Simon aronSon
Page 36
MARCH 2012
M-U-M (ISSN 00475300 USPS 323580) is published monthly for $40 per year by The Society of American Magicians, 11086 S. Dartmoor Place, Parker, CO 80138 . Periodical postage paid at Parker, CO and additional mailing offices.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to M-U-M, c/o Manon Rodriguez, P.O. Box 505, Parker, CO 80134.
Volume 101 • Number 10
COLUMNISTS
THIS MONTH’S FEATURES
S.A.M. NEWS
6 From the Editor’s Desk
7 Hero & Patriot Award Form
8 From the President’s Desk
10 Newsworthy
11 M-U-M Assembly News
24 Good Cheer List
25 New Members & Reinstatements
63 Our Advertisers
26 Stage 101 • by Levent
32 I Left My Cards at Home • by Steve Marshall
35 Tech Tricks • by Bruce Kalver
50 Unlimited Possibilities • Roger Blakiston (AKA Jolly Roger)
63 Inside Straight • by Norman Beck
64 Mental Breakdown • by Christian Painter
66 Theory & Art of Magic • by Larry Hass
67 Anytime, Anyplace —Any Deck • by Aldo Colombini
68 The Dean’s Diary • by George Schindler
70 Confessions of a Paid Amateur • by Rod Danilewicz
28 Ellipsis • by Michael Perovich
30 A Magician Prepares • by Dennis Loomis
34 Salon de Magie • by Ken Klosterman
36 COVER STORY • by Michael Close
44 Living with Simon • by Ginny Aronson
46 Triple Play • by Simon Aronson
52 Nielsen Gallery: Dante • by Tom Ewing
54 Informed Opinion • New Product Reviews
68 Basil the Baffling • by Alan Wassilak
69 Bruce Chadwick’s Magic Wisdom
Magazine
ON THE COVER
PAGE 36M-U-M
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Editor
Michael Close
Editor Emeritus
David Goodsell
Associate Editor
W.S. Duncan
Proofreader & Copy Editor
Lindsay Smith
Art Director
Lisa Close
Publisher
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Copyright © 2012
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Editor’s Desk
Way back in the early ‘70s, I subscribed to Hierophant and Kabbala, two magazines published by Jon Racherbaumer. Through those magazines, I learned of Simon Aronson, who was part of Ed Marlo’s “exclusive coterie.” In 1978 I bought a copy of Simon’s first book, The Card Ideas of Simon Aronson; the book was full of great card magic, including some terrific memorized deck effects, but the trick that caught my eye was a gem called Red See Passover. I went to some trouble and expense to have the necessary gaffed cards made (this was way before the USPCC began printing gaffed cards), and I dropped this atom bomb of a trick on any unsuspecting magician I could find. (At that time I had two magician-slayers in my repertoire: Simon’s trick and my own Wild Underground Transposition. I had the advantage of anonymity; no one knew who I was or what I knew. I saved those two tricks for very late night sessions at magic conventions, in-troducing them with the meek statement, “Here’s something that, maybe, you haven’t seen.” I unleashed one or the other of those tricks and immediately retired for the night, assured that, when I returned the next morning, the other magicians would still be there, thinking about what they had seen.)
If asked about Red See Passover (and many magicians did ask), I did the honorable thing and said it could be found in The Card Ideas of Simon Aronson. Simon
sold a few books because of this. When Simon and I finally met a few years later, it felt like we were already old friends.
I admire Simon’s effects, which are designed to fool the most intelligent and observant spectator. In 1990, when I decided that I would finally break down and learn a memorized deck stack, Simon’s stack was the one I learned. And I have never regretted it.
A great benefit of knowing Simon was getting to know his wife Ginny, who is an intelli-gent, charming, and gracious lady. Ginny is an active par-ticipant in Simon’s magic life, editing his books and articles,
attending magic conventions with him, serving as the “receiver” in their astonishing two-person mindreading act, and surrender-ing her kitchen for the Saturday meetsurrender-ings of the Chicago Session, which has been gathering at the Aronson home for more than twenty years.
I had the opportunity to chat with Simon and Ginny about their personal stories, their interests outside of magic, and the development of the mindreading act. A portion of this
conversa-it was all very interesting. I decided to do what Jon Stewart of The Daily Show does when an interview goes long: post the full interview on the Web. You’ll find it at www.MagicSAM.com.
Simon also contributed a card trick to this issue, and I urge you to give it a try. It is well within the abilities of the average card worker, and the trick is representative of Simon’s approach to card magic.
George Schindler passed along the following two announce-ments:
The Parent Assembly 1 of The Society of American Magicians in New York City has set up a Grave Site Restora-tion Committee to help preserve and/or restore the grave sites of some of the greatest magicians of all time, whose graves are in the tri-state area. Several fundraising shows are planned to support this effort. For more information, contact the chairman at [email protected].
The Society of Young Magicians will present the Weekend of Wonder (WOW) on August 10-12, 2012, at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Warwick, Rhode Island. This highly successful, total-immersion weekend event, previously presented in 2008 and 2010, is being repeated and will bring young magicians from around the country under one roof for a weekend of magic studies. In addition to the training, friendships are made and social activities, gifts, and special attention are offered by experts in all fields of magic. For details see the brochure at www.magicsym.com/wow.asp.
With the passing of Tony Giorgio, magic has lost another of its great, unique characters. He had a great “presence,” and he certainly knew his craft. Here’s more from Michael Perovich:
“Actor/magician Tony Giorgio died on February 1, 2012, in Southern Califor-nia after a long illness. He was reported to be eighty-eight years of age at the time of his passing. Giorgio’s swarthy good looks made him ideal for small parts playing hoodlums in such movies as The Godfather, Magnum Force, and The Sting II. He had a nice part as a detective in the James Coburn vehicle, Harry in Your Pocket, for which he was also technical advisor. A performer at the Magic Castle since the 1960s, his act included an extended Three Card Monte routine and his own card to matchbox effect. He made good use of assistants, naming one ‘Ruby,’ and engaging her in an amusing close-up magical playlet. In later years Tony became embroiled with the Castle over legal issues that were a burden for all concerned. Giorgio had a working knowledge of the methods of advantage play; his DVD The Ultimate Work is highly regarded for its inside information on gambling methods. His friend Dai Vernon uniformly praised him, particularly for his knowledge and skill with dice.” So long, Tony.
Michael Close
The Chicago Session – John Bannon, David Solomon, and Simon Aronson
HEROISM AND PATRIOT AWARD
Dedicated to Magician John Eichler
NOMINATION FORM
CONTACT INFORMATION FOR PERSON SUBMITTING NOMINATION FORM:
Name:
SAM Membership Number: Address:
City, State, Zip Code: Phone: Email: Relationship to Nominee: NOMINEE INFORMATION: Name: Title/Rank:
Member of Society of American Magicians ( ) Yes ( ) No Home Address:
City, State, Zip Code: Home Phone: Signature
Qualifications/Distinguishable Action: 1. Please give a brief history of the nominee.
2. Describe the event or circumstance for which you feel the nominee displayed unparalleled heroism or patriotic duty and is deserving of the Heroism and Patriot Award.
