This evening’s meeting, themed ‘Bizarre Magic’ was co-hosted by Baharudin and Ng Kah King and attended by 23 members and 2 guests.
To help the audience get into the mood of the evening, Baharudin rubbed an egg along a volunteer’s arm and chest area and invited him to break the egg into a bowl. A needle was found amid the contents in the bowl. This, Baha proclaimed, was the cause of the volunteer’s ailments. Ng Kah King transformed a large fire he produced, into a long magic rod.
JK Tan presented 3 coasters with a long nail (sharp end facing upwards), planted on one of them. A tall, white paper bag was placed over each of the coasters and nail; and the coasters were moved about randomly behind JK Tan and a volunteer’s backs. JK Tan began moving his palm over top of the paper bags slowly and when the volunteer gave the signal, he slammed his palm down on that bag. He was lucky. He also invited the nervous volunteer to attempt what he did. Somehow, his good luck followed for the last 2 randomly chosen bags and their palms were spared the trauma of the nail!
Thomas Ng emptied contents of a Coca Cola bottle into a plastic glove and sealed the glove’s opening, while joking how it could be used as a de-stressor. He then held the emptied bottle above an empty glass tank and produced a coin inside the bottle. The coin fell downwards toward the base of the bottle. On impact, the glass bottle unexpectedly shattered!
Victor Heng put aside a prediction card for a mystery drink. He then laid out 4 coloured cards on the table and dealt out a white card below each of them, repeating until the volunteer stopped at a card (representing his choice drink). Victor will then place the corresponding coloured card over it, to mark it. This procedure was repeated 3 times ie. a total of 4 types of drinks were chosen. When the ‘drink’ cards were flipped over, the names of the respective drinks were printed on their backs. These drinks had colours which coincidentally matched their corresponding coloured cards – yellow, brown, red, turquoise eg. whisky is yellow. Victor added that he had influenced the volunteer’s choices as the predictions on the backs of the first 3 coloured cards were true – one of the drinks would contain coffee, two would contain fruits and that the first letters of the drinks, when put together would reveal the mystery drink. This happened to be WINE, which was printed on the mystery drink card. The 4th coloured card displayed ‘Congratulations’. Victor explained that the volunteer had incredibly chosen the only 4 safe drinks from the entire deck as all the other white cards, when flipped over, had ‘POISON’ printed on them.
Baharudin returned to ‘çhomp’ on some transparent glass pieces before a nervous audience. He also stomped barefoot on a pile of çolourful, sharp, glass pieces. Desmond Peh bravely volunteered and successfully stood barefoot, on the pile of glass pieces on the floor, under Baha’s close supervision.
After a 15-minute break, the show resumed with Ng Kah King transforming a small fire into a rose before he introduced the next performer, Kenneth Chia.
Kenneth Chia made a dramatic entrance wearing a scary mask over his face and a guillotine around his neck. Removing the guillotine, he demonstrated how the sword really pierced through the guillotine, for effect. Placing 4 brown paper bags on a lazy susan, he labelled them 1 to 4, as directed by a volunteer. One of them concealed a long nail with its sharp end pointing upwards. The lazy susan was rotated, and Kenneth had to crush a selected bag with his palm, when the volunteer gave the signal. He was lucky each time as only the 4th, remaining bag was found to be the one with the nail. Next, he presented a figurine representing a magician, which he fitted into a transparent case. The case was then locked. A volunteer plunged 11 ‘knives’ through the case with the figurine still locked within. When the case was unlocked and the figurine examined, it amazingly had no holes on it.
Luke Tan invited a volunteer to sign on a selected card and insert it into a deck randomly. He pulled out a card, Ten of Hearts, which was not the volunteer’s card and placed it face down, on the table. He then took the deck with the face-down cards and with a snap of his fingers, transformed only one of them into a face-up card. It was the Ten of Hearts. When the supposedly Ten of Hearts on the table was flipped over, it had strangely transformed into a signed, Jack of Hearts, which happened to be the volunteer’s card. Somehow, the cards had switched places! Next, he presented a deck of cards with pictures of heroes and villains. Putting aside 4 prediction cards, he asked a volunteer to thoroughly shuffle the deck. He then read out from his prediction cards and asked the volunteer to check the predictions against his deck. The 4 predictions were all true! Indeed, there were 22 face-down cards. Of this pile, there were exactly 13 blue, hero cards and of the red, villain cards, all were indeed male except for the Evil Queen.
James Phang sealed a mermaid, represented by a picture card in a covered box. He then pierced 6 ‘knives’ through the box. When the mermaid card was removed and examined, there were no holes on the card. He generously gave angpows to volunteers who attempted to explain how the trick was executed although none appeared to have solved it. It remained a mystery.
Desmond Peh mixed up a bunch of $10 bills such that some showed the fronts while others, the backs of the bills. Covering the bills on his palm, he asked a volunteer to blow on his hand. Opening his palm, the audience found that all the bills now showed their front sides only. He repeated this trick with another volunteer successfully. He then introduced his expensive, leather coin purse which he let the volunteer examine. Retrieving 3 coins from the purse, he made them ‘fly’ from one palm to the other, one by one. He also vanished them and made them appear in different places; transformed one into a giant coin and then back into its normal size. Finally, he invited the volunteer to put the coins back into the purse (lying on the table) which he had secretly transformed into a stone, causing the audience to break into laughter at the funny sight.
The meeting ended with 5 winners in a lucky draw and a birthday song and present for Lim Teck Guan, who recently celebrated his 90th birthday. Members continued their fellowship and magic jamming late into the night.
