Barry's Magic Shop Featured in Comic Strip

"Zippy the Pinhead" strip takes Barry's plight nationwide.

Barry Taylor, proprietor, writes:
"Barry’s Magic Shop is the focus on Zippy the Pinhead in today’s Washington Post Comic section. Zippy’s writer, Bill Griffith, is aware of our plight with Montgomery County Government and wrote about smoke and mirrors used by the County.


Things do not look good for us right now. I will be writing you another letter in December asking you to write a letter or resend your letter to Ike Leggett, the new County Executive as of Dec. 4. Mr. Leggett has the power to reverse the decision to tear down our building. We are given until Jan. 31, 2007 to stay. I will also ask that you carbon copy your letter to press which I will provide links.

Warmest wishes,

Barry & Susie

Barry’s Magic Shop

Fantastic November Meeting Night for Ring 50

President Dwight Redman opened the November meeting and welcomed the guests. Jim Flanigan, TVP, on the behalf of International Brotherhood of Magicians, presented Roy Barnes with a certificate for his outstanding support of the IBM and The Linking Ring. Roy compiled the Ring Reports each month and maintained the Index to The Linking Ring. The presentation was made on behalf of International I.B.M. President (2005-2006) Roger Miller at the Ring 50 meeting due to Roy Barnes living in the Washington area. Mike Taggert, VP and Chairman for Magi-Whirl 2007, gave a progress report on Magi-Whirl. Magi-Whirl 2007 will be held on April 13 & 14, 2007. Four lectures, plus two close-up performances, and a Gala evening show. Magi-Whirl is being held at Bishop Ireton High School, 201 Cambridge Rd, Alexandria VA. $45 in advance, $50 at the door. Details: http://www.magi-whirl.org/. Mike reminded everyone that if they wanted to put an ad in the Registration Program or the Gala Show Program to get the information to Bob Patterson as soon as possible. Amateur Magician, Tim Cannon was voted into Ring 50.

Dwight then introduced our lecturer for the evening, John B. Born, first place winner of the Golden Cups competition at the 2006 IBM Convention in Miami. Details of his lecture are below.

Award-Winning Magician John B. Born - Teaches His Craft!

John B. Born’s lecture focused on some of the most intricate and beautiful plots close-up magic has to offer. He divided the lecture into three main components (over two hours of instruction). The first session focused on how advanced preparation will reap great rewards in effect, and demonstrated how to construct routines and use principles (instead of difficult sleight-of-hand) in such a way that the performer becomes so far ahead of his audiences that it is not even fair. This included work on the “Any Card At Any Number” plot, as well as several other mental magic miracles appropriate for stand-up shows. The second session spotlighted beautiful magical offerings from the table, and demonstrated how to take full advantage of gaffs to create miracles not otherwise possible. This session included (but not limited to) extensive work on the “Bare-handed Matrix” and “Translocation” plots. The third session focused on sleight-of-hand techniques for the coin enthusiast. John created a whole new realm of coin techniques out of the development of his “Balance Palm,” and demonstrated techniques that range from easy-to-learn to extremely advanced. This session also included many great pointers on well-known coin techniques with regard to the importance of movement and motivation. The material covered varied in difficulty from nearly self-working to “I can’t believe he just did that.” John Born does for "Chink-a-Chink" what Derek Dingle did for "Triumph". He has added kicker after kicker, while at the same time enhancing the cleanliness and impact of the underlying effect. For all the talk we hear these days about "going the extra mile" and "showing no mercy", one sees very little of this sort of material performed or published. Thankfully, John does both. Whether one is interested in thought and motivation behind basic technique, fascinated by intense principles with (and without) a memorized deck, or engrossed in knuckle-busting sleight-of-hand, the lecture by John B. Born will be not be forgotten.

~ ~ Bob Patterson

Spooky Magic Night at Ring 50 brings out the Spiders, Ghosts, and Magical Spirits

President Dwight Redman opened the Spooky Magic show for the 50 members of the audience with a gruesome butcher knife blade being smashed down and through his arm while attempting to cut an orange in mid air! Ouch!

Captain Token the Magician (Louis Hofheimer) opened his performance with a board of lethal spikes was shoved through thru his arm without any noticeable harm. Then from an empty tube he produced a mountain of silks. With a whirl his solid cane vanished and left behind two silks. Capt Token then poured a 12-ounce can of grape soda filling four 8-ounce glasses. Then a young audience member had her head pierced with a flaming spear.

Jim Flanigan opened with The Web in which four blank cards were placed in volunteer Laurie Currie's hand. When the cards were shown again, there were spider webs on each one. They were turned over and she was asked to wave her hand over them. She let out a loud scream when she saw a black spider was clinging to the back of her hand. Next he performed a variation of the popular Bob Sheets illusion Hang 'Em High. Sitting in a chair, he struck a pose similar to one done by the actor Edward Norton in the "The Illusionist". He told how Norton, playing the part of a magician, made ghostly figures of a boy and a woman appear beside him. Jim planned to transform himself into an apparition and pull a solid object through his body. Two audience volunteers checked out the long length of rope by doing several tug-of-war yanks. Then, appearing to go into a trance, Jim pulled the rope through his body.

