Category: Meeting Minutes

Mark Paulson started off the magic revealing Jim Earnshaw’s favorite card. Mark asked Jim to think of his favorite card and as he turned over the cards asked Jim to stop. The next card turned over would be his favorite. Sure enough the next card turned over had “Jim’s Favorite Card” written on it.

Dan Kennedy then performed a trick where Mark would find Dan’s favorite cards. Dan said his favorite card was the six of spades and shuffled the deck. He had Mark select a card, but it turned out to be the Queen of Spades. Dan said that was his assistant who was actually holding his favorite card in her hands.

Sam Shaefer performed a nice card revelation using cards pulled form a spread to lead him to the chosen card. Sam also performed a very nice coins across routine using the spectator’s hands, finishing with a coin under watch.

Roger Sylwester performed a great ace assembly routine and then followed it up with a very nice performance of dealing control where he would deal by request either in color pairs, triples, or singles.

Hugh Castell attempted some telekinesis with a card box, cards and a coke can. Hugh’s powers were a little off, while the card box suspended at the edge of the can, the individual floating cards proved too much for him. Next time Hugh the energy in the room will be better!

Chuck Kleiner performed a lie detector routine where he was able to determine the chosen card by listening to the person’s voice as he named the cards in the deck.

 

Jim Earnshaw started off the evening with a ring to impossible location by David Regal that got a good response from all.

J.R. Russell performed a torn and restored cigarette paper by Patrick Page that had a great kicker ending when the second hidden paper he was using to explain the trick was restored as well.

Samuel Shaefer performed a couple of nicely polished transposition effects involving signed dollars as well as signed business cards. He also performed a nice piece of mentalism where a thought of person’s initial appeared on his arm.

Mark Paulson did a nice piece of mentalism where he was able to predict which image of a painting a person chose. Mark usually uses nice physical revelations for his tricks instead just written messages which make for a very nice presentation.

Hugh Castell did a nice production effect where an image of USB drives on a flat card appeared in his hands. He followed this production with a nice color changing knife routine using the two color USB drives instead or knives. The two tricks flowed well together.

Ken Marsh showed a a paper and dice trick where the spectator rolled a dice and Ken would snip a corner off of a folded piece of paper and after unfolding it had the same number of holes as the die roll.

Roger Needham performed a very funny routine involving an origami “pink African ooh-ahh bird” that ended in a card revelation inside a magically produced small egg. Roger’s performance was very professional and polished.

John Cameron performed a mind reading routine with a special deck of cards. The spectator was asked to make various free selections and John was able to correctly name all five cards the spectator chose as well as describe the special art work on the cards.

Larry Dimmit did a nice prediction effect where he had someone stop at a page with various images on it that turned out to be the match to his predicted choice in an envelope.

Roger Sylwester performed two different versions of torn and restored newspaper that were both very clean and magical.

George Zuk performed a nice ink reading card trick where he would tell you the card in his hand simply by feel.

J.R. Russell started out the evening with magic from a recent Magic Magazine article on coffeehouse conjuring by Gregory Wilson and David Gripenwaldt. J.R. performed and taught a broken coffee stick routine that can be performed impromptu with items from your local coffee house. It was a very clever trick and worth checking out! J.R. continued to show some great packet tricks and very slick card handling, entertaining all.

Larry Dimmitt continued his mentalist performance with a piece by Banachek called Ring of Truth where Larry was able to divine who was holding a ring and who were a truth-teller and a liar. Larry also performed a routine where he was able to make the participant unable to see his chosen card in a selection.

John Cameron performed a Harry Anderson piece called Gang of Four where four spectators select a card and remember it. John removed a prediction card and suggested that all the cards would match the prediction card. When each person said a different card John knew they could match and ripped up the card only to have the four ripped pieces each match one of the cards selected.

Hugh Castell performed Transporter by Joshua Jay as well as Richard Sander’s Extreme Burn. Hugh performed both routines very smoothly. Danny Dragon is really coming along!

