Meeting Report: January 10, 2018

Cheryl, the receptionist at the Yu Ai Kai Center, was impressed by the number of magicians trooping through the lobby on Ring 216’s meeting night. “Everyone wants to see John Carney,” she said. “They say he’s The Man.”

The man himself began by telling the capacity crowd his mission: “I teach the thinking behind tricks. To me this is the fun – working things out, discovering things.” John demonstrated his thinking process by detailing the reasoning behind every move in his first two routines, “Coffee Cups and Grapes,” inspired by Michael Skinner, and Ramsay’s “Coins in Hat.” Make changes and see what results, he urged. Coffee cups have handles – what new moves does that make possible? Consider whether each visible movement can be made more graceful and more efficient, each hidden sleight covered by misdirection. Apply the attention-controlling concepts of tension and relaxation, punctuation, focus. “You can’t misdirect until you know where they’re looking.” At the end of these two teaching sessions, John remarked truthfully, “We only talked about two tricks, but one hundred secrets.” 

The lecture continued with Mora Balls, Quarter through Plate, and coin vanishes, card controls and color changes, each showing the improvements that occur when one tries out additions and subtractions to routines, and works on changing the moment of secret actions. He reminisced about Vernon and other magicians he had met and learned from. At the end, John summarized again his message of inspiration: “To improve, make adjustments. Don’t practice the same way for forty years.”

The magicians lingered talking with John Carney long after the appointed time for the center to close. At the front desk, Cheryl, waiting patiently, said she did not mind. It looked to her like it had been an important night for the magicians.

Meeting Report: February 14, 2018

Awards – raffle prizes – a mini-lecture – and magic performances. What more could one want for Valentine’s Day?

First on the agenda, the awards were handed out for the Ring’s magic competitions that took place last year. Beautiful first-place trophies were awarded to Alex Wu (Stage/Parlor) and to Danny Cheng (Walk-Around,Close-Up and Magician of the Year). Personalized certificates were awarded to the People’s Choice winners, Tom Collett (Stage/Parlor), Perry Yan (Walk-Around) and Luke Adams and Danny Cheng (Close-Up).

The free-for-members raffle followed with prizes of magic props and DVDs generously donated to the club by Fred Rasmussen, John Jones, David Martinez and Tom Collett.

David Martinez presented a mini-lecture on “Opening Lines.” Quoting Eugene Burger – “Every good trick deserves a good opening line” – David compared the compelling first lines of literary works to the typical opener of magicians: “Here I have an ordinary deck of cards.” David presented the characteristics of great lines and how to find them, with references to the ideas of Darwin Ortiz and Pete McCabe. At the end he handed out lecture notes with dozens of examples of openers.

In the open performances of the evening, in which feedback was provided by the members if the performer requested, the Ring enjoyed the following acts.

Anthony “Doc Boodle” Pratkanis – The Three Shell Game.
Gene Johnson – Four aces fairly lost in the deck rise to the top.
Danny Cheng – Coins fly from hand to hand.
Mitch Kothe – A new arrival to the Ring, presenting Valentine themed three card location with a color change, and the deck turning into a steel block.
John Jones – The Box of Doom card prediction.
David Martinez – Teleportation of a nickel from hand to hand as spectators held his wrists.
Ken King – The Wizard Clock prediction.
Raphael Delgadillo – Card magic.
Tom Collett – Vanishing ribbon.
Gary Goldberg – A Shuffling Lesson.
Stan Sieler – A divination.