Dec 06 - Election of Officers

The December meeting will also include the election of officers for next year.
The Board has nominated Craig Fennessy to be President, Chris Dunn to be V.P., Dennis Phillips to continue as Secretary, Charlie Cox to continue as Sgt at Arms, Art Thomas to continue as Treasurer, and Joe Vecciarelli and James Songster to be Directors at Large. The Board unanamously supports these candidates, and we hope that the membership will, too.

Art

DEC 06 - Ring 170 FAMULUS Newsletter

Newsletter of IBM Ring #170 The Bev Bergeron Ring

Next general meeting Wednesday, 12/20/2006 at 7:30 PM SHARP

Meeting theme: Christmas Gift exchange

Marks Street Center, 99 Mark Street, downtown Orlando

If you visit with us and do not know the room we meet in , please be aware that some of the people in the office at the Senior Center may not be aware we are meeting there! At the last meeting one visitor asked where the "IBM" was meeting and the management apparently thought they were asking for the International Business Machines group! They said that there was no "IBM" on the schedule. So, if you have never been to our ring meeting , please say "magicians" or "FAME" and if that doesn't get the room location , just walk around looking for us. The Senior Center is a public building.

Lunch meetings every Tuesday at noon at Goodings (next to the food court)

Website: http://www.ring170.com/
F. A. M. E. is the Florida Association of Magical Entertainers

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Directory

Harvey Brownlow, President - harvini@yahoo.com
James Songster, Vice President - JjTjMagic@aol.com
Dennis Phillips, Secretary - Dennis@alliedcostumes.com
Art Thomas, Treasurer- Art.Thomas@disney.com
Charlie Cox, Sgt. At Arms - charles_c2000@yahoo.com
Joe Vecciarelli, Director at Large - talkingmute@tampabay.rr.com

Stefan Bartelski, Editor Famulus - Famulus@illusioneer.com

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GET PUBLISHED!

Got an idea for an article to add to the next FAMULUS? Put it in the body of an email or in a Word document attached to an email. Send it to Famulus@illusioneer.com, and we will get you in print. Please, please, please, put Famulus in the subject of the email. Due to the high volumes of spam your messages are in danger of getting lost if you do not do so.

Dec 06 - From the Editor

Seasons greetings to everyone, and all the best for 2007. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the newsletter over the last year, please continue to support us in 2007. Please continue to send your contributions, comments, rants and raves to famulus@illusioneer.com. Due to some problems in the past I have arranged for this address to be treated differently than other email, hopefully this will result in more effective processing of your emails.

Don't forget that the next Ring meeting is the most fun meeting of the whole year, remember to bring your wrapped gift of $15 value and have great time.

Dec 06 - Ring Report

Our Turkey Month Ring meeting was called to order by President Harvey Brownlow and attended by 29 regular members , three guests and one returning former president . Guests Jim Zachary came up from Lakeland to pay us a visit, Rob Stewart also from Lakeland was with us as was Paul Araujo from Orlando.
Former Ring President Carl Fowler and his wife Barbara dropped in to say hello from the road. Carl is spending lots of time in Tennessee and points in between. A few years back, Carl was winning all kinds of magic contests and inventing illusions. He also was awarded the John Calvert Award for excellence for the music Carl used in his act. Carl is still active in magic and building his own performance hall in his mountain resort town.

There are always lots of thanks for the Ring's help in community projects. The latest being performing at the Habitat for Humanity fundraiser. This was headed up by Roger "Cigam" Reid. Steve Hart is busy with his seminar workshops on using magic for success in sales. If he has one close to you, be sure to attend. Dan Stapleton gave us a recap on the Daytona Festival of Magic held the first week of November. Everyone had a great time. The December meeting will again feature our annual Holiday Party and the fun, anxiety and mayhem of the "White Elephant" Gift exchange. Package up your unused magic trick worth at least $15 and bring it for a wild and crazy group exchange. Jacki Manna, our hospitality chair-person, does a great job in coordinating this annual event.