3. Describe in detail why you feel the nominee went above and beyond the call of duty during this event. Important Details:
• Answers to questions 1-3 should be typed on separate 8½ x 11 pages and attached to the nomination form. • The incident/meritorious act described in this nomination form must have occurred after September 11, 2001.
Awards will be issued for each calendar year. • The award is open to all magicians.
• The recipient of the award may be living or deceased. • The recipient will receive a medal and a certificate award.
• The award will be presented at the Society of American Magicians Annual Convention
• Nomination forms will be published in M-U-M magazine and on the Society of American Magicians website. • Incomplete nomination forms will not be considered.
• Forms must be received by May 31, 2012for consideration of the Heroism and Patriot Award for the previous calendar year.
In remembrance of John Eichler and all of the heroes in the magic community, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to the Magic Endowment Fund.
Please send nomination forms to:
The Society of American Magicians National Administrator: Manon Rodriguez
Attn: Heroism and Patriot Committee PO Box 505
Vinny Grosso
President’s Desk
Boston s.Y.M. CeleBrates
25th anniversarY
What a great event! The Boston S.Y.M. celebrated its silver anniversary at their holiday banquet this past January. I had the privilege of attending and meeting so many great kids and alumni of the Boston S.Y.M. Please understand, it was a challenge for me to even make the trip. While it is only a two-and-a-half hour drive, I have only been to Boston two other times in my life. My aversion to Boston sports teams runs deep, especially being a huge New York Jets and New York Yankees fan. When I was invited to the banquet, I told myself, “It’s for the kids,” and begrudgingly stepped foot in Massachusetts.
I am so glad I did. The banquet was attended by over a hundred people, including Ray and Ann Goulet. Boston S.Y.M. president Matt Leskanic did a wonderful job running the program; a show followed with Joe Howard, Ben Nemzer & Cassandra, and me.
Many of you know the mentor for the Boston group is David Oliver. His con-tributions to the magic community are nothing short of incred-ible. Over the past twenty-five years David has missed only six meetings and most of those were within the past five years for medical reasons (he’s been dealing with less than forty percent lung capacity). It was an honor to present him with a Presidential Citation for all the hard work he has done.
Where have soMe of the
Pages gone?
You may have noticed there were fewer pages in last month’s M-U-M. “What’s going on here?” you might ask. Well, none of the magic content of the magazine has changed; all of the regular articles and features were there in their entirety. The reduced page count was the result of fewer advertisements. It is no secret that print advertising is down. Not just for the S.A.M., but just about any magazine out there.
Our annual budget relies on a significant amount of income from advertisement. When that income is down we have to make it up by either spending less or generating income in other ways. We have been fortunate to have kept our expenses down the past few years. We have also had an increase in membership this year.
Income from membership dues is not the answer, though. All
ers. Unfortunately, some of our regular advertisers are not seeing a high enough return on the money they invest in advertising in M-U-M. In conversations with them, they feel the content of our magazine is great, and our circulation is fine, too. We need a better response from our members in order to be a more valuable advertising source. Advertisers would also benefit from multiple ways to reach our members to reinforce their advertisements.
While I am not proud to admit it (and I know I am not alone), I used to read magic publications almost solely for their advertise-ments. I know now I missed out on many magic gems “hidden” in the articles I skipped over. I couldn’t help it; I was mesmerized by all the new and exciting effects available. The first magazine I subscribed to was Magic Manuscript (let me remind you that I am only thirty-six years old). I think I had a mini-depression when they stopped publishing it. Luckily, I discovered MAGIC and Genii and then became a member of the I.B.M. and S.A.M., so the Linking Ring and M-U-M followed. Each magazine offered great content, but I still cannot deny it, I was drawn to the advertising. I was exactly what the advertiser wanted; a captive and active audience.
so What Can We Do?
We the members and the S.A.M. as an organization can do a few things. As a member, the best thing you could do is support our advertisers. The obvious way is to make purchases from them, but you need to let them know you saw their ad in M-U-M and that their advertisement played a part in you making a purchase. Let’s show our advertisers that we appreciate their support of the S.A.M. When you make a purchase over the phone, tell them. When you place an order online, send a message in the notes. They need to hear from us.
Also, when talking with fellow compeers, talk about what you have seen advertised in M-U-M. Encourage them, if they make a purchase, to let the advertiser know their ads are working.
The S.A.M. is also committed to help from the organiza-tion level. We have been providing links on our digital version of the magazine to make it easier for readers to get to online content from our advertisers. We will continue to look into ways of improving and enhancing our digital content. We are also developing other methods for advertisers to reach not only our members, but the entire magic community.
We all have our part to do; let’s do it together.
the naPles Winter Wine festival
The Naples Winter Wine Festival is the largest, most successful wine auction in the world. It is put on annually by the Naples Children & Education Foundation. Over the past twelve years they have raised over $100 million for children’s charities. That is not a typo; this year alone they raised over $12 million. It is truly magical what they do for the children in Collier County, Florida, and this year it was even more magical than usual. The Festival takes on a theme each year and this year’s was “Believe in the Magic.” As a part of that, festival co-chair Joan Clifford reached out to the S.A.M. to teach magic to some of the children in the charities who expressed an interest in learning. There was a lot that went into this and the results were amazing. Next month, you’ll read more on how Chris Bontjes, Dal Sanders, and I worked with them. In the meantime, check our website, Facebook group page, or Google “Naples Winter Wine Festival” to see some of the press it has received.
Dean: George Schindler, 1735 East 26th St.,
Brooklyn, NY 11229, (718) 336-0605, Fax (718) 627-1397, [email protected]
President: Vinny Grosso, 270 Mansion St.,
Coxsackie, NY 12051 (518) 756-1891 [email protected]
President Elect: J. Christopher Bontjes, 2313
Atwood Ct., Danville, IL 61834 (217)431-4791 [email protected]
First Vice President: Dal Sanders, 3316
Northaven Rd, Dallas, TX 75229 (214) 902-9200, [email protected]
Second Vice President: Kenrick “ICE”
McDonald, P.O. Box 341034, Los Angeles, CA 90034, (310) 559-8968
Secretary: Marlene Clark, 274 Church Street, #6B
Guilford, CT 06437, (203) 689-5730, Skype: marlene.clark, [email protected]
Treasurer: Mary Ann Blowers, 3 Christopher
Bluffs Court, St. Louis, MO 63129 (314) 846-8468 [email protected] Skype: maryan.blowers
Regional Vice Presidents
New England: CT MA RI NH ME VT
Joseph Caulfield (603) 654-6022, [email protected]
North Atlantic: NY NJ
Pat Colby, [email protected]
Mid Atlantic: PA DE MD VAWV DC
David W. Bowers, 169 Tobin Dr., Chambersburg, PA 17201(717) 414-7574, [email protected] South Atlantic: FL AL GA MS NC SC Debbie Leifer (404) 630-1120 [email protected] Central Plains: KY TN OH IN MI
Jania Taylor, (231)242-8242, [email protected]
Midwest: IL MN WI MO ND NE KS SD IA
Jeff Sikora, 13023 Crown Point Ave., Omaha, NE 68164 (402)-339-6726, [email protected]
South Cental States: TX AR OK NM LA
Jeff Lanes, (713)850-1770, [email protected]
Southwest: CA AZ NV HI
John Shryock III (520) 885-7999 [email protected] Northwest: WA OR UT ID CO AK WY MT Michael Roth, (503)493-8316, [email protected] Canada Rod Chow (604) 669-7777 [email protected]
Society of Young Magicians Director
Jann Wherry Goodsell, 329 West 1750 North, Orem, Utah 84057 (801) 376-0353. [email protected]
Living Past National Presidents
Bradley M. Jacobs, Richard L. Gustafson, Roy A. Snyder, Bruce W. Fletcher, James E. Zachary, Frank W. Dailey, Cesareo Pelaez, David R. Goodsell, Robert A. Steiner, Fr. Cyprian Murray, Michael D. Douglass, George Schindler, Dan Rodriguez, Dan Garrett, Donald F. Oltz Jr., Craig Dickson, Loren C. Lind, Gary D. Hughes, Harry Monti, Jann Wherry Goodsell, Warren J. Kaps, Ed Thomas, Jay Gorham, John Apperson, Richard M. Dooley, Andy Dallas, Maria Ibáñez, Bruce Kalver, Mike Miller, Mark Weidhaas.
