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.