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
Max Krause hosted a Ring-sponsored lecture by Michael Kaminskas on October 24th at his home and magic studio. Michael’s magic was primarily for close-up and parlor settings. He stayed pretty much with the classics, but his many years of experience allowed him to show us techniques to turn good magic into great magic.
Michael performed a nice routine with a purse frame. He pulled out another purse frame, three silver dollars, a giant coin, and finally a super-jumbo coin. His chop cup routine was not the usual “guess where the ball is” ploy that can be irritating to audience members, but the ending was classic, with the production of a potato under the cup.
His “Clinger” effect, where a Sharpie clings to the magician’s fingers was a fooler and the Sharpie could be immediately examined by member of the audience. In his “Candy Caper” routine, he tore off the top of a package of Skittles, poured some candy out of the bag, and then immediately restored the bag and handed it out. Both of these routines used items every magician should already have. His “Anniversary Traveler” was a very nice addition to the Anniversary Waltz genre of card tricks.
Michael’s “Bill in Sharpie” routine was a real fooler. A signed one-dollar bill ended up rolled tightly inside a Sharpie. He showed how to make this up using a standard Sharpie pen and a gimmick available at the nearest Staples store.
Prior to our November meeting, Vice President Justin Teeman led a workshop on “oil and water” routines. After Justin performed and explained a very nice routine, Jim Short showed us one that could be performed with only one sleight, an Elmsley count.
Our featured performer for November was Darryl Brooks. He performed his “Maneki Magic” show. “Makeki” means “welcome” in Japanese and Darryl is fluent in the language and actually worked for years as a translator of technical manuals. Darryl performed a knots off silk routine. After two knots were tied in a yellow scarf and then removed, he showed that the scarf now had a happy face on it, with the eyes being holes in the scarf. He next tied two red scarves together and placed the tied ends into a wine goblet. After vanishing the yellow scarf, he showed it to now be tied between the two red scarves. He placed a large sponge rabbit into a jar and placed a scarf over the top and secured it with an elastic loop. He pulled the rabbit through the glass jar and then removed the scarf to show that the jar was empty. Darryl ended his routine with a four-ring linking ring routine choreographed to music.
Our election of officers for 2019 took only a few minutes. All four of the current officers were retained by acclamation: President-Cassidy Smith, Vice President-Justin Teeman, Secretary-Lee Woodside, and Treasurer-Michael King.
Cassidy Smith led a group discussion on “Endings.” We all contributed thoughts on how to end both individual effects and shows. David Teeman demonstrated a method for getting the audience to clap.
Jim Green demonstrated a blendo-bag trick where he placed short lengths of rope into a bag and then opened it up to show that the pieces of rope spelled out “The End.” He said that these are now being offered on eBay by the person he commissioned to make his.
Cassidy Smith gave a review of the book THIS IS THE END FOR YOU – HOW TO END EVERYTHING, by Curtis Kam. He highly recommended it. Later in the meeting, Cassidy also recommended PERFORMNG MAGIC WITH IMPACT, by George Parker.
Jim Short placed a rubber band around his wrist and then pulled it through his wrist. He credited the routine to Joe Rindfleisch. He told us that Joe offers some excellent rubber band magic routines.
Lee Woodside said that this Veterans’ Day will the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI. He played the official song of each branch of the military and handed an American flag to each veteran in the audience. He then talked about what is required to be a good soldier, sailor, airman or marine and tied each trait to one of the colors red, white and blue. Lee then placed the three silk scarves into a bag (dropping the blue one “accidentally”) and pulled forth a flag that was missing the field of blue. After placing this flag along with the blue scarf into the bag, a proper American flag was produced.
David Teeman showed his linking craft loops routine. He emphasized how the ending he now uses for the routine prevents him from being “caught” by the audience members.
Mike Stelzer brought his vintage Milton Bradley “Electronic Talking Magic Works Secret of the Sphinx” trick to show us. Two audience participants selected cards and returned them to the deck. When the deck was returned to the Sphinx and the cards removed one at a time, the Sphinx revealed the cards that had been selected.
Jordan Johnson performed an 8-card brainwave effect. The one card selected by a participant proved to be the only one of the eight cards that had a different colored back from the others.
The names of all the evening’s performers were placed into a hat and three names were drawn. The first winner received a magic-themed tie that had been worn by Doc Eason at the Tower in Colorado. The other two winners each received a magic DVD.
Lee Woodside