Mark Paulson performed a prediction effect with multiple stages where a chosen card was the only blue backed card, which turned out to be the predicted five of spades, which turned out to be what was written on the box of cards as well as a jumbo card of the same type. Mark also worked on a close up matrix / assembly effect using dice instead of coins that was very clever.

 

The club was pleased to welcome Ron Olmsted, a visiting magician from Miami. Ron was in Seattle visiting his daughter Angela and they both attended the meeting. Ron and Angela presented a wonderful mind reading routine with Angela blindfolded and revealing various chosen cards from the audience. When asked about the method Angela revealed that they had come up with it when she was seven years old.

J.R. Russell seemed to be the magician of the evening! He presented a wonderful array of packet tricks that were very entertaining. J.R. had a very amusing presentation featuring a “new year resolution” to lose weight by lifting cards.

Joe Toles presented a routine where he was able to stop his pulse, while another visitor to the meeting, Joe’s friend Cameron, performed a baffling two card revelation where he correctly identified two cards a spectator placed in his pockets.

Mark Paulson performed a couple of nice mentalism effects including a revelation of book pages selected by spectators with a twist as well as a great revelation routine built around an invisible deck.

Bill Murray did a nice presentation of Richard Sander’s “Supercards” routine. Bill had only been working on it for a while, but already had a good handling.

George Zuk performed a couple of variations of ring on straws that were different in approach and took the time to teach the members one of the versions. It was a good impromptu trick to learn.

Jim Earnshaw continued to develop his coin work and presented various coin routines including a one hand copper / silver transposition based on the recent Earl “Presto” Johnson article in Genii.

John Cameron performed a funny “fake” invisible deck routine leading the magicians to believe that he was going to use an invisible deck when he really crumpled the “deck” up and threw it away. The thought of card was actually in his pocket the entire time.

 

SEATTLE, WA – Our December meeting started off with elections for 2011. Mark Paulson will have a second term as club president, Hugh Castell is the new vice president, and Jim Earnshaw begins his second year as club secretary.

The magic began with new member Chuck Ising performing an Eric Jones 3 Fly routine, and he did it very smoothly! Chuck also showed us a nice ring on rope routine.

Larry Dimmitt showed us a mind-reading effect in which he displayed five jumbo cards, including a joker. In the end, all the cards turned into jokers (which were wild).

Roger Sylwester had Chuck select a card, and then asked for his birth date. Then Roger produced a book on birthdates. Next to each date was printed the name of a playing card. The card written next to Chuck’s birthday was shown to be the exact same card he had selected. This was Michael Close’s The Birthday Book.

Dan Kennedy showed us a couple of card tricks. He had Dave choose a card (the six of spades), but when Dan revealed the Queen of Spades, Dave said it was the wrong card. Upon closer inspection, Dan showed us that the Queen was holding Dave’s card in her hand. Dan also showed us an interesting version of the 21 Card Trick.

Mark Paulson took out a balloon and blew it up. He then borrowed a cell phone and proceeded to push the phone into the balloon and let it deflate. When he tore open the balloon, all could see that it was the borrowed phone inside. This was Danny Garcia’s Pressure. Mark then performed Garcia’s Greed, slowly and visibly turning a $1 bill into a $5, a $10, and finally a $20 bill.

The last performer of the night was new member Dave Buck. Dave performed Eugene Burger’s version of Out of This World, using the four Aces as locator cards.

 

On Oct. 30th, The Emerald City Wizards put on a performance for the Sunrise Senior Living community on Mercer Island, WA. The show featured members Larry Dimmitt, Jim Earnshaw, Chuck Kleiner and Ed Loveland with club President Mark Paulson providing master of ceremonies duties. The group felt that the show was a great success and is looking forward to more performances in the future.