Ben Mason informed us that Madge Elaine's World of Entertainment, an Orlando source for magic and clown supplies has moved and changed names. They have moved only a few blocks away on Humphreys. "Pizzazz Theatrical" will be the new name. They have retained the old telephone number to call and get directions. If my memory serves me well ,this business dates back to the late 60s when founded by the late Clarence Godwin as Funway Store. During the Hollywood East craze of the mid to late 80s, everyone was told by the theme park developers that Orlando would become the new Hollywood for film making, Clarence changed the name to Paramount Theatrical. It was sold by his widow to the late Madge Elaine Simpson. The business survived a bankruptcy reorganization in the early 90s . When Madge died her family sold it to Kay Gonzales. At various times in their 5 previous locations, they have carried magic props, illusions and books, wigs and extensive theatrical makeup. A couple of years ago Kay acquired some of the costume rental stock from the defunct Costumes Unlimited. Through the years most theatrically related businesses in Orlando have struggled to survive. We can hope the move and name change is successful.

With the business meeting adjourned, President Brownlow turned the activities over to Bev Bergeron to MC the evening's Ring show. First up was Charlie Pfrogner with an original trick he created after a trip to Walgreens. The plot centers around a spectator that selects a card that is spread with other cards on a table. A yellow plastic plucked chicken , about six inches tall, is introduced and blindfolded . It managed to land on the selected card and lift it up in its orange claws! Think of this trick as the poor man's version of Dick Kornwinder's Car. Charlie showed us that Walgreens also is a place to find magic.

J.C. Hiatt did a clever and skillful Chop Cup routine with an ungimmicked paper cup and red yarn balls. He ended with the surprise double production of yellow tennis balls from the cup. Carl Fowler was back up front and in fine form with his version of the Professor's Nightmare. He had some new twists on the classic Bob Carver effect.
Bev did a quick portion out of his classic Bottle Act. He rolled an imaginary cigarette and then struck a match and suddenly the cigarette was lit and in his mouth!
Wallace Murphy produced 4 coins from a skeleton purse under a spectator's nose. After some classic Murphy moves he had the spectator select a playing card and it reversed itself from face up to face down in the deck.

Bev Bergeron took a moment to show us a great routine with a die box originally made for Del O'Dell. He also gave some great hints on performing sucker tricks for children. Bev pretended to misunderstand the yelling from the kids, so as not to embarrass them. He also timed the revelation so the feeling for them was fun rather than feeling foolish. Bev painted his die to look like an ABC block because many adults do not want their children associating with dice used to gamble.

Dan Stapleton pulled out a mysterious and fun effect from the Jan. '06 Linking Ring Parade by Harry Reeve called Triple Roulette. It is a kind of the Bank Night
trick. Three spectators put one dollar in a pay envelope and the fourth spectator puts in a twenty dollar bill from Dan. The cups are numbered one through four and the idea is for each spectator to take turns and draw cards and whoever deals a card with the number of the cup on it will get the contents of the cup. As it turned out, Dan got to keep his twenty dollar bill.

Dennis Phillips distributed several dozen souvenir match boxes to anyone present from the Magic Castle in Hollywood, California. Charlie Justice, gave us a preview of his new and dynamite effect on the market called "Prohibition". A bent metal soda cap penetrates into a glass Coke bottle even while held by the spectator. This one had everyone scratching their heads. With the meeting adjourned, we look forward to the December booking season. Good things are always happening in Ring #170.

Dennis Phillips

Dec 06 - Message from Stan Lobenstern

Subject: Sandy's Cancer
Hi
Some of my wife's friends in the Club might want to know this update on Sandy's condition, so please pass it on.

After her Breast Cancer was diagnosed, she had a Lumpectomy which seemed to got OK, Thank God. But the surrounding cells showed additional microscopic Cancer cells growing.

So she is going inro Winter Park Hospital again on Thursday, Dec 7 for a Masectomy this time. Doctor said that she should only be in the Hospital a couple of days, barring any complications and then be able to recouperate at home.

