Tonight, twenty-four members and a guest attended the last meeting for 2018. It was held at the usual venue at Chinese Success Media at Bras Basah Complex. The host was Kenneth Chia and the theme for the evening was ‘Digital Magic’.
Tonight, twenty-four members and a guest attended the last meeting for 2018. It was held at the usual venue at Chinese Success Media at Bras Basah Complex. The host was Kenneth Chia and the theme for the evening was ‘Digital Magic’.
After receiving congratulations for being a first-time dad, Jeremy Pei began the performance by palming a Queen of Hearts into an ipad. The card onscreen was then transformed into a Rubik’s Cube. He then reached out for the 2D Cube and it became a 3D one as soon as it left the screen. He then squeezed the regular-sized Cube into a jar with a far narrower neck than the Cube! He also pulled out a black and white scarf from the ipad screen and with a rub of the screen, the IBM Ring 115 logo appeared. Finally, Jeremy predicted correctly 3 times consecutively whether a coin was held inside a volunteer’s left or right fist when both his closed fists were held out towards Jeremy.
Lim Teck Guan transformed a ten dollar note into a much larger fifty dollar note which in turn further transformed into a giant-sized hundred dollar note. He also produced a stalk of flower from an empty scarf four times in a row.
Kogi Oberoi was formally inducted into IBM Ring 115, and received his wand. He then continued with a performance of 4 Ace assembly involving 4 members of the audience. The Ace vanished from each packet held by three spectators, and gathered in the packet held by the fourth spectator.
Jeremy Pei returned with his dealer’s demonstration. First, he displayed a jumbo “4 of Diamonds” card on a stand. This was covered with a handkerchief. Unknown to a spectator, Jeremy used a McCombical deck that comprised all 4 of Diamonds. Unfortunately, the volunteer’s chosen card turned out to be the “10 of Clubs”. Everything went well when the prediction was unveiled to be not the “4 of Diamond”, but the “10 of Clubs”! Next, he presented a T.A. Waters’ effect where he predicted which one of 6 dice in a nice red box would be selected. Continuing the prediction theme, Jeremy could tell which of the 6 cards, each depicting a poisonous creature such as scorpion, bee, rattlesnake, toad, bat and tarantula would be chosen. In this version, when the prediction envelope was opened, the spectator got a scare as something inside it rattled before the prediction was revealed! Jeremy showed a black handkerchief with an image of a mixed-up Rubik’s Cube. With a quick flip of the cloth, the image now displayed a solved Rubik’s Cube. He finished off with a version of Joshua Jay’s “Balance”, a logic-defying balancing act using a pencil, 2 decks of cards, a toothbrush, and a bottle of water.
After the break, the Champion of our recent Parlour Magic Competition, T.K. Jiang, presented a brief history of and early leaders in digital magic. He also shared some key tips on how to leverage on the digital gadget’s unique characteristics such as the screen display, and the before and after effects of the performance. He then closed with a digital magic effect using his ipad and a deck of playing cards. A volunteer picked the 5 of Hearts. He himself picked a card and it was a gag card depicting ‘Your Card’. He placed it underneath his ipad and an image of ‘Your Card’ appeared on the screen, it was immediately transformed to “5 of Hearts”.
Guest Brandon Toh invited a volunteer to choose a colour, suit and number of a card. He then spelt them out card by card and when the last card was flipped over, it was indeed the volunteer’s selected card, the ‘8 of Hearts’. He next presented a version of Above the Fold. He invited a volunteer to choose a card from bottom half of a deck and a card from top half of the deck and they were returned back to their respective halves of the deck. Both happened to be the “3 of Hearts”. When the cards were fanned out, the “3 of Hearts” were in neither of the halves but met together right in the middle of the deck.
President John Teo presented a 4-phase mini act with the popular ‘Mental Logs’, which comprised four 4-sided logs with each side containing different numbers. When placed together, they displayed 4 rows by 4 columns of digits, yielding a mind-boggling 6,144 possible combinations. Each time, John could give the sum total of the 4 logs in various combinations, well ahead of the spectator, who used the calculator function in his cell phone. In one phase, a log was turned upside down. Finally, John predicted the total of the yet to be seen, reversed sides of the 4 logs. Next, John requested a volunteer to mix up a packet of 8 playing cards a couple of times. When the cards were dealt face up in a row, they formed the actual mobile number of one of the people in the room!
Kenneth Chia rounded up the evening’s performance with a gigantic photo frame displaying a jigsaw puzzle of Facebook. The pieces fitted exactly within the frame but when more pieces were added, they could strangely still fit within the same frame.
