SINGAPORE RING 115 - Nov 2021 Magic Meeting Report
IBM Singapore Ring 115's meeting was held on 15th November conducted over Zoom. The theme was "The Tricks I am Working On". It was co-hosted by JK Tan and Siew Kim Siang. The meeting started at 19:45 hr and attracted 33 attendees.
J K Tan used expertly made slides to show the evening's agenda and introduced Kim Siang as the first performer.
Siew Kim Siang loaded one packet of ESP symbols cards in a column of 5 empty pockets on a clear plastic sheet. A volunteer helped to choose and load the second packet, at random, in pockets numbered 1 to 5. Upon turning the sheet symbols of both columns of cards matched. His second trick was Jumbo Zig-Zag Queen of Hearts performed to the biblical story of an evil queen.
Enrico Varella demonstrated and taught two subtle moves using 2 linking rings. The first move was that once linked both rings can be spun. Secondly he showed how to unlink the rings with reference to Di Vernon's Symphony of The Rings and T arbell.
Jeremy Pei started with a Rubik's cube that has stickers of cars stuck at random on some squares. In a flash all stickers appeared on one face. His puzzle prop had a circular can with a stack of different diameter wooden rings on a peg. The largest ring was at the bottom. He placed the can over the stack and turned it over. Lifting the can revealed the largest ring was still at the bottom. He repeated the same puzzle using a stack of different sizes of Rubik's cubes in a square box. The magic happened when the multi coloured cubes turned all white faced. For his last trick he had 4 mini Rubik's cubes and 6 coloured cards. By random shuffling and selecting the cubes were solved to match the chosen coloured card.
David Fillary showed an old English Penny and a Half Dollar. In his magical manoeuvres the coins jumped from hand to hand and even from one stuck to his forehead. He successfully converted a Singapore 1 dollar coin to 2 x 50c coins and 1 50c coin to 5 x 10c coins. His final trick was 'My Magic Baby' and prevalence of his left or right brain. The volunteer thought of a letter. By a series of tests on the left or right side of the brain, the chosen letter J matched the correct side of the brain and the prediction David had put in his shirt's pocket.
Cassidy Lee’s dealer’s demonstration consisted of 3 tricks. The first trick involved 2 versions of the Princess Card Trick. Mike Sullivan’s version had the chosen card turned blank while the version by Toshi Kobyashi caused all the different cards to become the 2C. The second trick was Proma’s Magic Hammer in which 2 metal pellets were hammered into a coin. The final trick was 'Dude As I Do', a Do-As-I-Do card effect with a twist.
JK Tan shared his methods of shuffling and cutting cards in the virtual world to replicate the real world. He split a deck into 3 parts by cutting followed by a series of instructions to reveal a chosen AC. He shuffled a deck face down on the table. Instead of cutting he removed cards equal to a number 6 chosen by the volunteer.
Then he dealt 10 cards face down and counted 6 to reveal the predicted 9H and showed all remaining 9 cards were black faced.
There was a break of 10 minutes and the details of 4 lucky draws were shared by JK
Ning Cai was a special guest of the night for an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session. Ms Ning is an ex member of Ring 115, and an accomplished magician known as Magic Babe Ning. Besides she is a writer, an actress and now a
parent. AMA session probed her on issues like - How do you find time to do all these things? How do you keep fit and young looking? How do you write such varied books rather than sequels? How do you cross fertilize ideas from say writing to magic? Are you active in Magic now? How do you translate emotions shown by body language in acting to writing? Key answers were to organise herself, plan tasks, eat well with a good dose of water, do yoga and breathing exercises, be conscious of cultural differences, step into the body of characters she plays or writes about, take on bad feedback and learn from it. Becoming a mother recently changed her priority to enjoying and caring for the baby at the top. We look forward to seeing her in Singapore when Covid permits.
John Teo relayed a story about a Japanese man who posted Instagram photographs with an image of a different playing card. These photographs were bound in a book. John riffled through a deck of cards and a volunteer stopped him at what happened to be 9H and the 17th card. Sure enough the card on the 17th page of the book was also 9H. John explained the world of pairs and the Ying Yang symbol. Using this principle he started with 6 pairs of Black & Red faced cards. By a process of shuffling and dealing at random the cards were separated into blacks, reds and reds+blacks the face values of which totalled 42, which is the “answer to everything” according to Douglas Adams’ science fiction “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy”.
Kenneth Chia in this sketch owns a phone shop. There were 9 icons of apps on his giant hand phone. He removed the icons, shuffled them and had one selected. This matched the prediction. His facebook had a family photo in a frame. As the family grew photos were added but magically they still fitted within the frame.
Jeremy Pei’s dealer’s demonstration included “The Golden Shell”, a 3 shell and a pea effect, Ton Onosak’s “Lucky Lady” version 2, a jumbo clip-the-queen monte effect, and a giant “3 Card Monte” trick.
The final event was lucky draws where David Fillary and Peter Tan were the winners for October (October’s lucky draw was postponed to November), and Cassidy Lee and Fernando Ng were the winners for November. All of them won magic DVDs.
The meeting ended at 22:11 hr.