SINGAPORE RING 115 - Jul 2021 Magic Meeting Report
IBM Singapore Ring 115 held its July meeting over Zoom on the evening of 15th July 2021. The theme of the evening was Kid’s Magic and Mental Magic. It was cohosted by Carson Goh and Alvin Terence and watched by 36 members. The meeting started at 8:00 PM
John Teo announced the digital system for paying the subscriptions. The Treasurer was thanked for setting it up with the bank. For future reference details, will also be published in the next TQR.
Enrico Varella's talk on mentalism started with the question – What is mentalism? His overview covered demonstrations, experiments and effects, types of mentalism and choice of characters. His sharing included predictions, mind reading, muscle reading, metal bending, psychokinesis, hypnosis and fortunetelling. He also recommended several books on the subject and especially “13 Steps To Mentalism” by Corinda for beginners.
Alvin Terence presented an act of prediction involving social media. A volunteer mentally selected the Jack of Diamonds as his free-will card. Alvin then guided the audience to an Instagram message he posted way back on 1st November 2020 to find “JD” embedded on his Halloween headwear.
Charles Choo's first effect involved a deck of cards. He revealed the 8S which was the wrong selected card. He quickly put it right by blowing on it and changed it to 3H, the correct chosen card. For his 2nd trick, he had a volunteer chose the positions of the back of an elongated board to attach 3 different coloured clothes pegs. When the board was turned around, it was seen that the front had 3 different coloured panels, which matched exactly the positions occupied by 3 different coloured pegs.
John Teo started with a circus theme as his 1st effect. 3 playing cards: AD, 2H and
8H were shown and a volunteer freely selected the 8H. A picture of a clown’s head was the prediction. A mirror was placed on the clown and it reflected the AD, the 2H as well as the 8H. When the mirror was lifted up, the clown picture vanished and in its place was a picture of the 8H, the chosen card. His second effect involved 4 cards. 3 cards had a letter on each of them: P, O and T. The 4th card was a magic card. When the 3 cards spelt POT, the 4th card showed a picture of a teapot. When the 3 cards were rearranged to spell TOP, the same magic card now depicted a toy top. As an unexpected climax, the printed top on the magic card became a real physical spinning top. The image of the toy top on the card had vanished.
Goh Yin Xian did the 1st dealer show. He demonstrated Candy Stick ColourChanging Pom Pom, Silk To Ferrero Roche, Sweet (a packet of sweets changed from mint to strawberry flavour), Silicon Ear Gag, QubikCube (a colour-changing bag depicting the 6 colours of a Rubik’s Cube), and Let’s Go (a super-hero head was chosen for a cardboard Leggo designed torso, and the entire cardboard figure changed to match the superhero selected).
After a 5 minutes break the evening continued with Jeremy Pei, who performed and did a dealer’s show. He commenced with gag posters and then caused a card box to materialise from a blank piece of stiff paper. From this box, he took out a full deck of kid’s cards, which he changed into a printed deck of cards, and then back to kid’s cards. He continued with cross-town paddle and a 3-card monte trick, both effects reviewed in the recent newsletter. Jeremy demonstrated Comedy Card Baby gags, and performed Parade of the Jacks where the named Jack was the only card face upwards in a packet of 4 Jacks.
Mr Bottle, aka Wee Kien Meng, started with his toy bunny which produced a couple of carrots before materialising a silk printed with the identity of the selected card. Mr Bottle confessed he does not do mentalism for children under 7 years old. When asked about his official performing trip to North Korea, Mr Bottle described his happy stay in the country, how well he was treated by his guests, and also the opportunity of performing for the leaders there.
Kenneth Chia came in as Ironman. He silenced an annoying ringing handphone by using a giant cardboard magnet to attract it. Next, he performed a torn and restored poster of the Avengers. When the poster was restored, several superheroes vanished because they were destroyed by the villain Thanos. He closed with a sketchbook depicting the heads of different people divided horizontally into 3 parts: the hair, the eyes and nose, and the mouth and chin. A volunteer chose at random the 3 different parts to form a unique character. The prediction matched this choice exactly.
Siew Kim Siang is passionate about education and uses children's magic as a means. Following this theme, he showed a Kinder Choc drawer-box. Children would predict whether the box contained chocolate or was empty, and be rewarded for correct answers. The lesson was to learn by observation. Next, he told an Aesop's Fable about a young crab and his mother who could not walk forward, the message being an example is stronger than advice. Finally, he performed exploding die where a volunteer named the number of a die that would land facing upwards when it was rolled. Instead, the die transformed into numerous small dice. The message was not to leave anything to chance – learn a trade and earn your living rather than gamble.
Kogi Oberoi performed his version of Out Of This World. He had red and black card markers and colours predicted by volunteers ended up on the correct card markers.
The evening ended with 2 lucky draws. One was for those who performed and was won by Siew Kim Siang. The other prize was for those who attended and was won by Enrico Varella.