The theme ‘Self-working Magic (Semi-Automatic Tricks) drew 43 members and 3 guests – Cindy Ang, Alon Zaikin and Serene Gan – to this evening’s meeting, hosted by Joseph Then and Kenneth Chia.

Following a short magic jam session hosted by Harapan Ong and Kai Emmanuel Kuah, our monthly meeting began. A new member, Gerald Tan was added to our IBM Ring115 family when he received his magic wand from President John Teo. Announcements were made on the upcoming Gician Card Competition (15 Oct 26), Mega Jam and Guy Hollingworth lecture.

Joel Lim kept his audience glued as he froze a rubber band in mid-air, produced a ball off the shoulder of 2 different volunteers, transferred a ball from a volunteer’s closed fist to the 2nd volunteer’s closed fist, multiplied a ball to 3 in a volunteer’s closed fist, vanished a ball from a volunteer’s hand and finally, produced a ball and transforming it into a giagantic one. Next, he made a red scarf vanish, reappear from a closed fist, produced it mid-air, and eventually changing it into a blue one!

James Pang withdrew a card randomly from a deck in a brown bag, placed it face down inside an envelope. The 1st volunteer gave his birthdate as 14 Dec which corresponded to 6 of Spades displayed on the page with this date in James’ unique diary. When the card inside the sealed envelope was revealed, it was the 6 of Spades! Next, a shuffled deck was placed back inside its box. A 2nd volunteer whose birthdate was 22 Apr, then counted to the 4th card (representing Apr), after the deck was retrieved from the box. It coincidentally turned out to be the 6 of Spades too!

Baharudin invited a volunteer to insert his chosen card randomly into a deck. It was 6 of Diamonds. She then picked 3 random cards from the deck and they turned out to be a 6, 7, and 8 respectively. The 3 cards were laid out on the table. Baharudin added 4 cards, 3 cards and 2 cards correspondingly to make each group add to 10. As the volunteer’s 3 random cards totalled 24, she followed Baha’s instruction to count off 24 cards from the balance of the deck; interestingly, arriving at 6 of Diamonds, the 1st card she had picked!

Gician Tan performed the ambitious card trick. Placing a blank card atop a printed deck, it transformed the rest of the deck into blank cards instantly. He invited a volunteer to sign on a blank card, insert it randomly in the deck of blank cards but, it rose to the top of the deck when he snapped his finger. He also made the signature vanish from the card and restored it. He then used Volunteer 2’s signed card to successfully find Volunteer 1’s signed card inserted somewhere inside the deck. Finally, he further impressed the audience by linking up and then unlinking 3 regular clothes hangers as if they were linking rings!

Harapan Ong displayed 52 cards with different old company logos which older Singaporeans could identify with. He invited 2 volunteers to each select a card from 2 cards to be added to his collection. The cards were inserted into the deck randomly. When fanned out, two pairs of cards stood out. A pair carrying NTUC’s older and newer logos were next to each other. Likewise, for the 2nd pair with Giant’s older and newer logos. The volunteers’ cards with the newer logos had mysteriously sought out their older counterparts.

Kai Emmanuel Kuah presented 4 identical large stapler guns with only 1 of them loaded with staplers. A volunteer mixed them up and he could choose to ‘stapler’ any of Kai’s body parts with any of the stapler guns. He did it 3 times with 3 of the guns. Luckily for Kai, the 4th unselected gun turned out to be the one that was loaded with the staplers.

John Teo conducted an experiment to gauge how the magician could interact with the audience. Presenting 6 cards – 3 face down and 3 face up – he invited a volunteer to choose 1 of the face down cards. She made an exceptional choice – the only red card, and a giant one – as the rest of the cards including the other face down ones, were all black, regular sized ones. Next, a volunteer freely named a playing card – the King of Diamonds. John had placed a card face up in his face down deck before the performance. This card turned out to be the six of diamonds, not the King of Diamonds. However, he used the 6 of diamond to spell to a location in the deck and found the volunteer’s card, the King of Diamonds!

Alan Kwan invited a volunteer to cut a deck and select a card from one of the 2 piles. He also selected a card, Joker, from the unselected pile. They both inserted their cards randomly into a pile which is further cut into 2. The Joker was found in one of the cut piles and that pile was retained, and further cut into 2. This went on until the pile was reduced to only 2 cards – Alan’s Joker card and the volunteer’s card which it had found!

Victor Heng introduced 3 mini plastic bottles with different coloured caps – red, blue, black. He asked a volunteer to switch the bottles’ positions a few times, according to a series of instructions. When they appeared randomly switched around, he asked the volunteer to unscrew the caps and hide them in his pocket, right fist and left fist, as he preferred. Amid the confusion, Victor was strangely able to identify where each coloured cap was hidden.

Chunny Teoh invited a volunteer to pick a card and insert it into the deck. He then plucked an invisible card from the deck and threw it into a wallet. When an envelope was retrieved from the wallet, it was found to contain the volunteer’s chosen card – 4 of Diamonds – which had vanished from the physical deck. Next, he got the volunteer to sign on a sealed, empty envelope and placed it inside the wallet. The volunteer picked a 10 of Spades and inserted it into the deck. Once again, the chosen card was found missing from the physical deck and had teleported into the sealed, empty envelope inside the wallet! He then produced 2 coins – a dollar and a 50 cent. He hid 1 coin and kept the other in volunteer’s fist but, the hidden coin somehow travelled to join the one in the fist. He then placed a coin inside a closed, glass jar and threw the other coin at the glass jar. It passed through the solid glass wall to join the coin inside.

Wee Kien Ming, like Kai earlier, attempted to perform a “dangerous” trick. He told the volunteer he would consume a poison pill if he could not find her card, 6 of Spades, inserted into the deck. He found the card, 6 of Clubs but, it was not the volunteer’s. Having to take the poison pill, he told the volunteer to open the capsule to retrieve the poison powder inside. Instead, the volunteer found a tiny, rolled up note which read ‘You will choose the 6 of Spades’, a correct prediction for the magician!

Kenneth Chia presented a stiff rope which remained stiff like a stick when pointed to a volunteer’s head or heart but weakened and dropped like a rope when pointed below his belt, causing the audience to laugh.

After the break, Joseph Then shared about features of self-working tricks, advantages and disadvantages of using them, demonstrated a self-working trick with cards and a teach-in on ‘5-1-1’, whereby the performer would find a card if he adhered to a certain set of moves. He added that Tenyo’s tricks are self-working, and self-working magic can work with coins, paper, numbers, mental magic. He also recommended some resources (eg. books by Karl Fulves, Steve Beam and Peter Duffy, and videos by John Bannon) for anyone interested in delving deeper.

The evening officially ended with the monthly lucky draw where a few winners won a magic book or item, with some members staying back to buy magic items or to jam with each other.

Reported by

Low Hwee Lang (Ms)