IBM Ring 50 - Washington, D.C.: May 2007

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Winton Carroll Award

The June 6th meeting will have the Winton Carroll Award for the “Most Humorous Magician”. This is a $100 award given each year for the next 5 years to the magician showing a ‘bit of humor’ in his act. The contest will be held separate from any other contest. The winner is determined by "people's choice", in which each member of the audience has the opportunity to vote for the magician showing the best “bit of humor”. The one with the most votes wins. Ballots will be made up the day before the meeting once all the contestants have applied. Your registration for the contest must be submitted by Tuesday, 5 June to insure your name is on the ballot. Submit your intent to perform to Bob Patterson, Treasurer@ibmring50.org.

Friday, May 04, 2007

Magi-Whirl 2007 Benefits Bishop Ireton High School

Mike Taggert and Dwight Redman presented Kevin Curry and Jessica Seeley of Bishop Ireton High School a large check for $2,210, the school’s share of the Magi-Whirl Gala Show. The Gala show incorporated the best and most original top line performers performing for over 400 patrons. Karen James, IBM TVP Maryland said: " We had the best time, in a long, long time!" Jim Flanigan, IBM TVP Washington DC commented: "I think Magi-Whirl 2007 in general was perhaps the best in my memory--especially the stage show. "

~ ~ Bob Patterson

Noland Montgomery Wins Again!!

Accomplished IBM Ring 50 magicians competed for the

5th annual Dan Lacey Memorial Trophy and the title of Magician of the Year. A bequest from Dan Lacey’s family and his work place help obtain the trophy. Dan was a former Ring 50 president (1999-2000) who was noted for promoting goodwill and fellowship. Judges based their selections on originality, presentation, performance, and entertainment skills. The winner will be performing at Magi-Whirl 2008.

This was a top-notch contest and a very close competition by all contestants.Noland Montgomery was declared the winner and was presented with the Dan Lacey Trophy for his performance. This is the third time Noland has won the title “Magician of the Year” (2004, 2005, and 2007). Noland claimed he use to work in an orange juice factory, but got fired because he could not concentrate. After vanishing a silk, he presented a “street version” of the cups and balls. He wrapped up his routine producing two large balls from under the cups and a coconut from a seemingly empty hat.

The contest included last year’s winner Dwight Redman. He lightened

the tone with whimsical and multiple egg productions from an empty egg bag. Finally Dwight placed the egg on the table and magically a dove appeared. Our audience love it.

Arnie Fuoco proceeded to keep the crowd chuckling with his acronyms. He gave CPR to a small rope and using BSEE he ended up with yards of rope. His showed us his CD (Card Diet) for the large King that was place between jumbo cards and was squeeze to normal size. After vanishing and eating several marshmallows he extracted them from his mouth as a long steamer. His lighthearted humor kept us in stitches.

Don Freedman displayed his own originality by demonstrating his “Masters of Fate”. Four members of the audience stood on a different unknown plaques and each of the four people randomly selected a foil wrapped packet from the six offered. As each person’s packet was opened it revealed a colored poker chip. There were three blue and one red. A fifth person had a stack of signs which when revealed matched the amount of blue and red chips selected and those remaining. Next the plaques were turn over by each member and found to match the colored chip they had randomly selected. Was it luck, fate, or pre-determined?

Geoff Weber straight in from the orchard

brought us apples and oranges. He explained that you could mix apples and oranges and get a pair. He placed the pairs into boxes held by two spectators. Each getting a pair. One orange remained and was placed in Sam’s box. Invisibly Geoff made the orange fly thru the air into the box Jessica was holding. When the apple and orange pairs were removed it was discovered the orange really did travel from Sam’s box to the one Jessica was holding. Did you see the fruit fly? Next Geoff borrowed a $20 bill, had it marked, made it vanish while a volunteer was holding the silk with the bill in it. The volunteer selected one of the oranges and Geoff cut it open and there was the missing $20 bill.

Jason Goldberg caught the magical groups attention when he put on his cool x-ray glasses. A volunteer selected a card and Jason through a thought process attempted to name the volunteers card. He failed, but when he took off his x-ray glasses, on the inside of the glasses was the selected card. Next he led us through a story line on the metro using linking rings.

Our final act of the evening was Sam Brothers. Sam travels a lot and collects playing cards from around the world. He made a deck of the cards with the backs all different, no two were alike. A spectator was asked to deal the cards face down and stop anytime they wished. At that point a marker card (3S) from another deck was placed face up. The pack was squared up and the spectator again deal cards face down and stopped anytime they wished. Again a marker card (3C) was placed face up. When the cards were fan spread on the table the card facing the marker cards matched the card exactly. When the remaining deck was turned over, all the cards were Jacks. Next Sam had a volunteer shuffle a jumbo deck and the randomly reversed some of the cards. He then made several predictions about the face down cards. All the predictions were true, except one and it was corrected by a note that was found in the card box.