SINGAPORE RING 115 - Apr 2022 Magic Meeting Report
In April, IBM Singapore Ring 115 conducted its virtual meeting themed “Bunny, Egg and Chocolate Magic” as Easter was around the corner. Co-hosted by Tan Jui Kuan aka JK and Carson Goh, it was attended by 31 members.
Enrico Varella opened the meeting with a dark chocolate bar with which he broke off a corner and performed a full restoration of it. He then displayed a card selected by a volunteer and tore off a corner of it, and brought out a white chocolate bar from which a corner had earlier been broken off. Magically, the torn-off piece of card matched the missing piece of chocolate exactly.
Thomas Yeo took his induction test. He performed 3 effects. In his first trick, he was able to magically match cards with the same symbols and colours together. In his second act, he stuck a red dot sticker to denote the “heads” side of each of 5 X $10 note. He mixed them alternatively “heads” and “tails”, but they ended up magically as all “heads”. In his third effect, he had a cardboard bunny magically produce 2 golden eggs, one at a time from inside an empty case. He placed the 2 eggs, one in each transparent cup. The cardboard bunny was laid flat over the mouths of the 2 cups, and was able to lift up both cups from the table without any visible supports.
Goh Yin Xian performed his dealer show. He presented “Tenyo Crystal Cleaver” which allowed a miniature sword to pass through a solid crystal box including through a ring placed inside the box. In “Mint” by Steve Rowe, a partially transparent mint container held a prediction in the form of a folded card which turned out to be the selected card that was lost in a deck. Finally, the “FryPan” by Kelvin Chad allowed an ear of corn to re-appear inside a mini, toy frying pan. After it was removed, it transformed into popcorn and a sunny-side-up egg and even hatch into a tiny chick.
Kenneth Chia pulled out a cardboard rabbit from a fabric top hat and then, a tiny top hat out of the rabbit. He then placed the rabbit inside a wooden holder and changed the colour of its fur several times with the “turn it around” gags with the audience. He then produced several eggs from a jumbo egg bag. He cracked an egg over an empty bun steamer and produced a bunch of different types of chocolates. Using a 3 X 3 matrix with different chocolates in each sector, he had everyone in the audience randomly eliminate chocolates until one is left. Surprisingly, everyone ended up with the Ferrero Rocher, which was also predicted by him. He rounded off his act by producing a tray full of Ferrero Rocher inside the empty steamer.
JK Tan taught his recent invention to all present - how to make a tip-over box with cardboard and magnets. He used the box to illustrate the story of Easter and was able to solve how to use this box to cause a light bulb (representing Jesus) wrapped inside a white cloth (representing the burial cloth) to vanish, yet leaving behind the empty cloth.
Carson Goh shared an interesting oddity using the dates in a calendar.
After a 10 minutes break, Zhang Jinming took his induction test. He invited random members of the audience to jointly form a playing card and then produced this card from inside the mask he had been wearing on his face the whole time. He then “up the ante” by getting random members of the audience to name the type of vaccine, the date and the time where he would get his 4th booster. All this information matched exactly a prediction inside a sealed envelope placed conspicuously on a stand visible all the time.
Priscilla Thong used paper cutting to tell the gospel; with the various cut pieces forming a cross, and the words HELL and LIFE. Next, she related the Easter story by causing a mixed-up Rubik’s Cube to solve by itself when placed together with a red silk inside a cubic container.
John Teo caused 4 Easter greeting cards to turn over magically one at a time. They were then transformed to a rabbit card, an egg card, a chocolate card and an Easter card. He got someone to “choose” the chocolate card and proceeded to perform a trick involving 4 bars of chocolate of various tastes. The strawberry chocolate bar was chosen by an audience member. Placing the 4 chocolate inside a wrapper, John caused a corner of a chocolate to be snapped off. It turned out that it was the selected strawberry chocolate bar that had its corner broken off.
Wee Kien Meng aka Mr Bottle shared his experiences in providing drama consultation services to the movie/TV drama industry. He explained he is interested in art-themed magical performances. Using PowerPoint slides, he recounted his involvement in Singapore’s first underwater magic project, the world’s first magic theatre production on high-speed rail trains in Taiwan, street festival magic in Happy Valley Theme Park in Chongqing, Bubble Magic at Xiamen’s SM Mall and at Changi City Point and a Dinosaur-themed magic show at Northpoint.
For his dealer show, Jeremy Pei demonstrated 4 Aces to 4 Queens, origami rabbit, Malini’s egg bag, jumbo ball and vase, and 2 Tenyo’s chocolate effects. He also performed his latest favourite Rubik’s Cube routine. A mixed-up Cube inside a jar matched exactly another Cube which was randomly twisted so that the colours were all mixed up.
The evening ended with a lucky draw and with these 4 winners: Massimo Sacco, Priscilla Thong, Low Hwee Lang, and J K Tan.