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

SINGAPORE RING 115 – Jan 2014 Magic Meeting Report

IBM members warmly welcomed the late John Calvert’s wife, Tammy, who was a Singaporean, and who stopped by Singapore for a visit to her sister and family.

Other guests included a professional magician, Michael Wong, from Indonesia, and two other members’ guests.

Enrico Varella and Ashish Lodhavia hosted the evening’s programme, themed ‘micro magic’ for a total attendance of 31 people.

Chew Liang Huat began the magical evening by making a correct card prediction in his usual swift and smooth style.

Gician Tan amused with his sponge bunnies when he made daddy bunny disappear from one closed fist and re-appear in a guest’s closed fist, which already held mummy bunny. With a light rub, the 2 bunnies multiplied into bunny family with kiddy bunnies in tow. Next, a selected card vanished from a shuffled deck and reappears within a picture frame.

Tommy Chiang showed how he could make a mobile phone ‘sit’ on air. Holding 2 cards back to back between 2 fingers, he lightly twisted them and they switched places!

Enrico Varella gave a mini lecture on micro magic and its difference from close-up and parlour magic. He also shared the various ways magic can be presented eg. transposition, appearance, disappearance, expansion, mutilation etc as well as the use of ‘effects’ rather than ‘tricks’.

Michael Wong from Jakarta could coax a toy squirrel to obey his will. He then swallowed a fully – blown, long balloon and produced and manipulated cards at his finger-tips.

John Teo amazed with a seemingly simple gadget of 3 coloured switches (red, green, yellow) which could turn on 3 correspondingly coloured bulbs. Somehow, no matter how the different switches were paired with the various bulbs, they managed to turn on the respective coloured bulbs. Next, he showed how an audience-signed card could penetrate a ‘wall’ of cards in his version of David Copperfield ‘walking through’ the Great Wall of China, which bore repetition.

Jeremy Pei did a show-and-tell on some of his new magic products including Dick Simmerman’s Dancing Ring, perplexing mah-jong tiles, and hyper knots which could jump between ropes.

After a short break for refreshment, Tan Wen Zhong took his induction test. His performance included a card routine and a mentalism effect.

Jeremy Pei closed the evening with 3 chinese coins ’melting through’ a length of ribbon, 3 coins ‘penetrating through’ his closed fist and ‘translocating’ to a guest’s fist. He ended with a story of how a journey which began with a torn map, no money and no passport ended well when all were restored when he woke up!

The meeting ended at 10.30 pm but fellowship continued on into the night.