May 2019
Ring Meeting-Closeup CompetitionClose Gallery
Dane provided Jim a choice of a blue or red shuffled deck of cards. Once chosen, Jim began counting off a random number of cards one at a time. Each card was laid down face up on the table. Meanwhile with the second deck of cards, Dane mimicked the same action except by placing his cards face down. At Jim's chosen stopping point, Dane's final card was turned over and (if everything went as planned) would be revealed to be the same card as Jim's last card placed on the table!
Derrick started off with a three coin production from thin air. Very nicely executed. As quick as the three coins appeared, they were vanished in an equally astonishing way. But Mr. Rose was not finished yet. He put a "magic box" on the magician's stand and began to tell this story of his childhood dreams of becoming a magician. With each period of his life, the box labeling mysteriously changed from 'gibberish' to 'Majic Show' to 'Magic Show'. Throughout each time period cards were discarded back into the box but the number of cards in his hand never seemed to diminish and sometimes even grew in number! Finally, all cards were discarded into the box and the audience was then shown that the box was empty. No cards to be found; not anywhere!
Shawn Miller, performed next with several cool effects. Incidentally, I believe that Shawn created several of the props and gimmicks that he utilized. First up was an effect where he changed gems into diamonds simply by squeezing them in his hand. For his second endeavor, he solicited the help of Christy Kinsey and performed a 'Wild' egg bag routine. I'm quite sure this trick should not be performed too many consecutive times because the final reveal was a glass shot of 'Wild Turkey' bourbon!
Dressed in a wacky clown outfit, Jimmy Rhodes, produced a deck of cards each having a different back. With Dane Dover assisting, Dane was asked to place two cards from a separate deck face up into the deck. Using those two cards as marker cards, Dane draws the card immediately following his cards and places them face down on the table. Unbelievably, when turned face up, the cards matched Dane's original marker cards exactly as the 9 of hearts and the 9 of diamonds! If that weren't enough, it was then revealed that all the remaining cards in the deck were fives!
Trying to juggle all these acts can be a challenge but if anyone could do it you might select Ralph Felder. Ralph has quite a few accomplishments to his name with one of them being a juggler. While votes were being tallied, Ralph entertained the audience with a lesson on various juggling techniques including the Cascade technique and the Steve Mills "Mill's Mess" technique.
Congratulations goes out to all who participated this year. 3rd place went to Shawn Miller, runner-up to Jimmy Rhodes, and 1st place to Derrick Rose.