TRY THE
IMPOSSIBLE
Newsworthy
Magic at the Super Bowl Village
The Indy Fringe Festival was approached by the Super Bowl host committee in Indianapolis in December to see if they could provide entertainment for the Super Bowl Village the during the ten days before and the day of Super Bowl XLVI. At first, they wanted volunteers; Pauline Moffat, Executive Director of Indy Fringe, said that her professional entertainers would have to be paid. The committee said okay, and Ms. Moffat approached Taylor Martin about organizing some of the magicians from Indy Magic Monthly to perform. Taylor sent out a general call and got eight names, including Ryan Siebert and Allan Head, who eventually worked with him in the Village. Then, the committee changed their mind and said they couldn’t pay the performers. They wanted volunteers, and those volunteers would not be allowed to solicit tips. Pauline said no thank you.
About nine days before the Village opened, the committee came back and said they’d pay the street entertainers, including five other companies from Indy Fringe. This information was given to Taylor two days before The Second Indy Fringe Winter Magic Festival (which Taylor organizes) and also his opening night for a Magic Dinner Theatre at a local catering facility, The Propylaeum. Taylor called Ryan and Allan; they cleared their schedules and the three went to work, presenting forty hours of magic to nearly 400,000 people.
Taylor had three major events on his calendar at one time. In the end, everything went well; there were over one million visitors to the Super Bowl Village, there was a sold-out house for the Dinner Theatre, and really great attendance for the second magic festival for the public. And, everyone got paid.
In another highlight for Taylor, on January 21, 2012, at the Indy Fringe Winter Magic Festival, RVP Jania Taylor presented him with a Presiden-tial Citation from President Vinny Grosso. It read, “For keeping magic alive in the eye of the public in Indianapolis through his creation of Indy Magic Monthly and participation in the Indianapolis Fringe Festival.” Taylor Martin had this to say about the honor: “A long way has come in the twenty-six years since I joined the S.A.M. I never knew I’d get this sort of respect for my efforts; it really means a lot to me and my wife, as well as to the people who were in the audience that night. To have this presented to me in front of a paying public crowd, and not just within the confines of our ranks, shows me how important an award like this is. It is so important that we do things like this in the public eye.”
Congratulations to Taylor and the other performers who did a fine job representing Indianapolis to the world.
Shawn Farquhar Named Dean of
Assembly 95
At the Annual S.A.M. Assembly 95 awards banquet held in Vancouver, Canada, Shawn Farquhar, assembly founder (chartered in 1988), first assembly president, and former RVP Canada, was
inducted by Assembly President Lon Mandrake as the very first Dean of Assembly 95 – The Carl Hemeon Assembly. In front of two hundred guests, Farquhar proudly accepted a beautiful plaque from President Mandrake on behalf of the assembly to mark this auspicious occasion.
As part of this historic event, Rod Chow, Regional Vice-Presi-dent of Canada, on behalf of Most Illustrious Vinny Grosso, had the privilege of presenting a Presidential Citation to Shawn Farquhar: “For his contributions to the Society of American Magicians on a national level and locally with the Carl Hemeon Assembly 95 in Vancouver, Canada. For his election by his compeers as the first Dean of Assembly 95, the highest honor an assembly can bestow. He is a great source of pride to all who know him as he epitomizes our motto Magic Unity Might.”
New Dean Farquhar was sincerely surprised, appreciative, and humbled to accept the honor of Dean, and to receive the citation. Farquhar becomes the first magician to have ever been presented a Presidential Citation in Canada.
RVP Chow also presented Dean Farquhar with a commemo-rative binder containing written letters of congratulations from National Dean George Schindler, RVP Northwestern States Michael Roth, and others.
Assembly 95 is proud to state that their new Dean Shawn Farquhar not only has achieved an unprecedented resume of in-ternational championship awards, accolades, media exposure, and respect in the world of magic, including S.A.M. national contest awards and the coveted FISM Grand Prix World Champion of Magic (China 2009), he has also truly been the inspiration, the lifeblood, and an outspoken ambassador for Assembly 95. – Rod Chow
Steve Cohen Presented with
Presidential Citation
On January 14, 2012, Steve Cohen was presented with a Presi-dential Citation by Most Illustrious Vinny Grosso in New York City. In part, the citation read, “For his contributions to the art of magic, preserving its rich history while mod-ernizing classic routines and effects with unparal-leled class; for his show Chamber Magic, which
for over ten years has given audiences a glimpse into romanticized magic presentations of yesteryears.” Congratulations, Steve.
U
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Ryan Siebert, Taylor Martin as Rodney the Younger, Allan Head Photo by Deborah Martin
Shawn Farquhar, Lon Mandrake, and Rod Chow
Go to:
www.mum-maGazine.com
and use the easy submission form to file your report
MARCH 2012 Volume 101, Number 10
1
Januaryauction night
New York, NY— January 6, 2012. Once the pre-meeting pizza at the back of the room ran out, MI Jim Kelly called the meeting to order. New member Alvin Oh was sworn in and welcomed to the assembly. Richie Magic was nominated to run for RVP of the North Atlantic Region, a position currently held by Pat Colby. Richie also announced the proposed date of May 22 for this year’s Salute to
Magic show.
After a few committee reports, David Adamovich, who is the U.S. President of Record Holders Republic, the “Registry of Official World Records,” presented an award to Kamarr, who now holds the record of the magician who has appeared on the David Letterman
Late Show forty times. Kamarr
accepted, and performed his Torn and Restored Newspaper for us. George Schindler and Vinny Grosso gave us updates on the Las Vegas convention before the meeting adjourned and the “after meeting” auction got under way. Pat Colby, assisted by Richie, did a great job as auctioneer, keeping the proceedings going smoothly and adding humor. There was lots of interaction from the more than forty members in atten-dance. A few choice items, such as a suitcase full of magic donated
by Warren Kaps, added to the valuable books and items sold. One of the treasures was a Lloyd’s production bird cage that created some competitive bidding. The Parent Assembly benefited with a small percentage of the proceeds. It was a most successful event. —George Schindler
Parent Assembly 1 meets at Mt Sinai Medical Center, 1425 Madison (at 98th street) NY, NY in the Goldwurm Auditorium 7:30 PM Jordan Linker [email protected] (646) 670-7235. www. sampa1.com
2
BLEnDing thE oLD anD nEWSAN FrANCISCo,CA— Celebrat-ing the birth of 2012, members and guests blended the old and new. Tamaka showed a TV clip of Jay Marshall for our enjoyment. For his main routines Jay performed the linking rings and introduced his partner Lefty, who sang a song. It was a learning experience and provided an alternate teach-in. Jay’s patter and presence were first rate. Over the coming year a series of film clips of old-time magicians will be shown at our monthly meetings. Tonight’s theme centered on the presenta-tion of something new: a routine, prop, or even a magical gesture.
