August 2023 Ring Report
It’s August in Tennessee, and football is in the air! We had 16 members attend the meeting, and after a bit of business about the upcoming Trunk Sale in September and setting up a general Facebook page (IBM Ring 58 Smoky Mountain Mystics) that is public (thank you Jessica Hyder…and thank you for celebrating your birthday with the Ring that night, too!), we got started with some “Sinking” magic.
Our Program Chairman and President, Victor Agreda thought we always talk about floating things, so he discussed a couple ideas for effects that sink. He showed a way to make a Cartesian Diver out of a ketchup pack in a bottle of water (check it out at sciencebob.com) which was amazing. Victor also discussed a couple of his new purchases: Equalizer and Hacker which are a bit “tech” awesome. Both Bill Osburn and later John Gyllenhaal showed their larger versions of Newton’s Nightmare which appears to suspend gravity. John shared a little of the science behind Lenz’s Law which is the basis of that trick. Bill followed with the Cubio effect that is made on a metal beaded necklace and the charm can be stopped from dropping on command.
Ed Ripley had us laughing at the fact that he baffled Chat GPT by asking for a trick with “sinking.” He went on to perform an effect with a straightened paperclip that he caused to visibly sink with a prominent bend while held at his fingertips. (He also gave a little tutorial on the amazing ability of Chat GPT within the Bing app.) It was great to have Kyle Copeland join us as he performed Bill Pryor’s Three’s a Charm with three matching predictions from a pack of cards. How did that fit the theme? It used a sunken Key Card! Jim Stott also racked his brain for a trick with “sinking” and he also did a card effect where he had Roy Schubert choose a card and place it on half the deck before it was reassembled; then Roy put the cards behind his back, plunged one card in face-up and miraculously it was found next to the chosen card. Roy had started to do his trick, but had left a critical piece at home…which was fine since Jim made Roy do all the work for his trick!
Pronouncing “This is gonna be amazing!” as Victor signed a card, Danny Justice did a color change of the signed card as it visibly went from a Four of Spades to Four of Hearts using a lighter – he was right: it was amazing! We were also treated to see Danny’s Philosopher’s Deck which will soon be released through Penguin Magic. To end the evening, Tom Vorjohan who was on Zoom via St. Petersburg, Florida shared a few “show & tell” pieces including a couple Lego effects (and one that he has created that is still in development), and then he briefly discussed the four new book releases he picked up and had signed while at Magic Live by Lance Rich, Piff the Magic Dragon, Harrison Greenbaum, and Charlie Frye. Once again, a fun evening of magic in Knoxville, Tennessee!
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