Rucj Uffelman began his presentation with a brief discussion of the Celtic roots of Halloween and their belief that the dead walked among the living on Halloween and the laws of nature were distorted on that evening. While he was talking Rucj set out a carved wooden stand which supported a pendulum. He started the pendulum and moved on to performing a book test based on the Dracula novel. As Rucj performed, audience noticed and became amused by the pendulum in the background; its swings became larger and larger until the pendulum was going around and around in full circles appearing to violate the law of gravity. Rucj concluded his presentation by having a spectator freely select one of eight face down cards. The seven unselected cards were then each revealed to depict the image of a fly. Rucj tied the fly image to one of the characters in the Dracula novel, as he had the spectator show that the selected card displayed the image of a bloody smashed fly.

Mike Taggert, Magician Extraordinaire, mystified everyone with his original routine entitled the bad guy in the box also known as Maggie and Jigs by Viking. After making a fruit and vegetable salad with his disecto equipment, he invited an audience member to join him to di-sect his hand.


Keith Pass drew a picture of a spooky skull on a white board (Axtell Drawing Board) and suddenly it came to life and the eyes began to move. Keith demonstrated a form of Pepper's Ghost making the spirit of John Carver come back from the dead to take back his lucky coin using a coin thru the glass effect.

“Lorenzo the Great” (Larry Lipman) performed a trick he calls "strap tube" a version of "ropes through neck" using straps and a plastic tube (hence the imaginative name). Two volunteers pull the straps through the tube and through Matt Hiller’s body. The top half of his body slammed down on the bottom half of his body and there wasn’t too much blood and it didn’t hurt a bit.

Past President Eric Henning recounted a dream in which he played a game of "Nine Card Monte" with the Devil. Even though old Scratch cheated, Eric won his soul back in this version of Steve Bryant's "Satan's Monte." He then had three helpers choose cards, which were shuffled back into the deck, and proposed to find the cards with his "hypersensitive touch." While Eric's head was turned away, the cards mysteriously rose into his hand one at a time - the last card rising while the cased deck was held by an audience member!

Noland Montgomery opened with a card routine involving a tongue-in-cheek manipulative sequence in which he removed a deck from its box, one handed, then apparently made the box disappear, but only temporarily. He then did a comedy mind reading trick involving two spectators, a deck of cards, and an over sized rubber ear. He followed this with his "street" version of the cups and balls--which is a two cup, two ball routine using the "Gazzo" cups (a very very large set of cups), a gibeciere (poacher's pouch), a magic wand, and a hat, and culminating with the production of two baseballs from under the cups followed by a coconut from under the seemingly empty hat.

~ ~ Bob Patterson

New Members Perform at September Meeting

President Dwight Redman opened the meeting and welcomed the guests. Bob Patterson, Treasurer, presented the proposed budget for 2006-07. A lengthy discussion about Magi-Whirl 2007 followed. It was decided that Ring 50 would have Magi-Whirl 2007. The tentative plan is to have it in April 2007 as a two-day event. New member Betty Rexine (photo below with Sam Brothers) was voted in unanimously

New members put on the September program. All were great performers with amazing skills and many new techniques were demonstrated. The 45 members in attendance enjoyed the show.

Bert Udovin opened with an attempt to reveal cards selected by three spectators Upon failure he sent the spectators to their seats and went on to cut three pages from a newspaper, origami style, to reveal the three cards previously chosen. Next he made a card, animal and number predictions on a slate. These were revealed to be those named by the spectators. An audience member shuffled and imaginary deck and named an imaginary card. The real card was found reversed in a real deck.

Bryan McDaniel did a comic grocery store mind reading routine where he correctly predicted the 'thought of' price of a randomly chosen grocery store item, by displaying the bar code. Then Bryan presented an original comedy effect titled, "Practice is Over-rated ~ Instant Magician Course". Using a computer, a layman was able to scroll through the directions within the 'course' and instantly become a magician by spelling out the name of a randomly chosen card and accurately locating its position within the shuffled deck.

Larsen Eisenberg's first effect was his version of Red Hot Momma where a selected card turns into a "negative" after a picture is taken of the deck with an imaginary camera. A second spectator tries to take a picture of their own card, they miss and the first negative is changed into a "double exposure” card. Then Larsen did a Kostya Kimlat effect where a member of the audience is made the magician and finds both a selected card and a thought of card. Then he performed Banacheck's Inivisible Palm Pilot routine from Banacheck's Psi Series DVD's

Mano Mandal began with two equal lengths of rope that changed sizes, changed to 3 ropes, and change to one long rope with a knot flying in the air. He then had two spectators write down information. After some a deep mind reading trance, he was able to identify the items that were written down.






Ashley Taggert had a card selected and placed in spectators pocket. A rubber band was placed around the deck and passed to 8 audience members to take a peek at a card in the deck. Using the Mathematical Algorithmic Geometric Interlanionary Calculus or M-A-G-I-C formula, she revealed the 8 cards viewed by the audience and the card selected by the spectator.

Sam Brothers using the skill of John Bannon's "Origami Poker" had volunteer Betty Rexine shuffle the deck and name her favorite suit. The cards were scattered and mix up with some reversed. When re-assembled by the spectator directions all the cards face up were revealed as the same suit selected by the spectator.





Reggie Rice entered with a bowling bowl production from a briefcase. During his performance he opened up a hot hardbound book and real flames shot out! Reggie with the help of his assistant, Carton Silvestro, built a sign saying ‘Will Do Tricks For Food’. He performed a straitjacket escape in 21 seconds.

Jeff Dionise has submitted his application for membership in Ring 50.

Photos by Larry Lipman
~ ~ Bob Patterson