Walt Johnson offered a double feature titled Magic and Miracles. First he challenged members to stack thirteen nails on the head of one nail. We were each given a bag with nails. Three mages, who already knew the secret, solved the nail stacking puzzle. Then Walt (with Michael Baker and Ed Arce assisting) displayed his ability to cut a straw in half without cutting the string running through it. Employing psychic power, Bob Kuhn (with a little help from four assistants) trans-ported three selected cards from one packet to another. Hippo Lau demonstrated the phenomenon of mass hysteria. With a deck of cards blank on both sides, Hippo produced in our minds the faces
of playing cards; yet after each imaging he proved the cards were blank. Utilizing a random process involving two assistants, Nathan Ng correctly predicted a chosen card.
Corky LaVallee asked his three assistants each to supply an object. Bob offered a coin, Lois Terrell her watch, and Rich Seguine his wallet. Each assistant cut the deck, and the cut card des-ignated the specific item: coin, watch, and wallet. Ed performed the compressed deck routine. Four cards of different values were deftly transformed into four Aces. Rob Shapiro placed an enchanted balloon behind his back and pulled it through his body, leaving both intact – no bursting of either balloon or body. Stu Bacon asked his assistant Ed to apply his birthday date in choosing a card. Stu’s predicted card was the same as Ed’s choice. With Corky’s help, John Caris revealed the miracle of Howard Adams’s ESP routine Ce-lebrithree. By a random procedure a pair of identical cards occurred three times. Rich opened his box of magical goodies and, after showing an effect, gave it away. Cynthia Yee enjoyed the evening’s wonderment and the cookies. —John Caris
Golden Gate Assembly 2 meets first *Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Community Room of Taraval
Police Station, 2345 24th Ave., San Francisco. July meeting will be held on Thursday July 5. Tamaka [email protected] (415) 531-9332.
3
KEith coBB LEcturE Fun For aLLoAk PArk,IL— Our last meeting was a Keith Cobb lecture, “Effective Magic for Children.” Keith began with an interac-tive change bag, followed by the Pom-Pom Sticks and an Egg Bag routine with Keith’s 6½-year-old daughter. Since this is a zippered bag, there was a lot of byplay. The Bongo Hat (person-ality hat) started out as a small triangle, getting larger with each unfold until the funny ending. Keith’s handling of the Acrobatic Silks (“magic jumping scarves”) used eighteen-inch silks. After watching the routine, Nathan Colwell had to check out the stick that held the scarves. Keith feels this is an underused trick that kids all enjoy; Nathan had fun trying to figure it out. Rope in Vase was another fun routine.
Next was an invisible “zombie” doing his tightrope walking on a stiff rope. Puppets are always popular with kids and Keith’s bunny in a hat was no exception. The bunny kept handing Keith “gifts” like a broken egg and a balloon to hold. (Bunny kept letting go when the balloon was stretched out so it would snap back at Keith!) Keith featured lots of byplay with puppets that kids love. The member audience reaction was great! Keith had Nathan up again to help with his linking rings. Keith was able to make them link and unlink, but Nathan could not seem to do that.
Keith used Gordon Gluff for his Miser’s Dream routine and Chuck Gekas for his ring on scarf trick. Keith pointed out his vest, which had forty pockets to hold sponge balls, chicken nuggets, pierced navel (orange), squeaky rubber bands, eyeballs, cards, and large coins. Keith showed a color-changing feather plume Pat Colby auctioneer
Nathan Ng performs card prediction.
trick and a gag bag that changed colors and designs as he pulled items out of it. He even has juggling stuff in his large case, including chain saws. Members were thrilled with his lecture, and enjoyed being able to try some of his equipment for them-selves. Nathan and Frankini Glab had to try the large ring on rope while Bob Syrup and Tim Casady looked on, and juggler Mary Ziemba wrote out the list of items Keith had available to juggle, Every member in atten-dance took home some valuable information on doing kids shows. —Darlene Bull
Assembly 3 meets at Pilgrim Congregational Church, 460 Lake Street, Oak Park, ILLINOIS 0n the 4th Monday gather 7pm, meeting 7:30. President Neil Tobin Neiltobin@ hotmail.com (708) 308-1280.
4
StroLLing Magic nightPHILADeLPHIA, PA— The theme of our January meeting was “strolling magic,” better known as “walk-around magic.” The meeting featured four magicians performing a variety of effects that could be done sur-rounded, up close, and without the aid of a tabletop. After the presentations, the performers fielded numerous questions from the audience about the ins and outs of performing this type of magic; this yielded some very practical information about how to be a successful walk-around performer.
The evening began with two wonderful “Teach a Trick” segments. First, Bill McElven-ney performed and demonstrat-ed a marvelous rope through silk penetration effect called Houdini’s Impossible Rope Escape with the assistance of Bill Brown and Fred Siegel. Following Bill, our newest member, Ed Cohen, wowed everyone by demonstrating his own very impressive version of
Any Card at Any Number, which required very little sleight of hand and which truly allowed the spectator to call out any card at any location in the deck.
The “Teach a Trick” segment was followed by the strolling magic portion of the evening, during which four per-formers rotated between the four corners of the room where club members were stationed. In one corner, Eric Johnson blew everyone away with a number of excellent card effects culminating with a fabulous coin routine known as Troy Hoosier’s Charming Chinese Challenge, utilizing a handling by Lance Pierce. In another corner, Jeff Carson demonstrated how such simple effects as the Hindu Beads and Twisted Sister could be turned into minor miracles with the aid of very original patter. In a third corner, Jim Straub deftly executed a very funny sponge rabbit routine that had the crowd
in stitches. Finally, in the fourth corner, Sam Sandler reminded everyone of just how much mileage can be gained from straightforward effects involving rubber bands, such as the torn and restored rubber band and the climbing or rising ring. All four performers then partook in a panel discussion about strolling magic which, left many who participated yearning to take up this most interactive branch of magic. It was truly a most informative and fun evening of magic for all in attendance. —Peter Cuddihy
James Wobensmith Assembly 4 meets the Third Thursday at 7:00 p.m. at the Bustleton Memorial Post, 810 (American Legion) 9151 Old Newtown Road. Information: www.sam4.org/
6
MagicFor 2012
BALtImore, mD— Our first meeting of the new year 2012 was very well attended. All of our members from last year were there ready for a new year of wonderful magic and fellow-ship. Kudos to our president, Jeff Eline for making 2011 fun and exciting and keeping our membership strong. Some of our members have been sick, but they continue to attend just for the joy of each other’s company. We had a visitor, Paul Hoener
Starting out with magic was Tony Anastasi, doing a wonderful Three Card Monte routine. Next up was Ralph Fowler. Using a Reader’s Digest book, he had a volunteer remove a page and tear in into little pieces. Ralph had predicted which word the volunteer had chosen. Our own Joe Bruno cut a deck of cards into four piles. They were all shuffled into face-up and face-down positions. Joe was able to produce to selected card. Oniel Banks did a selected card routine that ended with his prediction matching the select card. Howie Schwartzman did a very humorous large dice box trick. Joe Harsanyi also did a wonderful card routine.
