IBM Singapore Ring 115’s January’s meeting was held on Monday 15th January in Function Room 1, Level 3, of the National Library building. Enrico Varella and David Fillary were the hosts. The theme was “Magic From Your Favourite Book”. It was well attended by 27 members.
Ng Kah King was the first performer. His trick was “Pineapple Surprise” from the book Mindstorms by Sean Taylor. He had a deck of cards each with the name of a fruit on the back. A fruit was selected by a volunteer and it amazingly matched with a real can of pineapple rings.
Charles Choo’s trick was “Bear Minimum” from the book Stunner by Larry Baker. Charles challenged a volunteer to predict one of 6 jumbo cards to win $100. He predicted correctly and the volunteer got a teddy bear as a consolation prize.
Kogi performed the B’ Wave trick originated by Max Maven. He used his own set of large cards for better visibility to the audience.
Harapan Ong related an interesting story of a son who invented a colour-changing ball trick to astound his father. He performed a trick called “Volcalculate” by Stewart James where he predicted correctly the index and the colour of cards chosen at random from a deck by 3 volunteers. He also promoted an online lecture + workshop by the Japanese magician FUKI on 27th January.
Jeremy Pei was the first dealer. He mentioned the book Totally Out Of Control by Chris Kenner. He showed/demonstrated Oriental Magic Envelopes, 3 fly coins across, Chinese Mahjong tiles set and 1 bill transforming to 4 bills.
Second dealer Goh Yin Xian demonstrated Flick It!, different coloured forcing dice, and various Nojima’s packet card tricks. The magic books he showed were Visual AF Magic Tricks by Luke Oseland, Variations by Boris Wild, and Inference by Ravi Mayar and Fraser Parker.
David Fillary displayed 3 books: namely Gary Kurtz’s Unexplainable Acts, Theatre of the Mind by Barrie Richardson and The Jerx by Stasis Burlington. He had these book extensively for tricks in his repertoire
There was a 15 minutes break for members to network and purchase from the dealers’ stalls.
Dressed up as a character in Squid Game, Kenneth Chia performed “A Clash Of Symbols” from the lecture notes by Max Maven. It was an ESP prediction effect involving 3 volunteers.
James Pang did “Bill 2 Can” by Paul Rohmany from the book by the same title. A bill marked and signed by 2 volunteers miraculously appeared sandwiched in a chosen card removed from a sealed box of cards which was in an outer sealed box sitting in a clear plastic container.
Victor Heng performed a Trap Door effect involving fishes based on the trick “Upstream” from the book Machinations by Ben Harris.
David Fillary returned to perform a jaw dropping inside-out trick from the Gary Kurtz book. Two pieces of paper were signed, one by the volunteer and one by himself, stapled with blank sides on the outside. A quick flick and the signed faces were on the outside.
John Teo performed John Bannon’s “Chop Shop” from the DVD Fractalicious with the them of a scammer. His second effect was the marketed Half Wild card trick by Nick Trost which appeared in his book “Subtle Card Creations Volume 1”.
Jeremy Pei demonstrated the Freer’s Tile puzzle using a picture of Rubik’s cube colourful surface.
Enrico Varella concluded by transforming a $1 bill into a $100 bill.
5 lucky draws were made and special gifts presented to the winners
