Next Meeting: 15 March 2025 | Theme: Annual General Meeting | Location: NLB Drama Center

SINGAPORE RING 115 – December 2019 Magic Meeting Report

The December 2019 monthly meeting took place in the evening of 16 December at the Sojourn 3 Room at Hotel Grand Central.  The total attendance was 46 and it included three guests and two new members, Mimi Lee and Paul Sim.

 

 

The theme was to show what members had learnt from the various lectures organised by Ring 115.  Enrico Varella and Ashish Lodhavia shared the MC roles for the evening.  The guests were announced and introduced.  It was also announced that there were two Induction Tests that evening.  Enrico reminded the judges of the judging criteria.

Ashish Lodhavia started the performance showing 4 black jokers face down.  Then he turned two face up and gave the packet a flip and magically all jokers turned face down again.  He repeated this effect – this effect was from Harapan Ong’s lecture.

The first person to take the Induction Test was Jonathan Wong.  He performed three card routines.  He dealt some cards onto the table, picked them up and then revealed that only one card was left in his palm, and this was the chosen card.  In the next effect, the randomly chosen card appeared from his pocket.  Finally the volunteer chose a card, put the pack behind his back, flipped over the deck, and made a solid cut.  The deck was then spread revealing one card that was the other way up and it was the chosen card.

Jeremy Pei brought his effects on a small magic table (used by Axel Hecklau) that packs flat for easy transportation.  He showed the tip-over box and went on to display a small Rubik’s Cube threaded on a string.  He proceeded to control the movement of this Rubik’s Cube on the string by his mind power, ala Cubio effect.  His Dream Tunnel prop changed paper into money of rising value untill one became too greedy and it changed back to paper.  A Sean Taylor’s effect allowed him to convert a “wrong” card into the correct card 2H by simply flicking the card and 2 cut-out hearts appeared on it.  Jeremy also demonstrated the Mental Photography deck which is a version of the Invisible Deck.  Jeremy demonstrated his Right Card effect, which is a take on Nick Trost’s 8-Card Brainwave, and generously gave a set away free-of-charge to each and every one who was present that evening as an early Christmas present.

Cassidy Lee was not present and his dealer effects were demonstrated by two of his colleagues.  A balloon glowed magically and was burst to show there was nothing inside it.  Three other effects demonstrated included a self-lighting hand-held light bulb, a durable wine glass, and “Socks”, where a chosen pair of mismatched socks matched exactly the 2 stockings worn on the performer’s legs.  Finally, all the mismatched pairs of socks shown earlier on the cards matched themselves.  The last effect presented was their own custom-made Singapore version of The License Plate Prediction manufactured in collaboration with Martin Andersen.

A twenty minutes break with food and beverages allowed members to network and discuss the meeting to date.  

The second person to take the Induction Test was young Alton Tan (probably the youngest member of the club and an expert at solving Rubik’s Cubes).  He dealt 4 aces face down from a deck and went on to reveal each ace face up in turn.  Then he did Triumph as he caused the mixed-up face-up and face-down cards in the deck to magically turned face down except the chosen QS which was the only card face up.  For his next effect, he trapped three randomly chosen cards in-between the four aces.  His final trick was Richard Sander’s “Any Card” where the backs of the four aces were printed the name of a freely thought-of card.

One of our guests, Zhang Jinming, a mentalist, carried out a “truth” and “lie” experiment with ten of our members.  One was secretly nominated as a liar and the rest of the nine had to tell the truth.  They had to write both their ambitions as well as a gift they would like for Christmas.  Jinming could identify the lone liar and even divined his ambition and Christmas gift.

Long Chay Kang, an exponent of sleight-of-hand with cards, demonstrated second dealings in a performance of a gambling routine.

Kogi Oberoi gave a brief feedback on the Make a Wish volunteering weekend where Ng Ek Hwang, Carson Goh, Mr Bottle and himself had performed.  He described the charitable experience moving and satisfying admiring the dedication of the carers of disabled children and the performance of his colleagues.  He then went on to make a rose from a red and green paper – a variation of an Axel Hecklau effect – and presented it to a lady in the audience.

John Teo related his experience and the mark it left on him for a charitable function he performed at.  A moving story.   He encouraged all members to support such activities whenever possible.  However he emphasised not to shy away from taking expenses if offered.  This helps to retain the perceived value of magicians and their contributions.

John performance commenced with “Mystical 13” from Howard Hamburg’s lecture.  A spectator’s two random cards from a red deck, together with John’s Joker (its numerical value was determined by the spectator) helped selected three cards from his blue deck.  They turned out to be the three Jacks.  The final Jack was found by adding up the values of the three cards.  As a climax, the rest of the entire blue deck was shown to be blanks, except for the four Jacks.  His final effect was “Houdini’s Influence” from Wayne Houchin’s lecture.  A lady volunteer freely chose one out of a dozen Polaroid pictures of Houdini’s playing cards that he used in his last show before his death.  This card matched exactly that reported in a copy of an old newspaper cuttings about Houdini’s last show before he collapsed backstage.

Jeremy Pei came back with a special technology-driven Rubik’s Cube mounted on its holding device seated on the small round table previously shown.  One Rubik cube was randomly mixed by the volunteer and Jeremy placed it in a popcorn paper bag.  He flicked his fingers and both cubes were solved and matched each other.  For his final act he had four volunteers each mixed up a Rubik’s Cube.  He then got someone to freely select a card that depicted one of the six colour faces of a solved Rubik’s Cube.  The chosen colour was white.  The four mixed Rubik’s Cube were stacked in a 2 by 2 format.  When these four Cubes were turned around, the white colour spots on the 2 X 2 frame magically formed the Chinese character for white, the chosen colour.

The formal meeting ended and a flurry activity continued at the two dealer tables.