Charles Covington magically moved two rings, two ropes, and a silk. Eric Hoffman did a card routine in which the selected card ended up having a different colored back. Paul Hoener smoothly controlled the cards in poker game routine. Andy London did the Card of Destiny routine. The Amazing Jay Silverman had cards cut into four piles. After several moves, the selected card was able to be found by using three different cards to indentify it. Jeff Eline did a matching routine using four volunteers and four torn cards. —Rudy Jackson
Assembly 6 meets every first Thursday at 8:00 p.m. Held at The Magic Warehouse - 11419 Cronridge Drive site #10 in Owings Mills, Maryland 21117. (410-567-0777) Jeff Eline [email protected] w w w. b a l t i m o r e s a m . c o m
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thE WizarD’S BanquEtomAHA, Ne— It was a dark night, and the Omaha Magical Society convened for its annual event – The Wizard’s Banquet. Dean Walter Graham was
emcee and everyone was ap-propriately decked out. After Denny Rourke, Bob Gehringer (our new President), and “The Amazing Lindy” got our guests into the spirit with some baffling close-up work, Walter introduce the opening stage act, award-winner Jeff Sikora. He started with a comedy prediction, a version of the 20th Century Silks
with a young volunteer from the audience, and closed with a snake basket effect using a chosen card. (The snake did the work.) Jeff was honored this year with the Omaha Magical Society (OMS) David P. Abbott award (see photo). In order to win, a nominee must have satisfied a long list of accomplishments.
Second on the bill was Bruce Jacoby with Colorful Magic. Ac-companied by electric-techno music, he performed a series of sponge ball manipulations, productions, color changes, and even a growing sponge. He followed this with a card trick he’d learned in a lecture by Roger Reese (of the OMS) using a volunteer, a paper bag, and several cute gags. He finished with a near poetic presentation of the tea kettle.
Following Bruce was a welcome visitor, Tom Burgoon, who presented a riotous act of jokes, gags, stunts, and tricks, involving everything from Swiss warblers to invisible mosquitoes to spoons, forks, Silly Putty, and of course the famous Timmy Toilet paper. Next up was Dr. Strange, who presented an odd collection of material, including everything from a mock hypnosis session to a vanishing and appearing salt trick, and closing with a feather that stood up.
Chris Bontjes, S.A.M. pres-Chuck Gekas and Keith Cobb with
RIng on scarf
President Bob Gehringer(R) presents the David P. Abbott
award to Jeff Sikora (L). Ed Cohen demonstrating his
own version of “Any Card at Any Number”
ident-elect, was up next, and presented the W-hole card trick, as well as a smooth handling of the Gene Anderson torn and restored paper. We hope Chris enjoyed his visit as much as we enjoyed him.
Finally, Jared Schaugaard appeared in one of the strangest acts. He came out wearing “rock star” hair and performed some slick manipulations with cards, including fans, fancy multi-cuts, and the production of cards from a flattened and opened card box. He then got four volunteers onstage to assist with a four Ace routine, which is not your standard stage effect.
The food was excellent, and Donna Roth did her usual fine job decorating the place. Congrats to the Banquet Committee. See you next year? —Larry Brodahl
Assembly 7 usually meets on the third Monday, at Southwest Church of Christ, located at West Center Road and 125th St.- right across from Hooters. Jerry Golmanavich golubki@ cox.net (401) 390-9834 www.omahamagicalsociety.com
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JiM BuFFaLoE – coin ManSt. LouIS,mo— I am saddened to announce the passing of our compeer, James G. Buffaloe. Jim passed away on Friday, December 30, 2011. He leaves his beloved wife Lillie M. Buffaloe, daughter Judy Buffaloe, and the late Terry Buffaloe.
There was a Broken Wand ceremony Thursday, January 5, 2012, read by PNP Harry Monti. It was well attended. Recent photos of Jim performing are on Assembly8.com. Jim will be missed, but his coin work will live on.
We cancelled our first meeting of the year due to snow and ice, but we are looking forward to Midwest Regional VP Jim
Sikora’s visit and lecture January 26th. —Dan Todd
Mount Tabor United Church of Christ, 6520 Arsenal. Dan Todd [email protected] (314) 409-7066 www.Assembly8.com
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DEcEMBErMEEting
CINCINNAtI, oH— President-elect Leland Pennington opened the meeting and discussed the upcoming year. Leland thanked Rick Gaffney, Joe Papania, and Bill Pryor for entertaining the patients at Children’s Hospital in November. And then the holiday party began with a gift exchange. The random selection led to great fun and banter. The gifts ran the gambit – holiday silks, a really neat “yot,” DVDs, books, and other fun effects. Re-freshments were served followed by the magician of the month competition.
Dr. Randall Wolf presented a clever two-deck card effect in which a card was chosen from one deck, which was placed in a wood box. The selected card was then found in the second deck and the two decks mysteriously disappeared. Don Hinton showed us a packet trick in which the chosen card was the red card and the remaining cards turned into blanks. Professor William Pryor dem-onstrated an ESP card effect. He went through three iterations and it became more baffling as he proceeded. Denny Metz performed a three-coin effect with Walking Liberty dollars; the three half dollars vanished after he had produced them.
Larry Payne performed his only “real” card trick. A card was selected (Two of Diamonds) and then he tried to shoot it with a bow and a flaming arrow. Mys-teriously, a Two of Diamonds silk appeared in the hat and the deck of cards had a Two of Diamonds with a burned hole in it. Patrick Thermes performed an effect he had learned from a magic kit when he was ten years old – the ball and vase. Bii Winzig presented a Sid Lorraine effect; a picture of a house for sale that the potential buyer could not afford was shown. The picture was carefully folded several times to a more modest abode until it represented an
affordable outdoor facility. President Leland Pennington transformed a soap bubble into a beautiful clear plastic stone with advice on how to make it into a memorable effect for a perfor-mance for children. The winner of the competition was Professor William Pryor. In second place was Dr. Randall Wolf. —John Martini
Queen City Mystics, SAM Assembly 11 generally meets on the second Friday of the month at Haines House of Cards in Cin-cinnati, Ohio.
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FirSt MEEting oF 2012DALLAS, tX— President Mike Smith welcomed the members to the first meeting of 2012. An-nouncements included a recap of a very special event that members of Dallas S.Y.M. 73 took part in: a lecture at the AT&T Perform-ing Arts Center featurPerform-ing David Blaine. Three of our local young magicians (Aaron Maynard, Matthew Jensen, and Chet Monday) performed for visitors in the lobby prior to the show. The crowds were amazed and delighted, and the kids got to
meet David after the show. There were three perform-ers for the night: Frank Seltzer, Mallari Kulkarni, and Ted Gillum. Frank started off with a card effect, asking Mark Jensen for assistance. Frank selected a prediction from a deck of cards – the Nine of Clubs. He then pulled out a second deck, asking Mark to select a card. However, the audience could see that the entire deck was made of the same card – the Nine of Clubs. When Frank boldly asked Mark to show his selected card, Mark showed a different card, the King of Hearts. However, when Frank displayed his prediction, it
had magically changed to match Mark’s card, the King of Hearts.