At the regular meeting, Ed Loveland preformed a nice story driven routine around the sinking of the Titanic. He showed two spectators various pictures of people from the Titanic and each person decided if the person shown in the picture had lived or died. After all the pictures were sorted it turned out that the choices made by the spectators were correct.

Larry Dimmitt told a great story of a gypsy who could determine the name of a person of importance to a spectator with fortune cards. Larry had Dan think of a person and presented him with fortune cards that eventually pointed to cards in a wallet. When Larry took out the cards they spelled the name of the person Dan was thinking of.

Mark Paulson had Larry shuffle a deck of cards and turned over one card at a time having Larry stop whenever he liked. Mark had a “big money” (a large size hundred dollar bill) bet that his prediction card would match the card that Larry stopped at. It turned out Mark was able to keep the money as his prediction card matched.

Dan Kennedy performed a nice quick trick with a small wooden bell that passed through a solid rod. Dan framed the trick around a Houdini story line. Dan also performed a card prediction effect where he had the spectator choose two cards he called for.

Jim Earnshaw practice for the group a quick set of magic he was trying to get ready for a future performance that included a bullet catch duck using a wooden card duck.

 

While the club turnout was somewhat small this month, we did have several guests at the meeting who also performed some very nice magic including a very visual cut and restored ribbon and a nice memorized deck routine.

Club President Mark Paulson presented a neat trick where he had a small wind-up walking brain toy that he used to help divine a spectator‘s chosen card. The brain was said to be that of Howard Thurston and Mark had it walk over a pile of cards stopping on the card that was chosen. Mark also showed a prediction envelope and had a list of various items on a piece of paper. A spectator told mark where to cut the paper and the cut turned out to be on the word skeleton. Inside the prediction envelope was a small skeleton cut in two.

J.R. Russell performed an interesting witch test with member Larry Dimmitt. He had Larry sign a picture of a witch and when J.R. waved the picture under a flame picture changed showing the witch flying away. J.R. said that room should sign a goodbye card for Larry and once it was returned he showed the card to not only be a different color, but to also have travel stamps on it as well.

Jim Earnshaw performed a winged silver routine by Ponta the Smith, where 4 coins traveled from one hand to the other individually and then all together. Jim also performed a Jay Sankey coin effect where 3 coins are “eaten” by a 4th called “Mass Consumption”

 

New Member, Bill Murray performed a Paul Gordon trick where the spectator’s card was determined by a “lie detector” machine made up of a packet of cards. The performer could tell the truth or like, and the cards revealed the truth as well as the chosen card.

James “JR” Russell, performed a very nice triumph routine that included a pretty card flourish (Ballet cut). JR also performed a quick coin disappearance and was kind enough to give everyone at the meeting the means to perform the same coin trick.

Chuck Kleiner performed an interesting routine using a poster board that continually changed showing different pictures and items each time he turned or moved the board that highlighted his “sales pitch”

Mark Paulson performed a Dan Harlan mentalist effect where the spectators choose four parts of mixed up torn pictures of famous people. When the four pieces were put together the picture of Lincoln matched the prediction that Mark had in an envelope; a Penny!

Dan Kennedy performed a card prediction trick from Genii magazine (Feb – May 2006) where he had the spectator deal cards face up to a stopping point of a single face down card. The spectator spread the rest of the cards face up and Dan produced a printed picture of the spread, including the face down card selected.

Larry Dimmitt did a nice mentalism routine where he had four participants take a quarter of a shuffled deck of cards and he was able to divine which person had each card.

Hugh Castell performed a very nice card routine where the faces of the cards would change and backs of the cards changed to multiple different backs, with a climax of the entire deck changing color. Hugh’s card work has really been nice.

John Cameron performed a great card trick where he started with blank backed cards and he would rub the cards together and the printing from one card would transfer to the other so various cards would have different front and backs. The climax of the trick was when he pressed one card to his shirt and the card’s back had the same pattern as his shirt.

