I.B.M. Ring 9

Ring Reports

February 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 February meeting began with a Mini Lecture by Arthur Atsma, “Handling Hecklers and Disruptive Audience Members”. Arthur shared funny stories along with valuable tips and clever response lines. Covering the challenges of know-it-all audience members, participants who’ve enjoyed too many “adult beverages”, and exceptionally verbal young audience members who want to be sure the magician knows they have seen that trick before (or know the secret), Arthur armed us with many valuable audience management techniques.

We have committed to a “year of fun” by replacing club business meetings with printed updates. This gave us time for a fun interactive activity. Each member shared the name of their favorite trick to perform, and the reasons why it holds that distinction. The wide range of responses turned this into an interesting and informative exercise.

The theme was Newspaper Magic, the result was a pleasant evening featuring a series of somewhat unusual performances. Merritt Ambrose brought to the stage a huge gold picture frame containing classified ads from a newspaper. Merritt caused the red circle surrounding one ad to vanish, in his hand appeared a small round cheese coated in red wax. After a dollar bill vanished in a flash of fire, it reappeared inside the sealed cheese. The corner previously torn from the borrowed bill matched perfectly.

Kent Laird displayed a newspaper page with three holes, and two green silks hanging from them. A red silk vanished from his hand, and reappeared tied between the green ones. Kent then pushed five different color silks into the top of a newspaper cone, they emerged from the bottom tied together. After filling a clear tube with a string of silks, he rolled a sheet of newspaper around it, and transformed the silks into a single larger colorful scarf.

Victoria Skye displayed several envelopes, a single one was ultimately chosen through a series of choices by both the magician and a spectator. A newspaper article was identified based on the section and page that matched values of freely chosen playing cards. The article contained a photo of magic enthusiast Steve Martin playing his banjo. When the envelope was opened, it contained the same photo featured in the newspaper article.

Paul Sponaugle had us wondering, as he rewarded multiple audience participants by giving each of them a dollar bill he pulled off a rope fashioned into a noose. A little eerie, a little odd. Paul offered the money to thank helpers for their participation in a card transposition, the penetration of a straw through a dollar bill, a beautiful transformation of several $1 bills into hundreds, and a very cool routine where three chosen cards vanished from a red deck and appeared in a blue deck.

Everyone wondered what his choice of magic had to do with the evening’s theme… there wasn’t any newsprint in sight during Paul’s entire performance. Until he delivered the big laugh of the evening when he gleefully exclaimed at the conclusion that he hoped we enjoyed his “noose pay-per-trick” performance!

The standout performance of the evening was Mark Hatfield presenting a signed torn and restored newspaper. Not only did the entire page contain the signature of a volunteer, there was an additional detail that we loved - the audience member was able to choose the page that would be torn from an entire local newspaper.

Debbie Leifer explained that she encourages her corporate audiences to manage their time by tearing out individual articles they are interested in, and carrying them around to read when they find themselves with a few free minutes. After displaying a select group of newspaper articles, she magically fused them together into several full pages of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Once again, Kirk Pumphrey proved no effort is too great for the entertainment pleasure of Ring 9. Dressed in a newspaper suit (including jacket, pants, shoes and tie!), we were hysterical as Kirk proceeded to amaze us with his newspaper magic. His tie was torn in half, and “restored” (?) thanks to a bottle of Tide detergent. His big finish was a book of blank pages that somehow magically contained newspaper articles; the final version included color cartoons and customized headlines.

A memorable portion of the evening was the contribution of Paul “Shecky” Sponaugle (our hard working VP) who has the responsibility of introducing our meeting performers. Paul amused us by reading a series of funny and ironic newspaper headlines in between performances. Amazing that so many unbelievable items just happened to appear in the paper that exact day we were hosting the Newspaper Magic theme!

For General Magic, Arthur Atsma shared his Okito box routine, an enjoyable presentation with a half dollar, Chinese coin, and Mexican centavo. He then presented Coins Across in super slow motion, and talked about his plastic surgery that facilitates a tiny hand appearing to assist with the vanish of a coin. Paul Sponaugle displayed cards with images of Linking Rings, and proceeded to demonstrate several combinations of links, concluding with a metal linked chain magically dropping off the cards.

Christophe Fouquet made four piles of cards, magically causing each queen to disappear and collect together in a previously displayed group. Keith Rainey played a game he called “Maximum Risk”, repeatedly increasing his bet that a chosen card would not appear in a selected pile, ultimately winning and keeping his own dollar.

Winner of the Coveted Royal Blue Pen Award for February was Mark Hatfield.

We have a really talented group here in Atlanta, always ready to perform and share their knowledge. If you happen to be in Atlanta on the third Monday of any month, please join us. We guarantee you’ll have fun and make some new friends!

Debbie Leifer