One of our most enthusiastic and passionate members passed on at an early age of 39 years old on 18th August 2024. We had decided to devote our September meeting as a tribute to him.
On the evening of 15th September 2024, 19 members and 4 guests gathered at the Drama Centre to pay “Tribute To Jeremy Pei”. The meeting was co-hosted by Enrico Varella and Sattish Kumar.
Enrico Varella named and thanked members who participated in the recent Yellow Ribbon Run and a charity event organised by the Salvation Army. He then introduced the following guests: cardistry expert Jackie Chionh, Hui Hang’s girlfriend who was here to video his performance, Calvin Teo from SAM, and Nathan Buzza from Illuminati Magic in Perth, Australia.
Satish Kumar gave a short presentation about Jeremy Pei and his contributions. This was followed by Carson Goh, who also spoke about Jeremy Pei.
The first performer was Kenneth Chia. Dressed as the popular local contractor Phua Chu Kang, he presented a version of Freer Tiles Illusion where the various tiles that formed a square, could be rearranged to accommodate not one, but 2 extra tiles. Yet the total area remained the same. This effect was performed via Zoom during the pandemic period where members could not meet physically. This was performed as a sketch between him acting as the contractor and Jeremy Pei acting as the owner who got the contractor to do a renovation job for his home. It was a nostalgic moment for all of us as we got to view a video clip of Jeremy in this performance.
James Pang demonstrated Terri Rogers’ “Boromian Links” which he purchased from Jeremy Pei. 3 playing cards with their centres torn out linked together and then unlinked. James also did his own version where the 3 torn cards were linked under a handkerchief.
John Teo performed “Jurassic Deck” by Peter Eggink. A deck was displayed where the backs of the playing cards were printed with different classic blockbuster movies. A spectator freely chose a card and its back revealed the movie “Jurassic Park”. Magically, all the backs turned to become the Jurassic Park design, including the card case. His second effect was Lubor Fiedler’s “Posi-Negative” where a poster with the word FILM was shown to be white against a black background. With an interesting patter, the poster magically transformed to have black letters FILM against a white background. Both of the tricks were purchased from Jeremy Pei.
Satish Kumar chaired a round table discussion with panellists Enrico Varella, John Teo and Kenneth Chia, who individually shared what Jeremy Pei had contributed to our Ring and to themselves.
A short interval allowed members to have fellowship with one another and to visit the dealer table of The Fundamentals.
After the break, guest Nathan Buzza demonstrated his electronic magic device that could reveal both the values and the colours of individual dice, and the identity of any chosen playing card. He had an effect in which a spectator freely wrote a word, and that same word would be found already written in advance on a small pad inside the performer’s pocket.
Yu HuiHang performed his Asia FISM competition act as a dry run before the actual event that was to take place in the third week of September. It was an innovative routine with coins. He solicited comments from the floor.
Lim Teck Guan transformed a stack of blank papers into bills. This was an effect he purchased from Jeremy Pei.
It was dealer demonstration time as Goh Yin Xiang from The Fundamentals showed “Connexion”, a bulb that could light up at will, and “Fragrance”, a smell that the performer could control and transfer at will.
In the lucky draw, 5 lucky people won magic tricks and books.
To conclude the evening, Satish Kumar recited an ode which he composed himself to Jeremy Pei.
It was an evening where the legacy of Jeremy Pei lived through each of us who were present there.