Roger Sylwester performed a three card monte routine from Jack Carpenter using Aces, and Queens where the Aces end up turning to jokers and the Queen disappears and returns to the deck.

 

MIXED BAG OF TRICKS

SEATTLE, WA – The August 5th meeting began with Ed Loveland having Dan Kennedy take a packet of cards from a deck, select one, and then shuffle it back into the deck. Then as Dan dealt the cards face up on the table, Ed was able to tell which card had been selected. Next, Ed brought out a very ugly, evil-looking antique doll. A club member was asked to write down the name of a dead person and several living people. The doll was able to give a sign when the dead person’s name came up.

Up next was Dan Kennedy. He brought out four invisible coins from different countries. RW picked one, tossed it into Dan’s coin envelope, and when Dan dumped the coin on the table, it matched RW’s selection.

James “JR” Russell showed us a couple of Steve Bargatze’s effects that he learned from Mr. Bargatze on the recent PCAM cruise. One was a mind-reading routine involving two people thinking of two different words. In the next effect, JR was able to tell whether cards drawn from a packet under the table would be red or black.

Paul Volkman wowed us with a die in a box. No matter which number on the die was chosen, Paul was able to read our minds and tell us the thought-of number. As a follow-up, Roger Sylwester performed a very charming dice routine from Classic Secrets of Magic.

Next, Mark Paulson looked at JR and wrote down a prediction. Then he asked JR to select a page number from a book. Mark pulled off his ring, placed it on the page, and slowly moved it down the page until JR told him to stop. Then he moved it across the page. The word seen in the ring matched Mark’s prediction. This was Banachek’s Word of the Ring.

The last performer for the night was Larry Dimmitt. After dimming the room lights, Larry held a light bulb in a clear plastic bag. He asked us all to concentrate on it. After several seconds, the bulb began to flicker brightly. We decided to try this again, as it was very illuminating. I guess we were concentrating too hard because this time, the bulb exploded. Since the room was dark, we ended the meeting.

SUMMER FUN

SEATTLE, WA – In an earlier ceremony, Assembly President Mark Paulson welcomed new member Paul Volkmann to the S.A.M. Our July 1st meeting started off with Ed Loveland showing us twenty cards with voodoo dolls on them. Ed had Joe Toles place three cards with pins drawn on them in the deck. After the pins were matched to various body parts, Ed revealed a real voodoo doll that had three pins stuck in it, all matching the cards.

Next up was John Cameron, who performed Matchic, a hot effect in which a randomly chosen matchbook from a hotel matched a room key John had earlier placed in his prediction envelope.

Joe Toles did a fine job of performing coin through handkerchief, and then he showed us an effect using unusual cards from China.

Ken Marsh performed an effect called DeLong’s Card, which utilized a sheet with dozens of miniature playing cards on it and a penny. Ken always knew which spot you placed the penny. Then Ken performed Magi Trick by Hardin, in which he mentally deducted three free choices made by three different people.

Larry Dimmitt performed a mentally enlightening effect for us. He showed us a light bulb in a clear plastic bag. We all concentrated on it, and the light bulb began to flicker. As soon as it was fully lit, it exploded.

Up next was Mark Paulson, who performed three mentalist effects. First, he performed Dick Barry’s 52 on 1 card prediction, then he performed Keith Fields’ Sweet and Sour prediction, and he concluded with Keith Fields’ book test, Running the Numbers.

George Zuk, one of tonight’s two guests, performed two effects for us. The first was Jay Sankey’s Stop Me Here, using business cards. Then George showed us a nice effect using the four Aces, Kings, Queens, and Jacks. Each time the cards were dealt into four piles, the same cards would come together by value or by suit.

For Tonight’s finale, Hugh Castell asked our other guest, J.R. Russell, to pick a card, place it back in the deck, and make it rise. It didn’t rise, but the chosen card appeared in the deck in a very mysterious fashion, ala Annemann’s The Magical Thrust.