37 people gathered at the Sojourn 3 Room at Hotel Grand Central on 15th September 2019 for the September monthly meeting. The theme for the evening was Children’s Magic. It was hosted by Kenneth Chia in the first half, and John Teo in the second half of the evening.
Kenneth Chia kicked off the evening by offering two magic items of which 50% of the proceeds would go to IBM. One was a transformer car that could also pick a chosen card from 4 cards laid face down on the table. The second item was an Iron-Man fist USB thumb drive.
Kogi Oberoi gave an interesting feedback on the Yellow Ribbon event which he participated earlier in the morning. It was fun with great comeradrie between the performing magicians. He made suggestions for sharing the task of organising with JK Tan and having a more structured preparation. He ended by performing the 3 cards Colour Monte routine.
The second performer was Ng Kah King. He magically knotted a small ring onto a long chain. Four jumbo size aces from an envelope were rolled in a scroll type cloth. He removed 3 and unrolled the cloth to show it empty and produced the last ace from the envelope. Next, he placed a packet of red backed and a packet of blue backed jumbo cards on the table. A volunteer selected a packet and did a down-under deal. A second volunteer did the same. The 2 cards we shown to be different. They carried out the same actions a second time. This time, each card of one deck matched the card in the other.
It was dealer’s demonstration time with Jeremy Pei. He showed his own version of “What’s Next” spot card trick called “Spot Check”, which incorporated a “do-as-I-do” routine with a volunteer from the audience. Jeremy then demonstrated several gag magic wands such as break-away wand, wobbling wand, knotted wand and wand to snake. He also showed a variety of colouring books with various sizes and designs. His Bongo’s Hat routine which eventually turned a volunteer into a Shrek character garnered many laughs from the audience. His penultimate act was a routine with the Classic Chinese sticks, and ended with a sucker silk jumping from side holes in a plastic card to a hole in the middle.
The next dealer’s demonstration was conducted by Cassidy Lee, who also promoted the forthcoming magic convention event in Hong Kong in October. Cassidy demonstrated see-through plastic folding-table, a comical jumbo sore thumb, flying silk, silver magnetic coin, a wooden treasure box, a legendary fake money changer, a combined invisible and stripper deck, and Venom Cube. Using a 3-way change bag, Cassidy magically linked several individual small coloured rings, and then transformed them into one huge multi-coloured ring.
Before the break Kenneth Chia reminded members to book for the IBM-115 annual dinner that would take place on Friday 15 November 2019 which featured a sit-down Chinese dinner with magical performances.
After the break John Teo took over as the host.
He introduced Gician Tan, who taught us how to be a ventriloquist, and shared how he controls the children and engages their parents during his children show. He also advised a strong start in a performance, a middle and a memorable end interspersed with subtle messages. Gician then demonstrated a vast array of children magic props. He commenced with candle to silk, then he juggled 3 silks, showed colour changing wand, pen through bill, spread cards on the arm and gathered them single handed, controlled chosen card to the top for revelation with a story of Pinnochio, showed the Card Duck, a variety of spring snakes in containers, and a repeated snow storm as the finale.
Also sharing on children’s magic was Wee Kien Meng, aka Mr Bottle. Using Powerpoint slides, he commenced with an introduction of how he got his stage name, and his specially designed black and white outfit. His approach is to get reactions, involve parents in singing the birthday song, and build on his character by delivering acts with stories. He gave his own method of controlling children which involved giving out small gifts like pencils. He started with a comedy routine by blowing a candle that turned to silk. Next was Doug Bennett’s “Criss-Cross Cards” in which the chosen card had its back changed from red to blue, and then the identity of the card appeared on the projector screen. The finale was a competition with a child to win a can of coke by drawing the longest straw from a paper bag. Mr Bottle won by pulling out a 3m long straw from the bag followed by producing a tray with 4 cans of coke.
Jeremy Pei came on again to perform a couple of his own routines involving the Rubik’s Cube. A paddle with six differently coloured Lego pieces magically transformed into the chosen colour, which then matched one completed side of a randomly mixed up Rubik’s Cube. The second effect involved him playing a tic-tac-toe game with a spectator using the free McDonalds Super Mario Cube Toy. The game ended in a draw but the outcome matched exactly one side of a randomly mixed-up Rubik’s Cube. As a climax, it also matched a cube held by his son in a photograph taken on his mobile phone.
The final session was with Cassidy Lee. He demonstrated and explained the availability of the various types of decks of jumbo playing cards. He then performed an electronically controlled jumbo raising card effect.
It was an eventful evening which ran into overtime and several other members’ performances had to be cut.
