Laurie Curry was the emcee for the National Capital Ring 50 August ‘Magic For Children’ meeting. There were 25 children and 72 adults attending the performance by eight Ring Magicians. After brief announcements the “Magic for Children” began.
Leading off the evening’s entertainment was President
Dwight Redman with a Martin Lewis’
Cardiographic. A young boy selected a card from the deck and Dwight took a sketchpad and began to draw what he believed was the boy’s selected card. He revealed his sketch only to be told by everyone that it was incorrect. He then added a few lines to the picture and told the audience that it is really just the deck of cards he was drawing. He told the spectator to concentrate on his card and, as if by magic, the chosen card rose from the SKETCH of the deck! Truly an unbelievable sight. Then for the best part - the sketch was torn from the pad and given to the young man to keep!
Eric Redman’s Magic Coloring Book routine combined action, color, magic, children participation and even got some “oohs” from the adults. He showed the children a coloring book that they could clearly see had all blank pages. Suddenly, with a wave of his hand, black and white outlined pictures
appeared in the book. After the cheers died, he took it one-step further and showed all the pictures colored. Next Eric did Ton Onosaka’s
Royal Revision. He invited a young spectator to the stage and showed the audience a large Ace of Diamonds card as his prediction and then slid it into an open frame. The young spectator did not see this prediction. Eric showed the audience and oversized deck with all Ace of Diamonds. The spectator then selected a card. They laugh as they realize the magician can't miss! However the chosen card turned out to be the Queen of Diamonds. The large prediction card is then turned toward the audience and as Eric remove the Ace slowly from the frame it visibly turned into the Queen of Diamonds right before their eyes!!
This is Eric’s last meeting with us as he has taken a job in New Orleans, LA and will be leaving the area soon. Thanks Eric for the many performances and support of The National Capital Ring 50.Matt Pernick was out to teach the kids some magic. He showed the audience an oversized
Dubious Domino. First, the two-sided domino had one spot on it. The other side had four. But when he turned the domino over again, it was shown to have three spots on one side and six on the other. Professor Matt offered to teach the trick to
the audience. But the explanation proved more puzzling than the trick first demonstrated. Spots on the domino multiplied unexpectedly, proving the magician's explanation useless. In the end, the domino was full of new spots. He followed that with a red silk that he packed into his fist. The silk turned into an egg, and both hands were shown empty. Then he let the kids in on the secret: Matt repeated the trick while explaining it all, and when they though they had it, he took the hole off the egg and broke the egg into a glass to show it was a real egg! Then Matt went on to the Torn and restored newspaper “illusion”. The magician tore the current “Washington Post” into pieces and openly displayed the pieces both
front and back keeping them in full sight at all times. He put the pieces together into a packet and gave them a shake. The pieces were instantly restored into the same undamaged newspaper!
Bob Greenwald with the help of a young lady, from the audience, performed the cut and restored string. After the string was cut, the two lengths of string seem to melt back together in her hands.
“Bugler” (aka Scott McDonald) came on with trumpets blowing. He opened with a blooming silk creating the illusion of a fountain of silk on his palm. Next a
Genii Tube was opened and shown empty. When it was closed and latched, a production of silks was made. Again shown empty and again more silks appeared. “Bugler” began
Topsy Turvy Bottles by holding one bottle covered by a
metal tube and a young lady volunteer held a second bottle covered by a metal tube. The tubes were tilted back and forth with the girl duplicating the magicians every move. However, on raising the covers “Bugler” and the girl’s bottles were not in the same position; one is upright the other upside down. This was repeated several times and they never match even though they started out the same. A very amusing performance for the audience. “Bugler” used a unique deck that was actually cut in half diagonally for his next effect. Each split half was fanned out, face down and two spectators select a card, one from each half. After a bit of by-play and it was found that the selected cards did not match when put together.
He removed from a previously displayed paper bag a jumbo card with the two selected diagonal halves mated to form a complete card!
Louis Meyer did a comedy tissue paper tear with the assistance of a young girl matching him tear for tear. His torn tissues were restored as several colorful streamers from his mouth. He took the torn tissues from the girl and made several hand jesters and made them disappear over her shoulders.
“Lorenzo the Great” (aka Larry Lipman) mystified his young assistant with a paper tear with the restoration being a Princess Hat. “Lorenzo” ask another kid from the audience to open the “Can of Wands” and take one out. When he did, out flew 5 spring wands to the surprise of the audience as well as the kid!
They never expected wands to come jumping out of the little can! Then “Lorenzo” presented one of the classics,
Mismade Flag. The magician used 3 different silks - one red, one white, and one blue. With the help of young President Abe Lincoln (complete with top hat and beard) the silks were placed in the bag but the blue silk fell to the floor apparently by accident. With a flourish our young Abe removed the silks from the bag and they had transformed into a flag, however, the Stars were missing. “Lorenzo” acted surprised and the audience along with young Abe was quick to point out the blue silk on the floor. The blue silk and the mismade flag are put back in the bag and this time when the flag is removed the colors are reversed. Nothing seems to be going right! Poor “Lorenzo”. The mismade flag is put back in the bag once again and this time it finally comes out as a normal flag.
To wrap up the evenings performance, “Secret Agent,
James Wand” (aka James Munton) brought up onto the stage 5 potential Secret Agents. He grilled them and taught them how to lie. He had them repeat the lie back to him. One young girl even repeated it back with his British accent to the amusement of everyone. The gang mixed up the 4 blank cards and 1 card with the secret map. Each secret agent took a card and kept it hidden. As they were quizzed “James Wand” narrowed in on the agent with the hidden map card.
-- Bob Patterson
On December 31, 2006, Ring 50 Past President Eric Henning will be the headline family entertainer at First Night Annapolis. Beginning at 6:30 p.m., he'll be performing a special 30-minute show five times throughout the evening in the 600-seat Key Auditorium at St. John's College. Even though Henning is in the event's largest venue, only 10% of the expected 30,000 visitors will be able to see his show. "It's a great honor, but also a great opportunity," said Henning. "It's going to be challenging to fill such a large space with magic!"
