2008-03 Ring Report The Bev Bergeron Ring

Ring Report Ring #170 The Bev Bergeron Ring

February is the month of love and our members must have loved showing up for the meeting. We had 36 people in the seats along with one guest, Dan Mattei. President Craig Fennessey gaveled the meeting to order with reports on magical activities around the area for the last month. Craig gave a review on the recent Magic by the Bay in Tampa. We have our annual ring flea market and auction coming up on March 8th. The featured lecturers will be Michael Ammar and Magic Ian. We also have some other interesting upcoming lectures for the rest of the year.

Phil Schwartz then presented Magical Moment #3. His mini-lectures have become a very rewarding part of our Ring activities. This month’s lecture was about magic posters. Phil explained that before modern broadcast, highway billboards and print media, posters were the main method of advertising theater magic shows.
He explained the different sizes of posters and how they were used in the golden age of posters from 1870 to 1920. From his own private collection, Phil showed some rare and valuable examples such as a Chung Ling Soo and Charles Carter poster along with a rare Servais LeRoy and Company poster. It resembled a Dali painting with disjointed flying animals and the magicians sitting on them! Our ring is fortunate to have Phil Schwartz, an acclaimed Thayer expert, as an active member enriching our knowledge of magic history.


Dan Stapleton followed up with an announcement that he is in the running for an appearance on Network TV’s “America’s Got Talent”. Most people have no idea of the preparation and process it takes to be on a network TV show.

With the business meeting ended, Mark Fitzgerald stepped up to Emcee the Ring Show for the evening. He first explained that his wife, Lynn, would be on a Travel Channel show that was recently filmed at the Winter Park Farmer’s Market. He then kicked off the show with the “Inside-Outside” card. Two cards were shown and folded in half and turned sideways. They seemed to flip as they were passed through each other. When passed for examination they were ungimmicked. Mark then brought up Dan Stapleton who did an effect from Magic Magazine based on the Hugard’s, “Piano Card Trick”. Dan’s trick involved two cloth napkins and 4 volunteers and 8 pairs of knives and forks. Mysteriously one knife changed from one side of the stage to the other.

Bev Bergeron made a small quarter disappear and promised that in 45 minutes he would make the moon disappear. Cleverly, Bev knew that a lunar eclipse was due at that time in Orlando and sure enough the moon turned to blood and then vanished! Mark returned to the stage for a Restoration type card trick. This is where a signed card is torn and then visibly restored. Sid McWethy made a candle and a rose appear from a scarf in keeping with a February Valentine theme. Mike Bondi, now a newspaper advertising representative, did a cut and restored rope that had been used to wrap a newspaper. He followed it up with the Gene Anderson Newspaper Tear made famous by Doug Henning. Bondi also turned coupons into real dollar bills.


Charlie Pfrogner had a classic fall-apart box where most of the sides opened up so the box could be seen empty. From this he did a clever silk production. It is always fun to see the classic magic from the 1950s. Mark Fitzgerald was back on with another Restoration Card effect but a different method. Last up was former Ring president, Richard Hewitt. Richard treated us to Ace Gorham’s BINGO trick. It is a real mentalism fooler. Five Bingo cards are handed out and by a totally free choice the five spectators who each got a card call the number out. All the numbers were different. When the numbers were totaled they matched the prediction that Richard had made.

With the meeting adjourned we went into the warm February night. Be with us on your next vacation or business trip to Orlando, Good things are always happening in Ring 170.

Dennis Phillips