No. 9, Atlanta, Georgia – Georgia Magic Club
3rd Monday, 7:30 PM, Mt. Vernon Presbyterian Church, Dunwoody,
GA
Ring 9 Phone Number (404) 978-1260 ext. 9588
The Georgia Magic Club met on March 17 at Mt. Vernon
Presbyterian Church. After a brief skirmish with some tap dancers who
claimed to have reserved the hall for the same night, we wisely chose not to
argue with people who practiced stomping every Monday, and we relocated to
another part of the building! Joe M. Turner
presented our Pre-Meeting Mini Lecture (PMML) on magic on the
Internet. As always, Joe did an excellent job, and shared a lot of
information about websites that deal with many aspects of magic!
After welcoming our guests, we welcomed six new members!
Gordon Astley, Fred Kirkland, Terry Lada, Andrew McElhanon, Jim
Driscoll, and Seth Beasley are now all part of the
Ring 9 family! David Smith agreed to be our new Ring
photographer, and Dan Garrett told a story (this one was true!)
about a young man he recently met at a convention who had learned magic from the
internet. Lynn Fox encouraged us to encourage others
and we enjoyed snacks provided by David Smith.
Our monthly prize drawing was for a Dan Garrett Sponge Tooth,
and a guest named Delilah (like Cher and Madonna, no last name) won! Our
theme for the March meeting was Atlanta's Funniest Magic Videos. (These
were outtakes of shows and rehearsals, not bad commercially produced videos,
which we all have and would have liked to have entered!) Paul
Sponaugle submitted a video of a birthday show where he was using
a vent dummy. The lower jaw on the dummy fell off during the show.
Talk about the stuff nightmares are made of! And of course, all kinds of
unclear references to "the dummy in the video" were made. Dan Garrett
showed some impressive footage of an underground magic video from the late
eighties. The magic was great, but that tuxedo - that qualified it as a
funny video!
Lee Cox and Sherry Watson
showed a rehearsal tape (takes 4-19) of a skit involving a dove production,
reminiscent of the Home Improvement outtakes at the end of that show.
Jim Mangham showed how he was willing to risk life, limb and
property for the cause of entertaining education in a video that could be called
"When Science Goes Wrong!" Or it could be called "Attack of the Killer
Mutant High Powered Frisbee." Wish you could have seen it!
Howie Marmer showed us some magic that will knock you off your
feet - especially if you are a two year old who sneaks up behind the
magician. There were some classic clips of Otto Wesley and clip of
the mystery magician (Paul Sponaugle with hair). Following Jim's lead in
the "Risking Life and Limb" category, Bill
Packard showed a rehearsal video where he set his hair on
fire and later had bunnies EVERYWHERE! Paul showed a news clip from 1980
featuring a magic bar in Atlanta. Again the magic was serious, but the
clothes made it funny.
While the votes were being counted, Debbie
Leifer performed her version of the Six Card Repeat for membership, and
we jumped into General Magic. Fred Kirkland successfully performed his
fork bending routine which failed him last month, while Dan Garrett
assisted. Joe M. Turner, assisted by guests Tim and Kathy and Delilah and
Dean, performed a card miracle with four selected cards. Paul Sponaugle
did a punny (that is not a typo - if I had meant funny, I would have said so!)
routine with Sponge Clones/Clowns. How bad was the pun-ishment? It
involved telling of cloning frozen cells of a great basketball player and the
line "They got an ICE KAREEM CLONE!"
Guest Richard Rubin closed the general magic
time with an amazing display of memory, naming everyone on the room, then doing
a weird Book Test with a copy of the Weekly World News. The routine
was amazing for his memory and funny for the content of this paper.
The winner of the Theme Magic was Bill Packard, who will
receive a Coveted Royal Blue Pen and a certificate, suitable for framing.
If you are ever in the Atlanta area, we’d love to meet
you! Come to a club meeting or e-mail one of us (addresses are on our
website at www.gamagicclub.com) and
we’ll let you know what’s going on!
Tommy Johns, Ring 9 Scribe