Forty-one people attended the first IBM meeting for 2016 in January. The theme for the evening was ‘Magic out of the pocket”.
Lim Teck Guanstuck a large MRT Downtown Line (DTL) map on a board. He invited his guest to randomly pick a card from a deck and after scribbling his prediction on it, Teck Guan placed it face-down on the table. As the guest had chosen the 20th card, Teck Guan got him to pick a starting station and then mentally count off each station along the DTL until he reached the 20th . The face-down card was then flipped over, and incredibly, the prediction written on it was the name of 20th station!
JK Tan related how he was tasked by the Club’s Treasurers to remind IBM members to pay their subscriptions for 2016. He presented a paper with the words “Please Pay Your Dues Today” on it and then tore up each word piece by piece. He proceeded to impress the audience as he magically restored the torn paper complete with the exact 5 words. When the paper was turned over, an additional word ‘Subscription’ now appeared too!
Jimmy Lee let his guest select one of two stacks of cards. He then invited a second guest to read out a word from a list and elect to have either Jimmy or his first guest spell out the word. Whoever was elected would spell out the letters of the word by placing each card beneath the deck. The sequence is repeated with the next word on the list where the second guest again got to pick the ‘speller’. When the last word on the list was spelt out, both Jimmy and his first guest held out identical cards before a baffled audience.
Baharudincorrectly predicted the serial number of a $10 note taken out of a guest’s pocket. He next invited a guest to select a card from among a few carrying a symbol each. Baharudin then dialled a friend (not in the audience) to guess what symbol was displayed on his guest’s card. His friend decided on ‘Star’ which was a correct guess!
Peter Awyong held up a plastic clock with a single needle as its hour hand. He tapped on it to show it was solid through and through. When his guest chose a time, Peter Awyong moved the needle to the selected time accordingly. He then pushed a pen right through the number where the needle was pointing and it strangely penetrated the ‘solid’ clock! Next, Peter Awyong passed a doll to a guest and invited him to stick a long needle at any part of the doll‘s body. Peter then retrieved another doll from a drawstring bag and mysteriously, the same parts of both dolls had been targeted.
Jeremy Pei shared on the various types of Rubik’s Cube eg. Cube FX, Collaboration Cube. He then formed a word L-E-M-O-N with alphabet cards. He showed another card that had a picture of a lemon. This was placed face down on the table. He proceeded to inter-change the L card with the M card, and the word is now M-E-L-O-N. When the face down card is turned over, it now showed a melon instead of lemon!
After the break, Lee Fee Lyp and Dr Loke Han Ying were inducted into IBM Ring 115 as our latest ordinary members.
John Teo briefly introduced Robert Kee who founded Operations Hope Foundation. He shared that he has been involved in the charity for 16 long years and it has now been established in Cambodia, Thailand and Nepal. Although funding has been provided by generous corporations, he shared that it has been difficult to get volunteers to go onboard to take over the running of the projects.
Charles Choo invited a guest to place an acupuncture needle anywhere on a doll. It turned out to be the same spot he had earlier predicted on another identical doll. He then threaded a red and a blue bands with a string and held each end tightly in each hand. When the audience chose the blue band, Charles somehow caused it to penetrate the string and tumble out onto the table. He then magically turned the 2 separate bands into a pair of linking rings. He went on to place a coin into a small box, tied up the box and further wrapped up the box with a cloth. With a quick flick of his wrist, the coin amazingly penetrated the box and fell onto the table. To ease the doubt in the audience’s minds, he opened up the box to confirm that the coin has vanished. He rounded up his act with a few picture cards showing calculator, cigarette lighter, keys etc and invited a guest to pick one of them face-down. He chose keys which matched his prediction!
Derek Lee’s guest picked a card randomly and inserted it back into the deck. The deck was then dealt out into 6 stacks, and numbered from 1 to 6. Based on the number shown on a thrown dice, he removed that numbered stack from the table. This procedure was repeated until the last stack remained. The cards from this stack were placed face-down on the table and the guest invited to choose one. … and, it was uncannily the same as Derek’s prediction!
John Teoheld a covered matchbox inside his hand, shook it and invited the audience to guess the number of matchsticks inside the box based on the ‘rattling’ heard. When he opened up his palm, the cover had strangely vanished! This was found back inside his pocket. Next, he presented 2 separate empty matchboxes with drawers and covers intact. With a slight push here and there, the fascinated audience saw how mysteriously linked the drawers and covers actually were, as multiple, amazing interconnected configurations were produced.
Tommy Chiang invited his guest to sign on a chosen card and re-insert it into the deck. It somehow incredibly got transported into a transparent box on the table.
Jeremy Pei ended the evening’s magical moments with his egg bag which could produce eggs from imaginary ones caught in ‘mid-air’. He also made a wooden table float with ease before a delighted audience.
Reported by
(Ms) Low Hwee Lang
