The theme of our July monthly meeting was Oriental Magic. 38 people gathered at the usual venue of the Bayview Hotel on the evening of 15 July 2016. There were 3 guests and they were Claire Yistelle, a lady magician from France who is now residing in Australia, Jessica Sacco, the daughter of our member Masimo Sacco from Indinesia, and John Teo from SAM.
After a brief announcement regarding the change of date and time for August meeting, and the details of lectures of Nick Einhorn and Gregory Wilson, the magician of the month, Adeline Ng, gave an interesting performance of a mental effect involving the traditional Japanese poetry known as Haiku. A Japanese booklet of Haiku was displayed to contain various poems and their respective English translations. A spectator freely chose a poem and Adeline could paint a picture of the selected poem with a Japanese paint brush. This was her own version of the effect “Hai Ku” by Vincent Hedan. It was a beautiful Oriental book-test. This was followed by her lively presentation on the history of Oriental magic.
The second performer was Charles Choo, who picked up a small packet of playing cards with a pair of chopsticks and caused only the selected card to be retained between the ends of the wooden chopsticks.
C K Long performed his own version of Jazz Aces. A selected card was “Xeroxed” 3 more times. All 4 cards now turned to the 4 Aces and the selected card was found inside the performer’s trouser pocket!
President John Teo showed a deck of cards with a hole drilled through near to the top and another hole near to the bottom. Three cards were selected and lost in the deck. A choptstick was pierced through the top hole. One by one of the three selected cards were located by the chopstick. This was followed by Hayafumi’s “Another Invisible Mark“. Four Queens had its back magically printed with a mark one at a time. Finally the big heart mark at the back of the Queen of Hearts was show to be a cut-out.
Massimo Sacco adapted a prediction effect using Chinese words. He was successful in predicting which one of Happiness, Beauty and Luck was selected by a spectator.
Following on the Oriental Magic theme, Jeremy Pei showed his Oriental walk-around magic act. He displayed his Chinese costume and his carrying case in the form of a small Oriental trunk. Inside were his close-up items which comprised a deck of cards with Chinese motifs, “Mah Jung” tiles, Chinese hole-coins, bag pouch, red colour sponge balls and a small set of linking rings. In his dealer’s demonstration, he performed “Around The World” prediction deck combined with the Vanishing Statue of Liberty trick and his own comedy revelation of the selected country, and his routine with Shoot Ogawa’s linking ring set.
The snack and coffee/tea break allowed members to interact with the guests and patronise the 3 dealer’s booths set up by Jeremy Pei, Bernard Sim and Pater Tan.
After the break, guest Claire Yistelle performed a card trick with a Titanic movie plot with husband-wife couple John Teo and Betsy.
Bosco Francis came up next with a presentation on “Chi” and health.
This was followed by Lim Teck Guan, who was able to balance an unopened soda can in an inclined supported only by a small point of its rim resting on the table.
Jeremy Pei came on again. He demonstrated a jumbo version of the Princess card trick, Shigeo Futagawa’s “Coins Thru Table” packet card trick, and a “Surprising Spots” effect with a clever climax.
It was a great evening enjoyed by everybody.