Next, Mallari Kulkarni stepped up to perform a card effect, but he said his assistant was caught in traffic. Mallari had a card selected, and then stalled for time by reading the headlines from a newspaper he brought. Since it appeared that his assistant would not make it, Mallari decided to create some impromptu as-sistants on the fly, cutting the newspaper into a string of paper dancers. When they were displayed, the dancers clearly held seven hearts between them, matching the selected card.
Finally, Ted Gillum performed a mentalism effect using a borrowed dollar and five dispos-able cups. Ted asked young Ms. Henley to crumple up the bill and place it under one of the cups. He then asked her to change the order of the cups while he looked away. Ted slowly felt for the residual “aura” emanating from each cup, eliminating one at a time until finally the only cup left was the one containing the bill.
The final part of the meeting was the magical “swap meet.” Numerous magicians brought their “slightly worn” magical items they were willing to part with, and just about everyone walked away with either new magic or a little extra cash.
Dallas Magic Club meets the third Tuesday of the month at 7:00 PM, Crosspointe Church and Community Center. www. dallasmagic.org for directions. Check out the Dallas Magic Club on Facebook.
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aLLDEcKED out
SPrINgFIeLD, mA— This was our first meeting of the new year in a new location thanks to member Rich Pinnsonault, and it started off with a bang, the house was full! After having a random card chosen from a deck, a corner was torn off the card and handed back to the spectator. Jeff Pyzocha banded the deck, and then threw it at a window. The torn card was found stuck to the outside of the window. Dave Dimock used the radial artery pulse of a couple of spec-tators to help him find the cards they had chosen and replaced in each other’s deck. Rich Gilbert performed a Chinese Matrix enhanced by a small speaker attached to his iPod. A sheer hanky simulated a “fog” cover James G. Buffaloe
Aaron Maynard, David Blaine, and Matthew Jensen (photo by Steve Foxall Photography)
over the four coins as each mys-teriously disappeared and reap-peared under a playing card.
P.J. Pinsonnault placed four silver dollars in a spectator’s hand and reduced them down one by one to a lone coin that then changed into a worthless washer. Rick Mayer had a person put a deck of red cards behind his back, turn one card over, and then spread them on the table. There was only one face-up card, but the color of its back had changed to blue. Mike Wald pulled out the old forty-four-cent deck he had purchased at a tag sale. He had someone choose a card, put it back in, and he shuffled the deck. He then counted down to the forty-fourth card to reveal the chosen card. Joe Bednar ended the night with an excellent rendition of Restless Colors. Four blue-backed cards turned green, then red, then yellow, ending up to be all different backs of the same card at the end. We are looking forward to our after-holiday party. —Karen Gibson
Dr. I.R. Caulkins Assembly 17 meets the first Friday of every month at 7 pm at Pin-sonnault Moto-X-Equipment, 69 East Street, Ludlow, MA www.assembly17.org Rich Gilbert rgilbettmagic@ yahoo.com (413) 247-7659. www.assembly17.org
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no carDS, PLEaSE weSt HArtForD, Ct— We had our second reading for Jon Cap, and after he performed he was duly accepted and welcomed into the club. Our club VP Jim Bentley announced his resig-nation and imminent move to Phoenix, Arizona. Dave Garrity announced that he will be back doing magic at Six Flags New England this summer.The theme for the night was, “Please! Not another card trick,” hosted by Dave Edwards. Our new member Jon started us off with a manipulation routine with a ballpoint pen and its cap. Jim Bentley did Oil and Water, but he used Tarot cards. Dana Ring did a quick coin through handkerchief. Rick St. Pierre borrowed a dollar bill, to be placed in one of several match-boxes. Several random elimina-tions later, one box remained; it contained the bill. Rick then wrote down some seemingly random numbers that turned out to match the serial number of the
bill. Lastly, he took a page from a calendar and demonstrated some clever mathematical tricks you can do.
Our host, Dave, attempted a trick with three balls. Dan Sclare gave Marlene Clark a “snowball” (a white sponge ball). He then invisibly threw another one that joined the one in her hand. Finally, his “snowballs” became a tiny snowman. Roger Cisowski got Norm St. Laurent to sign a quarter which, covered by a bottle cap, penetrated the tabletop. Jason Abate folded up a blank piece of paper and it turned into a $20 bill, which he used to pay his club dues to Soll. Chris Mansfield decided to break the rules and do a card trick; he borrowed a deck of cards and had one selected. By reading “the group” he was able to identify the card. Soll Levine placed a penny in a strange locket. When the locket was opened, the penny had vanished, replaced by a receipt for Jason’s dues payment. To close the evening, Jim returned to do an honest non-card effect, a nice ring-on-rope routine. —Dana Ring
Assembly 21 meets the second Monday at 289 South Main Street, West Hartford, Connecti-cut 06107 Dana Ring d.ring222@ att.net (860) 532-9888
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MorEthan Magic
LoS ANgeLeS,CA— It was a very chilly and wintry evening for the January 16, 2012, meeting of the Southern Cali-fornia Assembly 22. Assembly president Jim Callen presided over the short routine business portion of the meeting that included announcements of interest to the membership. It was the sad duty of our secretary, PNP Ed Thomas, to present a Broken Wand Ceremony for
member Triny Peller, who had been in ill health for a number of years.
The program for the evening, a new one for the assembly, was the performance of acts frequently referred to as “allied arts” to magic. Producing the program and acting as emcee was Kim Hallinger. Kim also presented a lot of magic between acts. The opening act, James Holguin, aka “Jimmy H,” gave a humorous presentation of balloon animal magic with an audience member up to assist. Assembly president Jim Callen was next doing some dangerous magic using a finger chopper and a large menacing animal trap. The very skeptical Toni Perrine, who assisted, escaped without injury. Our third act was Suds. Ted “Suds” Sudbreck is always entertaining and tonight did so with a very humorous Trouble-wit routine.
Frequent M-U-M columnist Michael Perovich always presents the unique and the obscure during his many per-formances for the assembly. Mike gave a very humorous performance as he demonstrat-ed various styles of juggling a variety of objects. Matt Savin then used a purple beaked stuffed toy bird as a ventriloqui-al dummy to present a diventriloqui-alogue routine. “Hobo Jim” Jones next played a game with a spectator guessing which of three switches turned on an elusive light bulb. To the surprise of everyone, a small wood “outhouse” exploded when the door was opened to look for the light.
Closing the show as a ven-triloquist was Ed Thomas, who conducted a humorous con-versation with a hand puppet – you couldn’t even see Ed’s lips move. Ed concluded with a juggling demonstration using three colorful silks. It was a very diverse and interesting show for
members and guests attending. With the show concluded, it was time to enjoy the always-plen-tiful array of foods and treats provided by Corrine Murphy. Many lingered late into the evening to enjoy the fellowship that is always Assembly 22. —Steven L. Jennings
Southern California Assembly 22 meets the third Monday each month at 8:00 PM, St. Thomas Moore Parish Hall, 2510 South Fremont Avenue, Alhambra, California Ed Thomas [email protected] (213) 382-8054
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FirSt MEEting oF thE yEarLAtHAm, NY— The first meeting of the year started on a good note. Fourteen magi attended. President Joe Goode welcomed everyone. Those of us who had been able to attend the memorial service for Ruth Fonda Pitts described the sad event, including the Broken Wand Ceremony, which was organized by Cliff Bruce and read by SAM National President Vinny Grosso, Harry Keefe, Helen Patti, and Cliff. Ruth was remembered as an excellent magician and entertainer, and the first female member of The Society of American Magicians and Assembly 24!
