I.B.M. Ring 9

Ring Reports

April 2009

See photos from this meeting

No. 9, Atlanta, Georgia - Georgia Magic Club
3rd Monday, 7:00 PM, StarTime Entertainment, Alpharetta Hwy, Roswell, GA
DEBBIE LEIFER, President ( Debbie@MagicDebbie.com)
PAUL SPONAUGLE, Vice President (psmagic@comcast.net)
BILL PACKARD, Secretary (packardw@earthlink.net)
Ring 9 Web Site: www.GaMagicClub.com

Our April meeting proved to be a great example of turning lemons into lemonade… just 2 days prior to our monthly gathering, we were informed that our longtime meeting "home", a comedy club complete with stage, lighting, and sound was closing after ten years in business. Our president went into overdrive trying to identify a last-minute replacement venue, and was thrilled to have one of our members, Merritt Ambrose, agree that he would host our meeting in his beautiful home.

After scrambling to insure everyone knew of the change in venue, we decided to turn our meeting, featuring the now prophetic magic theme "Eat, Drink, and Be Merry" into a fun social event! Our board agreed to reward our valued members with a surprise party, complete with delicious fried chicken, and a wide variety of yummy snacks, desserts and beverages. It was a great evening for Ring 9, everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy the festive party atmosphere.

After socializing and enjoying the refreshments, we were treated to a fine mini lecture titled "Breathing Properly On Stage" by choral singing director and magician Carey Huddlestun. The presentation was very thorough, covering the finer points of breathing and speaking correctly during a performance.

A very short business meeting covered details of our ongoing celebrity lecture series. Announcements were made regarding our May lecture and private workshop starring FISM winner Michael Ammar, and our June lecture starring the very popular Jay Sankey.

After a break for socializing, snacks, and sessioning, we enjoyed a wide range of theme and general magic performances. First up was our host, Merritt Ambrose, who stunned the audience with a beautiful transforming soda bottle. First the cap changed from white to red, then the label morphed from diet to regular, and finally water that filled the bottle transformed into cola, resulting in audible gasps from the audience. Aragorn presented Barry Mitchell's Super Chicken, an elaborate costumed "super hero themed" sucker silk in egg routine that concluded when the silk-filled egg turned into a genuine egg.

Debbie Leifer covered all three elements of the evening's theme, beginning with "drink" magic. As the audience counted down to zero, a bottle of soda transformed into a can of Coke Zero. The "eat" portion began when three members chose playing cards, but Debbie's offer to read their minds didn't work, so she offered them snacks she packed earlier that day. Her predictions proved accurate when the card silk pulled from a small box of cereal and the jumbo card extracted from a giant slice of watermelon matched two chosen cards. When the final volunteer revealed he had not chosen a playing card at all, his selection contained a holiday message… a colorful Merry Christmas silk was found inside a sandwich… matching the third element of the evening's theme… "merry"!

Paul Sponaugle went for laughs as he presented a very unusual version of eating magic, a "bullet catch" using his fingers to approximate a weapon, and a silver Sharpie pen cover "bullet" fell from his mouth. This was followed an ingenious original mechanical Rising Card. Inserting a handle into the side of a deck of Bicycle cards, Paul turned it, intending for a chosen card to rise out of the deck. When it didn't work, he turned the deck over and shook it, causing a huge collection of nuts and bolts to fall out of the deck! Apparently repaired, as the handle was once again turned, a card rose up… backwards. By reversing the direction the handle turned, that card lowered into the deck, and suddenly rose facing the audience. Of course it was the chosen card.

Kevin McDaid performed a beautiful liquid illusion, water filling a champagne flute magically transformed into champagne. Then the beverage changed to red liquid, and again to green, until reverting back to the original water.

For General Magic, new member Tony Cortest delighted us with an extremely cute and mind-boggling Self Tying Shoelace, followed by a very impressive Deck in Balloon. After Tony blew up an unprepared round balloon, he caused a full deck of cards to penetrate, proving he's been devoting a significant amount of time to refining his presentations.

Next we enjoyed a Cut and Restored Rope with flash restoration by the amiable Gene Hendrix. One of our four guests, Christian Saglo, swallowed a fully inflated 260 balloon.

Paul Sponaugle entertained us by Twisting The Aces with the surprise climax of transforming the playing cards into credit cards, followed by a fun routine that lead us to believe he failed at locating a chosen card until it turned up with the name of the person who chose it actually printed on the card.

Our final performer was Jim Magus who always impresses us with well-constructed mind reading routines. He presented a one-card-off concept where a chosen card was found inside his leather wallet, predicted long before his performance began.

The delicious evening concluded with the announcement of the Winner of the Coveted Royal Blue Pen award for April, Paul Sponaugle.

We have lots of fun at our Ring 9 meetings, and hope all magicians who visit Atlanta will make a point to visit us if you happen to be in town on one of our meeting or lecture evenings. Visit www.GaMagicClub.com for meeting and lecture details and venues, as well as our informative newsletters.

Debbie Leifer