Tuesday, October 24, 2017

What Happened at the Meeting on Friday 20th October


At the meeting there were four performers, Al Hirschel, David Whitson, John Ferguson and Anthony Roberts.  The theme was “Apparatus Magic”.

Al Hirschel demonstrated some precision made items in brass from Viking Haenchen.  The first consisted of two tubes, one longer than the other. The spectator placed a pencil in whichever of the tubes he chose, and Al capped both tubes.  With a quick magic word, Al showed us that the pencil was now in the previously empty tube!   Secondly, he showed us the “needle through matchbox”.  It was easy for Al to push a needle through a matchbox, but impossible for the spectator.  When the spectator opened the matchbox, he found it filled with a brass block, and we were left wondering how Al got the needle through !  Thirdly, Al displayed a brass key, and he was able to move the sidepiece of the key up and down the shaft easily.  However, when he gave it to a spectator to try, the spectator was unable to move the sidepiece – it had frozen in place !

Next, David Whitson displayed coloured elastic hair grips in his fingers,  and when he pulled one colour, it instantly changed places with the other colour.   He showed a rope staying rigidly horizontal across his hand, and on command, it collapsed and became like a normal rope.  His last item reflected his penchant for sliding colourful signs into holders and pulling them out to show different colours.  In this item, he held up a sign showing a green Christmas tree, then turned it into a blue Christmas tree. When we called out “Turn it round”, etc, the sign then showed Santa Claus, not a tree at all.

The items that John Ferguson presented were demonstrated as Apparatus items rather than as a magic presentation – the Egyptian Water Box, and the Silk Chimney.

Mentalist Anthony Roberts presented some fascinating items.  He showed us ESP cards, which have symbols on them, like wavy lines or a plus sign.  He gave one deck to himself and one to the spectator.  Both dealt one card on the table – and it was the same card !

Next, he said that “certain people are drawn to certain shapes and colours”. He asked a spectator to choose an ESP card.  Then he showed that the spectator had chosen a card that matched the shape on the predicted one.  

Using a pack of crayons and a outline drawing of a person, the spectator coloured in each of the garments with his own choice of crayon.  Anthony, with his back turned, meanwhile coloured in the (similar) drawing that he had made for himself.  Anthony’s colouring in matched the spectator’s quite impressively.

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