The evening‘s meeting which saw an attendance of 45, began with a self-introduction by Irwin Cheang, Bernard‘s guest from Malaysia. Next, members also warmly welcomed Ng Seow Kiat, a former Ring 115 Vice-president currently staying in Australia; as well as Robert Kee who runs a charity in Cambodia. Members were reminded to sign up for the IBM Ring 115 Annual Lunch to be held on 18 November 2012 from 10.30am at Roland’s Restaurant. There would not be any meeting on 15 November 2012. Next, President John Teo presented certificates to volunteer magicians of “Food for the Heart’, many of whom had also lent their ‘magical’ support to the Yellow Ribbon project. He thanked them for their participation and JK Tan for his efforts in co-ordinating volunteers for this worthy project.
Pambudi kicked off the evening’s performances themed ‘Effects with Kickers’ with mental magic. Three members of the audience seated apart each selected a card randomly from a pack. In a few seconds, Pambudi correctly guessed the colour, suit, and value of each of those cards. Two other members randomly picked from the audience each held on to a different book. A third member who earlier picked up two casino chips randomly added up the numbers on them. This total figure became the page selected from one of the books. Pambudi read off a phrase. It matched that at the top of that page! The second book was turned to another page also randomly selected. It showed the picture of a man touching the back of his neck, with the words “Hot under the collar” below it –exactly as Pambudi had predicted! Wow!
Hayashi Takuya, with a shake of a small transparent box containing a small die, changed the die into a tiny folded card. When opened up, it matched a regular-sized card randomly selected by an audience member. Cool!
Lee Wei Liang, who completed NS recently, showed how to produce a coin between two cards by simply rubbing the cards together. He also produced a ten dollar note in the same way. Finally, he took a coin from an audience member, made it disappear, then re-appear and finally changed it to a five dollar note! What a kicker!
Jeremy Pei got Alvin Tan to select a card randomly from a deck. When the QR code in Jeremy’s mobile phone was scanned with a smartphone, it showed ‘7 of Diamonds’, which matched the card in Alvin Tan’s hand. That was not all. The kicker was to see the QR code in Jeremy’s phone slowly transformed into a ‘7 of Diamonds’ right before our eyes. Next, he “teleported” 4 chinese coins from one side of a table mat to the opposite side, one at a time. One coin appeared to melt through his hand! Finally, he produced two blocks of 3 cubes (numbered 1, 2, 3) stacked one on top of the other. When a hollow, wooden tube is placed over one of the blocks, it magically transformed the cubes within to match the uncovered block of cubes, whatever the configuration! Like an obedient slave doing its master’s bidding!
After the break for refreshment and fellowship, the meeting resumed with President John Teo performing an experiment with the sub-conscious. He showed the audience a set of nine cards, each printed with a verb. He then “hypnotised’ Robert Kee, showed him the same cards, and told him to remember the verb which most appealed to him. He got Robert to answer a string of questions which tickled the audience as he attempted to predict the verb Robert had noted. It turned out to be “EAT” which matched John’s prediction too!
Next, Maxwell Low was inducted as a new member of IBM Ring 115. After making his pledge, he received his wand from President John Teo.
Joseph Loh got a member of the audience, Joshua, to enter a 5 digit number in his mobile phone, multiply it by a 4 digit number and then divided it by a 3 digit number. He then pressed the “=” sign on the phone calculator and got Joshua to note down the result on a paper. Amazingly, it matched the serial number of the dollar bill held by Gician all this while!
Maxwell Low ended the evening‘s performances with his 4 carnivorous Aces which seemingly devoured any card placed between them. When a King was placed between the ‘hungry’ Aces, it turned them all into Kings!
The meeting ended at 9.50 pm but the fellowship, sale of Ng Ki Chi’s books and Jeremy Pei’s magic props and the passionate exchange of magic pointers continued ………
Reported by:
(Ms) Low Hwee Lang