We know that God will watch over and help her and we also please ask that you mention good things for Sandy in your prayers so that we can get all the help that we can.

Thank you-all ever so much
Stan Lobenstern

Dec 06 - Magic Library Inventory Notice

LIBRARY NOTICE!!
It is the end of the year inventory for our magic tape library. Please return all your checked out magic DVD's and video tapes to the December meeting. Normal library checkout will continue at our January 2007 meeting.
Happy Holiday!
Craig Fennessy / 407-947-1182
Ring 170, Orlando, Florida

Dec 06 - XMAS SALE AT BACKSTAGE MAGIC

As Backstage Magic is kind enough to give Ring members a generous discount, please accept this commercial

Just wanted to let all know that we are having a Christmas Sale-- 35%OFF ON ALL VHS TAPES and REMEMBER 10% discount off of our already low prices on anything in the store for RING 170 Members OR IBM, SAM Members or ANY Card carrying Entertainer.

ALSO------- SANTA---- WILL BE AT BACKSTAGE MAGIC & NOVELTIES --
EVERY SAT / SUN 11am-12.30pm and again at 3pm to 5pm
Don't Forget to bring the little one down to see SANTA and get their free Goodie Bag!!!!
Thank You
Tom & Donna
Backstage Magic & Novelties

Dec 2006 - Dennis' Deliberations

The Florida Magic Association Convention, faced with declining attendance and economic hardship, tossed in the towel a while back and decided to combine activities with another magic convention event. This year it was Harry and Irv's "Daytona Festival of Magic" held on the first weekend of November. I have been to the last three of the independent Daytona festivals through the generosity of our former president, Richard Hewitt. Richard makes it an annual event we attend together and he and his wife Phyllis graciously let me spend Friday night in Richard's magic room so I didn't have to drive all the way back to Orlando . I fell asleep in Deland watching the moonlight shine in the window and onto his Town House Head Chopper next to my guest bed!

Let me preface my remarks on the Daytona Festival by saying that Harry and Irv really try to make this convention an enjoyable one for magic aficionados. The ultimate results of the Festival have been a successful and enjoyable weekend. Their dealer markets have adequate displays in which to spend money and most of the lectures are informative and fun. The artistic success with the stage shows has been up and down from year to year. The technical aspects of the stage shows are top-notch ,in spite of sound system issues that I understand were not the fault of our crew. The show tech is managed by our own experts in Ring 170, Art Thomas and Sue , James Songster, Joe Vechiarelli and their families and other ring members. I always have a good time. This year spent an hour or two talking with Steve Hart. Chuck Smith, Dan Stapleton and many of us old guys found time to sit around and fellowship.

The Friday Night acts on the cabaret shows are typically only a little better than a yearly banquet show by a large Ring. Remember that not a lot of great entertainment is expected on Friday Night . Of all the shows I have seen, either the comedian or ventriloquist got the best response. One unforeseen problem with this year's slate of shows was that four major acts ( Johnny and Pam Thompson, The Pendragons, Scott Humston and Ron Conley) were forced to cancel and fill-in acts substituted.

This year ,comedy magician John Ferrantino stole the Friday Night show. Unfortunately he was the opening act. The show closed with a weaker , but adequate, standard illusion act,Don Townsend and Company. Combined with the wrong order for the acts was Dave Risley,a less than vibrant MC . Joe Young did a rather dated "Rubics Cube" act with a lot of clever moves. Sammy Smith is a solid performer within any children's show venue, which is not really what the Friday Night show crowd wants. Erick Olsen was well received and opened with a self levitation. His "Instant Elvis" using an audience assistant ( in this case, Dan Stapleton) lip syncing to "Burnin' Love" was a crowd pleaser. Determining the show order of performance is a hit or miss proposition. The producers take an educated guess on the basis of sound checks and rehearsal appearances. With so many major changes in the acts this year due to illness and accidents, we were lucky the show went as well as it did.

