IBM Singapore Ring 115’s July meeting was held on Monday 15th July in Function Room 1, Level 3, of the National Library building. Carson Goh and Victor Heng were the hosts. The theme was The Magic of Storytelling, and the attendance was 32.
Carson opened the meeting highlighting the special talks by Joe Augustine, who was an invited guest, and Andrew Kong.
Victor thanked all for contributing to help Jeremy Pei and his family. All wished him a speedy recovery.
Kenneth Chia advised that 22 had registered for the FISM convention in China to be held on 25 to 28 September.
John Teo narrated the story of his great great grandfather who had visions of owning a mansion but could only afford a toilet. Next he showed a US Dollar and a Chinese coin but no matter how many he put in his pocket he always had 2 coins left in his hand till the last iteration when all coins vanished.
Victor Heng told an AI (Artificial Intelligence) story. He used 4 flat wooden pieces and 2 sets of coloured plastic discs (like coins). The wooden pieces were inscribed with grids of numbers, symbols and some playing cards and the plastic discs had numbers and symbols. Three spectators randomly chose two discs each. The combined revelation of the discs matched the chosen card.
Ng Kah King’s story of the Spooky Villa had the sound effects of clock ticking, knock on the door and scary voices. Of the three boys and girls depicted by picture cards, it proved that the boys were not brave as they boasted about visiting the haunted house.
Joe Augustin is a coach and a teacher of story-telling associated with magic. He said the story must be engaging. The aim of magic must be to entertain rather than fool the audience. It should create a sense beyond normal reality and becomes more powerful if there is a penalty for non delivery. This leaves the audience talking about it. It is not the trick but the effect that is more important. Story telling is effectively used for misdirection also.
Kai Emmanuel Kuah performs at the Theater of Wonders and our members can attend. His routine was with cups and balls. A volunteer from the floor did what Kai did and managed to make the balls appear and disappear from her cup with the finale of production of a large ball.
Mr Bottle aka Wee Kien Meng had a bottle of poisonous pills and a pack of cards. Penalty for failure would require him to take a pill. He failed in finding the chosen card. A pill was taken from the bottle that had the prediction of the chosen card in it and magically the card appeared in the pill bottle. Mr. Bottle lives to carry on.
James Pang’s trick was At Sixes and Seven. He cut a deck of cards and put them face down against two markers A & B. He proceeded to turn some cards face up in each half, mix them and intermix them. He then counted the cards against several predictions of how many face down cards, what colours, what suites and even or odd indices. All miraculously matched.
Caron Goh’s story was about not being smart at school. He had 3 ropes that is used in The Professor’s Nightmare. He tied knots and made them disappear and finally was left with one very long rope. Really smart now.
Andrew Kong related his magic journey that’s amazing, starting with his wide array of magic acts and ending with being Ronnie Macdonald. It was an eye opener of dedication and preparation required to be Ronnie so each live mascot looked the same no matter where in the world. The status, the protection and the routine of a Ronnie, whilst being hard work, would be an envy of many.
Magic Dealer Goh Yin Xiang promoted several tricks under the banner of T3 items pointing that they are improvements on existing tricks in the market. Show-Case produced a real card from a handphone, Glance had 2 magazines for word matching. Jupiter, and Flick Duck were amongst the other offers.
The night ended with 5 lucky draws and thanks to hosts, performers and the attendees.
