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Tropical Storm Fay could not keep away almost 30 magic lovers from our August meeting. The winds were gusting up to 30 miles an hour outside and at times the rain was blowing sideways. All the storm shutters had been applied to the Orlando city building where we hold our meetings. President Craig Fennessey gaveled the meeting to order just 5 minutes late. A special guest was Paula Large, known to the magic world as the illustrator of Don Arthur’s book, “Illusions in the Round”. It was also great to see the recovering J.C. Hiatt bouncing back from surgery and looking good. Mark Fitzgerald mentioned that members of the ring are doing street magic 7 days a week at Downtown Disney. They can be found outside the Magic Masters store across from Bongo's restaurant. The magic crew covering the full week consists of Mark Fitzgerald, Craig Fennessy and Mike Bondi. The magic is starting at 6pm and ending 10:30 pm on weekdays and ending at 11:30 on Fridays and weekends.
Bev Bergeron and Dan Stapleton gave a positive report on the Louisville Combines IBM/SAM Convention. Ring members were invited to a picnic tribute for the ailing Wayne Scott. “Scotty” was one of the nation’s leading clown shoe and circus prop makers and long time Ring members. Ring member Fred Moore and wife Adina are embarking on a world tour with their magic.
Ring treasurer, Art Thomas presented a mini-lecture on tables you can use for your magic act. He took what is normally a forgotten part of a magic act and presented a highly entertaining and complete treatise. He put forth some real effort and lugged in ten examples from his collection of tables. This included side tables, center tables, novelty tables and “Office Max” specials. He even gave us a look at his own clever design for a folding Night Club table. The highlight was a one-of-a-kind folding table he bought from Abbotts.
Phil Schwartz, our resident magic historian, presented his “Magic Moment #7”. This month it was a talk and artifact exhibit of The Herrmans. He began with Carl Hermann and his younger brother Alexander Hermann. Alexander became famous in America and was a big name in magic on this continent from the time of the American Civil war until he died in 1896. He had a magical rivalry going with Harry Kellar. Hermann’s wife Adelaide continued his large lavish show until the late 1920s. Hermann performed for presidents Lincoln and Grant. Hermann had a mansion and estate in Beechurst Long Island. According to Walter Gibson, Howard Thurston was only able to buy the stable and part of the land but he transformed it into his own mansion and estate.
With Phil’s great talk concluded, Chris Dunn agreed to Emcee this month’s show. First up was Dan Stapleton with an effect he created and published in his recent Linking Ring Parade from September 2005. Four spectators selected four cards after shuffling the deck on top of a card table. Dan had them all toss their parts of the deck into the air and he whipped away the table drape and in the cascade he impaled the cards on each of the four table legs!
Richard Hewitt presented a mentalism effect he adapted from a classic Blackstone Sr. trick. A large chart with a grid was filled by high numbers. A spectator selected a square in the grid and Richard was immediately was able to name the number. Charlie Pfrogner had a creative version of the “Room Service” mentalism trick. He first brought the audience to laughter by showing a card with a cartoon word-bubble with the word “Think”. He flipped it over and it had a large light-bulb cartoon drawing. Charlie had number cards handed to him by three assistants while another added the numbers. It ended up that the room number of the hotel key in Charlie’s vest pocket matched the sum of the numbers they called out and one of the digits matched the hotel selected on a list of hotels. Charlie said he got the idea for the trick from an old Linking Ring article.
Finally, Jim McNiff, did an impressive torn and restored newspaper. His unique twist was that he had it signed before he began and when he did the restoration the signature was still on the newspaper! He selected Bev Bergeron to sign the newspaper. It was a clever way to get Bev’s autograph. With the show concluded we headed back out into the wind and rain.
Good things are always happening in Ring 170.
Dennis Phillips
Bev Bergeron and Dan Stapleton gave a positive report on the Louisville Combines IBM/SAM Convention. Ring members were invited to a picnic tribute for the ailing Wayne Scott. “Scotty” was one of the nation’s leading clown shoe and circus prop makers and long time Ring members. Ring member Fred Moore and wife Adina are embarking on a world tour with their magic.
Ring treasurer, Art Thomas presented a mini-lecture on tables you can use for your magic act. He took what is normally a forgotten part of a magic act and presented a highly entertaining and complete treatise. He put forth some real effort and lugged in ten examples from his collection of tables. This included side tables, center tables, novelty tables and “Office Max” specials. He even gave us a look at his own clever design for a folding Night Club table. The highlight was a one-of-a-kind folding table he bought from Abbotts.
Phil Schwartz, our resident magic historian, presented his “Magic Moment #7”. This month it was a talk and artifact exhibit of The Herrmans. He began with Carl Hermann and his younger brother Alexander Hermann. Alexander became famous in America and was a big name in magic on this continent from the time of the American Civil war until he died in 1896. He had a magical rivalry going with Harry Kellar. Hermann’s wife Adelaide continued his large lavish show until the late 1920s. Hermann performed for presidents Lincoln and Grant. Hermann had a mansion and estate in Beechurst Long Island. According to Walter Gibson, Howard Thurston was only able to buy the stable and part of the land but he transformed it into his own mansion and estate.
With Phil’s great talk concluded, Chris Dunn agreed to Emcee this month’s show. First up was Dan Stapleton with an effect he created and published in his recent Linking Ring Parade from September 2005. Four spectators selected four cards after shuffling the deck on top of a card table. Dan had them all toss their parts of the deck into the air and he whipped away the table drape and in the cascade he impaled the cards on each of the four table legs!
Richard Hewitt presented a mentalism effect he adapted from a classic Blackstone Sr. trick. A large chart with a grid was filled by high numbers. A spectator selected a square in the grid and Richard was immediately was able to name the number. Charlie Pfrogner had a creative version of the “Room Service” mentalism trick. He first brought the audience to laughter by showing a card with a cartoon word-bubble with the word “Think”. He flipped it over and it had a large light-bulb cartoon drawing. Charlie had number cards handed to him by three assistants while another added the numbers. It ended up that the room number of the hotel key in Charlie’s vest pocket matched the sum of the numbers they called out and one of the digits matched the hotel selected on a list of hotels. Charlie said he got the idea for the trick from an old Linking Ring article.
Finally, Jim McNiff, did an impressive torn and restored newspaper. His unique twist was that he had it signed before he began and when he did the restoration the signature was still on the newspaper! He selected Bev Bergeron to sign the newspaper. It was a clever way to get Bev’s autograph. With the show concluded we headed back out into the wind and rain.
Good things are always happening in Ring 170.
Dennis Phillips
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