Joe then conducted the election of officers. The roster will be the same as last year: President – Joe Goode, Vice President – David MacDonald, Secretary – Cory Haines, and Treasurer – Robert Connors. Joe asked that we pay our dues, and many of us did so right on the spot! Joe also reminded us of the generosity of Gunther Pagal in donating the income from the sale and auction of his magic paraphernalia last April, for which he gave him the Martinka award. He then presented a certificate of ap-preciation to Chuck Tryon, who has been so helpful in offering the club the use of the superb close-up table he built for special occasions, including the national conference!
After a break for refresh-ments we drew for the DVD on coin magic. Roger Borgen won. Then the entertainment started. Zak Middleton performed an excellent prediction, Silent Treatment. Roger followed with Travelling Coins, a nice trans-position from one hand to the other with the use of two see-through bags. Joe had three Soll Levine with his locket
people pick cards for a predic-tion. After writing his answer on a board and discovering that it was wrong, he erased it, only to find that correct answer had appeared. Amazing! Bill Karabin picked Roger to assist him with Sword Thru Neck. Mark Brennen performed a card effect, Fastest Card Trick. Dave McClements was up next with a skillfully handled Cards Across. Peter Beeble then took the stage with an appearing dollar bill, a brass tube to silk and paper, and some good jokes. Chuck Tryon concluded the program with his Key-Rect Prediction, which he had crafted himself. Very nice. Altogether it was an enjoyable evening. —Helen Patti
Jay Gorham, Assembly 24 meets 2nd Tuesday at the SW Pitts Hose Company, Latham, NY at 7:30pm, www.sam24.org. Joe Goode [email protected]
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your LatESt acquiSitioneLmwooD PArk, NJ— Our first meeting of the year proved to be full of good ideas and suggestions for members. We learned that the S.A.M. has a new Facebook page, a great way to see what’s going on.
The theme was to perform one of your latest tricks. First up was your scribe, Del Dixon. I did my version of Out of This World with help from Cathy Burke, who demonstrated her woman’s intuition by separating red cards from black cards. (She missed on only one card, as predicted.)
Richard Bangs performed The Trick that Cannot be Explained. Cathy Burke assisted. The deck was divided up into separate packets by use of a counting and adding procedure. When all packets except one were discarded, the remaining number of cards in Cathy’s hand matched the top card of the remaining pile.
Tony Gerbio produced a silver dollar from a dollar bill, and made it vanish and reappear in the bill. John Henderson dem-onstrated various levels of psychic ability, using a John Bannon effect, wherein three people selected cards. They then counted off cards three different times using a freely selected number. Their specific cards ended on top of each of their piles. Next John did Time After Time by Swedish magician Tomas Bloomberg, in which a selected card found its way into a packet of four Queens.
Sean Burke produced candles from a color-changing scarf and did some nice Flip moves with a magic wand. Sean invited some suggestions from his fellow members and got lots of good tips for motivated movements and natural motions. Next, Max Droge asked for brainstorm-ing ideas for a new illusion he’s working on: the flash ap-pearance of the magician. Max stormed a lot of brains. Chris Smith performed dual mind-reading with Sean Burke using Paul Cummings’s Tapalac. It was an unusual effect involving “clocking” the cards to determine which card Sean was merely thinking of, and to determine which card Sean believed Chris had mentally selected. Last up was Eric DeCamps, who showed an antique metal box that held three silver dollars that jumped around a lot. He then did an effect with three Chinese coins and a piece of string, in which the coins jumped off the string to appear in Phil Germain’s hand, and then reappeared on the string.
The evening was a perfect dem-onstration of how the members help each other out by sharing ideas. —Del Dixon
The Rouclere-Zarrow Assembly meets every thirds Friday of the month at 8:00pm at the VFW Hall, Veterans Place, Elmwood Park, New Jersey. Bill Schmeelk [email protected] (201) 497-8179 www.livemagicguide. com/sam25
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toP DogWinnEr
ALtANtA, gA— Our meeting this month found us hosting Most Illustrious Vinny Grosso. Vinny gave us all the latest in-formation about the upcoming
convention in Las Vegas and the new look on the website. Vinny and Assembly 295 officers Mark Hall and Jay Shanerman served as judges for our Top Dog Cups and Balls contest.
Dan Garrett provided an interlude before the contest with some nostalgia. He told us about the fabulous Dunes Casino in Las Vegas, which stood where the Bellagio now exists. Souvenirs of the Dunes are quite valuable and Dan had some chips from the casino of various dollar amounts that he had procured. He had someone choose one of the chips, and then predicted which one he would
choose. The prediction ended up etched into the wallet that held the chips. Dan also gave a little performance on coin bending.
The entries in the Top Dog Cups and Balls contest were Mark Hatfield, Merritt Ambrose, Rick Hinze, and Gene Hendrix. Each presented the Cups and Balls in a unique and entertain-ing fashion. After much deliber-ation, Rick Hinze was declared the winner. An impressive wiener dog trophy was awarded to Rick. Congratulations to all for a wonderful evening of en-tertainment. —Carol Garrett
Assembly 30 meets the second Tuesday of the month at Picadilly Cafeteria, I-85/North Druid Hills Road, Atlanta, Georgia.
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JanuaryWintEr Magic cELEBration
INDIANAPoLIS, IN— Seventy-five excited spectators showed up for our annual Winter Magic Celebration. After a lunch together at the Old Country Buffet, we proceeded to the Carmel Community Playhouse for the show.
Jim Croop started us off with a bit of mathematical wizardry. He performed Summing It Up by Marc Oberon, which is a variation of Jack London’s The Almost Real Prediction. The sum of numbers randomly sorted by the audience was 1,812 – as predicted on a card inside a Fed Ex box. At that exact time his cell phone began to play the “1812 Overture.” Even more impressive was that the date of our show was January 8, 2012, 1-8-12!
Professional magician Marcus Lehmann was awesome. He performed six different, fas-cinating effects. One was the Uncanny Hanks. He found the trick in Tarbell thirty-five years ago, his wife made it for him, and he has been doing it ever since. Three different colored silks were tied to a strip of cloth. By merely concentrating on one of the colors, that particular silk falls to the floor. Particularly entertaining was the Fred Kaps adaptation of the Eleven Card Trick, Fred Kaps Currency. This was performed with eleven dollar bills; no matter how carefully they were counted by audience members, the total never came out to be eleven.
Barry Rice, who also served as our master of ceremonies, proceeded to do, among others, two effects that we are likely never to forget. First, he climbed inside a huge balloon that he had blown up and then did a card trick from inside the balloon. Next, he took off his shoes and socks and walked on the fragmented remains of fifty shattered wine bottles. He called a physician up on stage to stand by.
