Secretary Report – November 2020

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.

www.okcmagic.club

Our November Zoom meeting was again hosted by Vice President Justin Teeman, The meeting began with a broken wand ceremony for Len Sparagowski, performed by President Cassidy Smith. Len died at 99 years of age. He and his wife, Lil, were married for 76 years. Cassidy asked that we share any memories of Len. Lee Woodside said that Len will probably be most remembered for his mnemonics act, the climax of which was when he proved that he had memorized the entire Oklahoma City phone book. Terry “T.Lo” Losawyer recounted how he had met Len in 1986. David Teeman remembered when he bought a gross of “Dime and Penny” tricks from Len because Len claimed that he had accidentally added an extra zero to his order.

Cassidy Smith showed us a coin routine he has been working on. He produced three coins one at a time, performed several sleight-of-hand moves, and then vanished them. He then told about performing at the Halloween event “Pumpkinville” using cups & balls, rings and cards. He invited other magicians to tell about their Halloween performances. David Teeman told about performing outside at his church for two and a half hours. He used only a mesh egg bag and a drawer box full of Halloween candy. David then showed us a pair of color-changing sponge balls that were still in the sealed packages. He said that he purchased them from “Bizarro.”

Our theme for November was “turkey magic.” This is a tradition that began many years ago at Ring 46 and originally meant tricks that looked really good in the ads, but turned out to be “turkeys.” We have expanded on that to include tricks that did not work out during a particular performance or tricks that were bad, but were improved by the buyer to actually become good effects.

Michael King showed an effect that he had modified to become a good trick. He does not speak during the routine, but has a flip-book for an audience member to read out loud as Michael flips the pages. A card is selected, signed and then lost in the deck. The climax is when Michael opens his mouth for the first time and the signed card is folded up on his tongue. Michael also told us about a rubber band trick he purchased where the rubber band travels from finger to finger. He said the problem was that it took a great deal of strength to hold the fingers apart during the performance of the effect.

Steve Crawford told about an effect he performed where he appeared to break off the earpiece from a borrowed pair of glasses. During one performance, the earpiece actually did break off. He found out later that, in fact, the screw was loose and had come out. He performed a watch steal during a pickpocket routine and realized on his drive home that he forgot to give back the “stolen” watch. Another time, he passed out a pair of handcuffs to be examined before his handcuff escape routine. Unfortunately, a young couple cuffed themselves together. Steve’s assistant had forgotten to bring along the key and a call to the police was required to free the young lovers.

Lee Woodside showed off two recent acquisitions that were definitely not “turkeys.” He snagged a copy of SHEHERAZADE, by Borodin off eBay and bought the “Snaps” photo card decks marketed by Jonathon David and Dan Harlan. He said that he is very pleased with both purchases.

Cassidy Smith showed us a magic-themed Covid 19 mask that he bought. It has a wand/top hat/dove/card motif.

Our annual election of officers was very quick and non-controversial, unlike the national elections taking place. All the current officers for 2021 were re-elected by acclimation.

Lee Woodside

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