The theme of our second January meeting was Mental Magic, but first we held a Broken Wand Ceremony for Jimmy Von Pickrell, a long-time member who passed away in early January. Thanks to Josh Colón for performing the ceremony.
After a short break we continued the meeting with Bill Halmi’s “Symbols of Power,” a custom presentation of Chad Long’s Priority — with a modern take on classic slate moves. The performance concluded with the chosen symbol of power appearing magically written inside two sealed pieces of cardboard.
Bruce Kundin performed a drawing telepathy effect. Three audience members each received a small whiteboard and a card with a random word from a shuffled deck. After returning the cards to the deck, each drew a picture representing their chosen word, and Bruce used his mind-reading skills to duplicate each drawing.
Jeff Peterson performed Cocktail Cards, using a deck featuring various cocktail recipes. With the assistance of a helper a cocktail was selected, and Jeff successfully read her mind to reveal the chosen recipe, surprising the audience with his mental magic skills.
David Boehm performed The Tarot Book of Days. Showing 31 days worth of different 3-card tarot spreads, a helper picked a date and a reading was given using those cards. Afterwards an envelope was opened showing the 3 cards chosen by chance were predicted.
David Goldberg performed Prediction, an effect learned from YouTube, where with the help of two assistants, a shuffled deck and rolled dice were used. Despite some heckling from the audience, the card at the position indicated by the dice matched a prior prediction.
Anvesh Yalamanchili performed a card effect in which a thought-of card traveled into someone’s backpack across the room. Anvesh got together with some others after the meeting to brainstorm ideas for making the effect even stronger.
James Knight performed his effect Booked, a version of the classic Pegasus Page routine. James is a full-time professional and it shows, even with his “magic club” performances.
Frank Pastula showed Max Maven’s B’wave, demonstrating the effect and then explaining a way to force the numbers 6 and 7. Use that in front of children at your own risk.
Gary Lazok performed a card effect with a helper cutting a deck into five piles, selecting a card and returning it to one of the piles. The piles were gathered in a random order but despite the mixing, Gary successfully found the chosen card.
Brett Colboch showcased some impressive coin manipulation followed by a vanishing Oreo effect. (The secretary mentioned that he’s made a lot of Oreos disappear over the years, but the method was very different.)
Zhe Xu performed Guess the Movie. He used a deck of cards featuring movie posters, one chosen and returned to the deck, then shuffled. By reading his helper’s mind, Zhe correctly identified the chosen movie.
Our meeting room is threatening to become too small for our growing club. But what a nice problem to have!
