings.” With a flourish, one of the strings vanished. He then talked about working in a spaghetti factory and demonstrated how he could make the unequal lengths of spaghetti conform to the same length. James performed a “magician’s clock” effect with a deck of cards. After shuffling a deck of playing cards and having them cut by an audience member, he placed twelve cards face-down in a circle. When he turned them over, the ace was in the one-o’clock position, the deuce in the two-o’clock position and so forth. The card he had placed in the middle was a king. James ended with a poker deal routine that he said he learned from BACKSTAGE WITH BLACKSTONE.
After thoroughly shuffling a deck of playing cards, Michael King cut to each of the aces. Michael’s card handling skills are amazing.
Cassidy Smith presented a linking ring routine using Shoot Ogawa’s “Ninja Rings,” which are close-up size linking rings. He performed several standard linking ring moves, but impressed us the most by spinning one ring on the tabletop and linking it to the ring in his hand.
Lee Woodside