Much more in the way of great magic is expected on the Saturday Night show, but keep in mind that it is an "open to the public" show and not for magicians only.
Last year's Saturday Night show with Max Maven and James Brandon was a vast improvement over the year before when the show was entirely the bizarre minimalism of Jeff McBride's full-evening show . Two years ago Kohl and Company brought down the house in the Saturday night show.

This year's Saturday Night show was a mixed bag with a weak first half and a strong second half.

Let me digress: The biggest disappointment of the convention for me was Franz Harary. It began with Franz's disgraceful and dishonest Friday Night lecture. I left after 20 minutes.

Franz began the lecture by saying that he does not do lectures and did not have a lecture prepared. He then said that he would do something better and is almost never done.He would take questions on how he accomplishes his feats and answer them! "Everything is on the table! There will be no secrets!". A wave of excitement swept over the crowd of magicians. He said he would begin by showing his 12 minute promotional video and then bring up the lights and explain anything that anyone wanted to know.

The lights dimmed and his highly produced promotional portfolio splashed across the screen. He moved mountains, made space shuttles vanish, made helicopters appear and even floated a woman across a swimming pool and another assistant up the side of a skyscraper.

The video ended and the lights came on and the cruel farce by Harary began. It was painfully obvious within 3 minutes that he never intended to specifically reveal anything! A duped magician raised his hand and asked, "How did you make the girl float across the swimming pool?" (To the best of my recollections) Franz responded with , "Well, we first wanted to float her over Waikiki Beach and over the Pacific but we had trouble getting permission from the Hawaiian authorities. We finally settled on the hotel swimming pool. The girl floating is now my wife and the tape was done 2 days before our wedding. At one point she dipped a bit and got her dress wet and we almost didn't get married. We had to get up at 5 in the morning to do the shoot and all the people around the pool were my friends. It was a great effect! Now, do we have another question?"....

He continued on with an obfuscation of another question by a magician about the Appearing Helicopter by retreating into talking about the television screen being two dimensional and being able to move the camera and "force perspective camera shots" and then he said, ""Is there another question?".

This was far more than I could handle in terms of honesty ,so I walked out.

I can not understand why Harary didn't just come clean at the beginning and say, "While I can't give you exact specifics about what I do, I will give you some broad and generalized principles on doing the kind of effects that I do". Instead he came off as an arrogant and pompous politician who steadfastly refused to be honest with his supporters. No one really wanted to know the gauge and tensile strength of the wires he (more than likely) used to suspend the girl over the pool or the brand name of the cherry picker Hi-Lift he probably used (out of the camera frame) to suspend her from above . No one was asking the shape of the lift she was laying on or how the wires were connected. Oh my Gosh! I just gave you far more specific information here than he ever did at the lecture!

Some of Franz's "vanishes" seem to me to involve painted partial flats that are not detectable due to the lack of depth in a TV screen. He uses them the way the old "glass shot" was used in Hollywood. In those days the camera shot through a large sheet of plate glass and parts of the frame were painted with realistic details while other parts remained clear glass so you could see the actors in the smaller part of the frame. In one stunt on the "Masters of Illusion" PAX-TV series, Franz made a plane appear on the runway. He had a large framework made of lighting trusses. A curtain dropped down to cover the frame for a fraction of a second and then it dropped away to reveal the plane. I believe he used a clever partial flat to simulate the empty runway. The plane was behind it all the time. The flat's edge ended where a distant horizon was at the far end of the runway. What was deceptive was that a pickup truck was traveling along the edge of the horizon! No one was the wiser that they were looking a flat painting or computer generated photo image on the flat. This is stuff that Franz led us to believe he would reveal, so I am doing it for him.