Master magician and enter-tainer Don Miller did his own creative version of the linking rings, followed by a hilarious parody of Barry Rice’s version of walking on glass. The finale had everyone in stitches. He announced that audience Picture of Top Dog Cups and
Balls winner Rick Hinze accepting trophy from SAM National
President Vinny Grosso The Amazing Karabini has trouble
ex-tracting a sword from Roger Borgen’s neck.
member Christina Merrill would be the magician and he would be the assistant. The zings that flew back and forth between the two, along with the multiple miscommunications, had everyone laughing. Ultimately, the missing card was discovered – under Chris!
In addition to the magic we were entertained by a musical version of some astounding creative balloon artistry by Bal-loongenuity. —Dale Benson
Assembly 31 meets the first Monday of the month at 7:00 pm. If the first Monday conflicts with a holiday weekend, we postpone the meeting one week. Unless otherwise announced, the meeting location is the Irvington United Methodist Church, 30 Audubon Road on the east side of the city. Steve Spence sspence@ m e d i a t i o n a l t e r n a t i v e . com (317) 507-4534. www.sam31.com
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MagniFicEnt MagazinE MagicPougHkeePSIe, NY— About a dozen members attended our January meeting. Members were asked to perform any trick they wanted to – provided they found it in the pages of a magazine. Terry Morgan was about to kick off the evening performing 2-4-2 until he learned I planned to perform it as well. With all the thousands of effects to be found in magazines, what are the odds? Thankfully Terry has forgotten more magic than I will never know, so he was able to pull another trick out of his hat. Terry performed a vintage M-U-M spelling card trick. After Terry finished, I performed 2-4-2 from the pages of MAGIC. My perfor-mance was described as “more than adequate.” I can’t ask for much more than that! Derrin Berger performed an effect from the pages of MAGIC with the assistance of Mike Bochar. We enjoyed a great effect using a stacked deck by John Olson. Terry Morgan performed a wonderful Dai Vernon trick using Paul Curry’s swindle cut. We got to see a great effect from the pages of Genii thanks to Joel Zaritsky. John Olsen performed another tremendous trick using a new deck of cards. We finished up the evening with some great discussions on magic. Thanks to every member who
shared an effect with members. —Craig Kunaschk
Al Baker Assembly No. 35 (usually) meets at 7:30 p.m. on the second Tuesday of the month at the Milanese Italian Restaurant, 115 Main Street, Poughkeepsie, NY. Check out our website at c o m p u m a g i c . c o m / sam35 to confirm time and meeting location. www.compumagic.com/sam35
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nEW yEar, nEW MagicSAN ANtoNIo, tX— January 5, 2012, Brother John Hamman Assembly 52 held its monthly meeting at LaMadeleine Restau-rant. President Joe Libby called the meeting to order. We had a full house, including members, wives, SYM Assembly 114 members, and guests. Welcome to guests Jim Cox, Rich Mendez, and Arlene DeFries. Congratula-tions to Napoleon Savoy, who is now a member of Assembly 52. Scott Hollingsworth, Chairman of the SAM Veterans’ Entertain-ment Program, sent certificates of appreciation and lapel pins to Michael Tallon, Paul Amerson, Joe Libby, John Dahlinger, and Mark Travis for donating their time and talents to the Warrior Family Support Center at Fort Sam Houston during Magic Week.
The theme for this meeting was New Year, New Magic, and starting off the performances was Joe Libby, who performed the Six Card Repeat with jumbo Ccards, and a Torn and Restored Balloon effect. Ray Adams, with help from a young magician, Cooper Scott, entertained with Scotch and Soda, and Don Moravits performed a perplex-ing rubber band effect. George Castillo amazed us with a Cell Phone in Bottle trick, and Doug
Gorman performed a card effect called Annihilation and also a two-cup cups and balls routine. Jim Cox entertained with a three-way prediction and John Dahlinger, with the help from an audience member, performed a prediction card effect. Claude Crowe performed a Coin Tray and Coin Wand Coins Across Routine, and Michael Tallon did a card prediction effect using New Year’s resolutions. Hector Marquez Jr. performed an iPhone app card effect, and Drake Stanton had us scratch-ing our heads after he performed Math Magic. Dylan Pfeiffer amazed us with Nail through Coin and Paul Amerson en-tertained with Martin Lewis’s Tricolor Prediction. Closing the performances was Rich Mendez, who did a beautiful color-chang-ing silk routine.
Brother John Hamman Assembly 52 meets at 7:30 p.m. on the first Thursday of the month at La Madeleine Restaurant, located at 722 N.W. Loop 410. The res-taurant is inside Loop 410 on the access road between Blanco Rd. and San Pedro. For more infor-mation, contact douggorman@ att.net.
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nEWDigS!
PortLAND, or— Danny Schreiber has had numerous challenges in his opening weeks as president. Our annual banquet arrangements collapsed, and we found ourselves in need of a new meeting location. To top it off, he was out of town on business in many of the days leading up to and including our first meeting of the year, but he guided the club with an expert hand, never-theless.
The decision was made by the board to reschedule the banquet till later in the year. Ar-rangements to relocate to Robinwood Station, a community center in West Linn, Oregon, developed slowly, but all was in order by the night of January 25. The final official approval for SAM 59’s use of Robinwood was given on January 27.
Founding SAM 59 member Duane Duvall opened with a Q&A session revealing his personal history as a performer, tips on magic,
and advice about the business of magic. He has been generous in his help to dozens of magicians during his career and his words of wisdom were much appreci-ated.
VP Kaleta read announce-ments, we voted in new member Andy Turner to our ranks, and annual awards were presented. The Entertainer of the Year Award went to Art Manning. The Most Improved Performer was awarded to John Edsall. The Sorrells Service Award went to Glen Bledsoe.
Our meeting agenda has been simplified and reorganized. The business meeting has been eliminated. Starlight Magic and Snack have been combined into Session Time. This is an op-portunity to grab something to eat and informally work with another magician or a small group to improve our magic. Pizza was a nice change from cookies and punch.
The final segment of the evening was Showtime. The theme was “Get Any Good Tricks for Christmas?” and the performers were Mel Anderson, Neen Fitzwalter (aka Houneeni), Tom Cramer, Tom Waldrop, and guest Bob Sokolski.
Our first meeting in our new location gathered about thirty members and guests. We saw quite a few new faces.
NB: I neglected to add Tom Waldrop to the list of perform-ers for our Holiday Hocus Pocus in December, although I had his name in my notes. Tom has performed at every club function that I can recall. He believes the magic is a performing art and practices what he preaches. —Glen L. Bledsoe
SAM 59 meets on the fourth Wednesday of each month except Jul/Aug/Dec at Robinwood Station 3706 Cedaroak Drive West Linn, OR 97068. Details at www.sam59portland.org Glen L. Bledsoe glenbledsoe@ mac.com (503) 581-2795
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oh thE tricKS that WE LEarnED!LoNg ISLAND,NY— The Long Island Mystics started off the New Year right with a better room and a recap of the things that many of us have learned (and use often in our shows). After the brief business meeting regarding the reconstruction of our old room, I took over to host this meeting of the minds to From Left: Paul Amerson, Michael Tallon,
Joe Libby and John Dahlinger displaying their certificates of appreciation from
Scott Hollingsworth. Not pictured, Mark Travis.
