Secretary's Report - May 2023

This was a fun Thursday, May 4, 2023 for Ring 29. We had twenty-one members and guests join in on the fun at David's Burgers Restaurant in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Our meeting was led by our President, Dane Dover. After a few announcements of upcoming events, the magic began.

Wells Autrey (Dr. Wu) was a welcomed sight after a long absence due to relocation. Wells had an audience member lend him a regular deck of cards, a second person filled his request for some paper, and still another person loaned Wells a knife. Another request Wells made was for someone to lend him a Sharpie. Wells then had someone to select at random a card, write his their name on it then hide it back into the deck. Wells rolled the borrowed deck up in the borrowed paper and plunged the borrowed knife horizontally through the borrowed cards dividing them into a cut deck. With the knife retained mid-deck, Wells sliced the paper enough to reveal the deck and he removed the card under the flat of the knife blade. It proved to us all that Wells was still a Magic Master as he showed us all the randomly chosen-signed card!

Mr. Gerry Bailey (Mr. Always Fun) took a large empty ice bucket up to the performance table and out of nowhere grabbed half dollars and noisily plopped thirteen of them into the bucket. That wasn't the end of his performance though. As he walked away he had gestured as if commanding an invisible coin to materialize and slowly travel through the air and drop with a CLINK into the bucket.

Sid Salmans entered the stage and spread four cards (all Kings) and with a fun-filled bit of patter reversed them and let us re- view their faces but they had all turned to Jokers! Al Henager (Mr. Young at Heart) put in a good word for "Oz Magic Manufacturing" as he set up his purchase from that business consisting of a compact, fold-out, stable and portable tabletop easel to hold his beautiful Jumbo-Jumbo 3 Card Monte. He gave us a "true" story of his trip to a country fair where he had to keep his eye on the Queen even when the game was played with two cards and then only one card.

Joel Nicholson is still trying to get his card mentalism trick to work but his best tonight was an improvement as he got two out of three.

Joey Williams (The Ageless Master of Illusion) picked up a napkin off the table and with a sharpie wrote a prediction and hid it from us. He then borrowed an iPhone from Dr. Wu and had him type in and set of numbers on the calculator keyboard, then type in 5248 and pick any symbol to add, subtract, divide or multiply by and repeat this process with 333 and 8687. The result shown on the calculator was a match for the prediction Joey had made. Amazing!

Mary Ann Campbell (mac@moneymagic) took the 3 Card Monte to a new level when she told us the story of how she applied it at a convention meeting performance. She used the Queen card to produce a broach (theme of the lecture) with the company sponsor name and logo imprinted also on the card.

5 and 2 Pictures by Rich and Christiano produced a Christian movie that played in Jonesboro, Arkansas in February and three nights in Las Vegas, Nevada. The movie trailer can be seen at MindReaderMovie.com. It is about a mentalist magician that won't tell how he does his act to a Magic Society. Our own Ring 29 member Jon Bucher has a bit part in the movie and he was introduced to attendees of the movie after it played in Jonesboro. He gave a short message and performed an impactful magic trick with the question "Do You Know How to get to Heaven?" Jon is helping to find sponsorship for the movie to come play in Searcy, Arkansas.

At our meeting Jon pulled out two cards and proceeded to fold one "widthitudianally" (is this even a word!) and the other "longitudinally" and when placed together, after being folded, one card changed suite when pushed inside the other.

Blake Puckett gave some patter while producing an ethereal bag containing a fried chicken leg with two eyeballs on it, we call it the "MCL for Magic Chicken Leg". Blayk had a Wells Autry choose a card and place it back in the deck. The deck was then cut by a Patrick Taft six times. Blayk did not see the card selected as it was cut two more times. Blayk said, "Now there is no way the magic chicken leg can know about your card". Then Blayk had his volunteer cut and multi-deal into two stacks, the cards making the conditions impossible for the MCL to know what card had been selected. He cut it two more times and had the volunteer shuffle it under impossible conditions. Blayk picked up the two stacks and asked the Magic Chicken Leg which card was picked and the magic chicken leg correctly divined the card.

Paul Carlon was not to be outdone by Blayk Puckett's "Mentalis Two-Eyed Fried Chicken Leg". Paul pulled out his version of a "Mentalist French Fry" and with a borrowed deck of cards and Sid Salmans to taking the cards behind his back, cut them twice then select a card from the top or bottom to show Paul. The Magic French Fry had predicted the same card and Paul showed it was the Queen of Hearts.

Stay Magical!
Joel Nicholson
Ring 29 Vice President

“Once again, I thank Joel for stepping in for me this month. I hated to miss the meeting but a family priority took precedence.”
Marty