Another technique is to rotate the viewer's platform (that also contains the camera) into a matching adjacent vacant area directly on the side , thus it appears the object has vanished. This was the Copperfield method on the Statue of Liberty. The big joke of his "Space Shuttle Vanish" was that the clouds changed! This was because what you saw was not the same real cloud pattern as that around the Shuttle. Man, I am really telling you folks what you should heard at his lecture if he had been completely true to his opening statement!
Harary's act on the Saturday night show was less than worthy of someone with his fame. Franz used a large upstage screen to project his promotional videos.
When he came on stage he was dressed like a street bum in tennis shoes and baggy faded pants. This was not the sharp suit and manicured image we saw on his excellent "Master's of Illusion" Pax TV series. Do not misunderstand me, when he wants to, he is a class act. He deserves our admiration for all the things he has done. My complaint is that we deserve to have been treated better by him.

He began this stage show with his original "Walking through a woman." staged with female dancers doing outdated 80s choreography. The name of the illusion is far more spectacular than the actual effect even though it uses an extremely clever and simple method. His act included a Paul Osborne Palanquin. It is a girl production cabinet that looked identical to one that local Ring member and illusionist Rex Todd Alexandre built and owns. Did he borrow Rex's? Then there was a horribly long and nonsensical bit with a woman and a snake in a Duck Bucket that was probably also a borrowed prop. There was something with a Peanut Brittle Snake can. Did he borrow that from Harry and Irv?

Yes! he must have done another major feature of his Franz Harary stadium show: 5 minutes with a little boy and a mouthcoil!
Finally, he did the second of his original illusions, "Culture Clash" where he locks down two girls and rotates them so that each change bottoms. That was it.

Never has so little been done for so many with so few actual illusions, to borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill. Out of 35 minutes of actual time he took, he was backstage a significant portion of the time while we, in the audience, watched his promotional videos.

Harry and Irv probably try to spare all expenses in bringing in their acts. This helps to keep the Festival on a profit-making basis for them. We can't criticize them for that.
Sometimes the seemingly threadbare talent budget shows around the edges and Harary probably was an example. From my point of view as a consumer, I paid to see Franz Harary's Show and not a pale cobbled-together , scaled down version of him using mostly borrowed props and killing time. I could have lived with the Saturday Night show, but his Friday Night joke-of-a-lecture cemented my negative opinion of his role in this year's event. Even Friday night we did not get to see and hear the honest and real Franz. Saturday we didn't see the real Franz either.

I have a hard time believing it was intentional on the part of Harry and Irv and I hope that they never repeat this type of insult to the intelligence of their paying attendees.

I was drafted on Friday night to judge the talent contests the next morning. I judged both the junior and senior division. This must have been the year for "Snowstorms" and "Flash Parasols". Japanese acts took the major prizes in the adult division.

The Saturday night show again featured the Patriotic opening. The first year the Daytona Festival was held was 2001 and the weekend following September 11th. Harry and Irv have made this fact a recurring theme in every Saturday night show opening. After the awards, the show opened with the winner of the previous day's Adult talent Contest. This year it was the shapely Mika Hazuki with a well developed manipulation act.

Terry Seabrooke added some comedy bits as the evening's MC. He is clearly a very talented and funny man but the ancient Roman writer Ovid's advice, "Tempus edax rerum" ("Time, the devourer of all things") is apparent. He may go the way of George Burns and John Calvert in that their talent became less of a factor than their longevity. I know that if I survive to a very old age , I have no desire to be a geriatric freak show.

The second act of Saturday night's show opened with Fukai. Call him a doveless Shimada on steroids. Parasols of every shape and size appear. Confetti flies. His act is one display after another. It is visually spectacular and got a standing ovation from the largely magic crowd. Fielding West followed and closed the show with a comedy routine and lots of subtitle mystery.

West was also well received but possibly not quite as well as Fukai. Knowing magicians, I believe it is because they are convinced that they can buy all the props that Fukai uses and duplicate his act! (Indeed, the props in the contests the day before reflected this) It takes real talent and timing to come anywhere close to Fielding West's act. Plus, it takes his personality. So they laughed and applauded his talent. With Fukai, they applauded his prop demo.

I headed back home and was unable to attend the Sunday activities due to a booking . I look forward to the 2007 Festival.

Dennis Phillips