The June monthly meeting took place on the evening of 15 June 2019, at the Sojourn 3 Room at Hotel Grand Central. It attracted a total attendance of 38 people. This included 4 guests and a new comer who applied for membership.
The theme for the evening was “Gourmet Magic”, or magic with food items. The coordinators were Victor Heng and Baharudin bin Abdullah. Victor Heng was the MC for the entire evening.
Jeremy Pei kick-started “Gourmet Magic” with an interesting PowerPoint and video presentation of himself and some other Singaporean magicians who performed in a restaurant in China way back in 2002, donning chef outfits. Their acts were more of a juggling nature than magic. There was a short segment of a magic act put up by Jeremy in the video. It featured Jeremy producing a huge pumpkin from an empty pan from a list of many food items selected by a spectator. He also produced a fried egg from a small chick pan.
In the same presentation, Jeremy took us next to Caesars Palace Magical Empire, in Las Vegas, USA. There was a magic performance while the guests sat down to eat their meals. Everyone wrote down their desired meals and drinks on a piece of paper. The papers were collected and put into a large container which was conspicuously placed in the restaurant. Although no one had come near the container, yet the correct meals and drinks were served to each diner. For one diner, his borrowed $100 bill vanished and later appeared inside a lemon served on his
plate.
Continuing with the theme of Gourmet Magic, Jeremy first produced a ham-burger, followed by fries, from a duck pan. He also transformed a bowl of rice to a bowl of candies which he distributed to the members. As a finale, Jeremy produced a champagne bottle from 2 empty tubes. He poured the champagne into a glass and toasted good health to all of us.
Chan Yow Tiong took his Induction Test. His first effect was Alex Hecklau’s “Spoon Around” where he converted a metal spoon into a metal fork. His second effect revolved around a story of 4 robbers (the 4 Jacks) who went into the various parts of the building (deck of cards) to rob a bank. When they were alerted about the police coming, the 4 miraculously gathered at the top of the building (top of the deck) and escaped being caught. For his final trick, he tied 2 lengths of rope around a volunteer’s waist. 2 other volunteers on each side took hold of each of the 4 ends of the ropes. Bangles were threaded onto the ropes. Despite this, the tied volunteer managed to walk right through the ropes.
The next performer was JK Tan. The scenario was a versatile restaurant with 4 different cuisines and menus, all with different prices. The idea was for each of the 4 volunteers to choose a multinational meal made up of a drink, appetizer, main course and a dessert. The costs of the 4 meals were totalled up and it amazingly matched the prediction JK had in a sealed envelope.
Very elegantly dressed for her presentation, Priscilla Thong told a Biblical story and to prove its authenticity produced 5 loaves and 2 fishes on a tray. With these items, Priscilla showed how the Messiah could feed 5,000 people! Priscilla showed a large prediction of the Ace of Diamonds. When a volunteer selected the Queen of Diamonds instead, she promptly changed it into the large Queen of Diamonds. Andrew Kong demonstrated a dangerous act. He smashed a beer bottle and put the jagged bottle top onto a wooden base stand. This was covered by a large empty envelope. He then brought in 3 identical envelope-covered bases. He moved the 4 items around until nobody had any idea which one contained the jagged bottle top. He then had each of 3 volunteers tell him which covered base to smash his palm upon. If he got his palm on the wrong covered base, he would be rushed to hospital with a severely cut hand. With his magical prowess he managed to avoid the base with the cut bottle top on it. This was only revealed after he had smashed down on the other three bases. Great sigh of relief all round!
Kogi Oberoi removed the 4 Aces. He kept one Ace and assigned the other 3 Aces to 3 other members of the audience. He randomly turned the top card of the deck over. It had a value of 3, so he dealt 3 cards to his Ace. He had each of the other 3 members specify how many cards to be dealt with their Aces. Everybody held their Ace packets between their palms. The Aces from the 3 packets held by the volunteers vanished and all were found to have gathered at Kogi’s packet. Cassidy Lee displayed 3 brand new tricks available in the market: “Titan”, new type of flap card, “Any Card” by Richard Sanders, “Bill It” by SandsMinds, and his very own franchised Licensed Plate Prediction (Singapore version). Cassidy then demonstrated a visual and colourful effect in which at least half a dozen different coloured small rope-rings were put inside a bag. When they were withdrawn from the bag, the rings were linked to one another to form a long colourful chain. This chain was placed inside the bag. The bag was torn apart to reveal only a long loop of rope with differently coloured segments on it.
A 15 minutes break with food and drinks allowed members to have fellowship with one another and to patronise the 2 magic dealers.
After the interval, John Teo displayed a picture of a slice of hole cheese with the holes running horizontally. The holes were actually punched out on the cardboard cheese. The holes then magically transformed to holes running vertically down the slice of cheese. Next, he proceeded to fold 2 paper forks in halves. Both the 2 paper forks were then shown to have permanent U-shaped bends in the middle. His third effect involved 10 round cards. 2 of them had pictures of a bun, the other 8 depicted ingredients used to make a burger. With the 10 round cards, John did a 3-phase mental routine. He was able to divine which ingredient was chosen for a spectator’s burger. Next, the 8 ingredients cards were mixed face-up and facedown, yet, those ingredients found face up matched exactly the ingredients secretly chosen by a spectator. Finally, the spectator himself found the exact ingredients to make a vegan burger. Lim Teck Guan did the fastest trick of the evening. He showed a boxed deck of cards and a jumbo card. With a flick of the jumbo card, the entire boxed deck changed into a packer of crackers.
Jeremy Pei returned and performed water suspension with a member of the audience. Both the spectator and he had a glass full of water. A piece of paper was placed over the mouth of the glass. The glass was overturned with the paper on it, and the paper did not fall off the glass. Everyone understood this to be a common scientific feat. However, Jeremy showed he could remove his paper and yet the water stayed with his overturned glass – the spectator could not duplicate this feat without the water falling out of his glass. For his next effect, Jeremy magically transformed 4 Jacks into 4 Aces by just a flick of the fingers. Jeremy then brought out and mentioned the following items: L-O-V-E card effect that was reviewed in the newsletter, using a fidget spinner in magic by doing the paddle move, coin envelopes, a netting force bag, a boomerang trick using 2 bananas, and his own effect of a 2-phase routine using small double-sided cards depicting the differentcolour sides of a Rubik’s Cube.
Baharudin bin Abdullah had a member select a banana still wrapped in cellophane. Combining his magical and martial arts skills, he gestured 3 times towards this banana. When the fruit was unwrapped, it was found to be cleanly sliced into 4 portions.
Dressed in the outfit (borrowed from the hotel) of a chef, Kenneth Chia handed out 4 different menus to 4 members of the audience. Each of them ordered different segments of the menu, yet Kenneth knew in advance the total cost incurred by all. Cassidy Lee spoke about being “head-huntered” to participate in the China South East Asia Art Week 2019 magic competition recently. He emerged as the second prize winner in this international contest. Congratulations to Cassidy for putting Singapore on the international magic scene. In an interesting segment which he called “Unboxing”, Cassidy reviewed and compared 4 different types of Rubik’s Cube 5-sided shells, both in regular and mini sizes. Everyone was thankful that they are now more informed so that they could commit their hard-earned money on the correct type of Rubik’s Cube shell to purchase to meet their individual needs. It was obvious that Cassidy had done extensive research on these shells, and his presentation was much appreciated by all.
This was one of the most interesting and unique monthly magic meetings.
