Club Magic Show “Spellbound”, Saturday, April 19, 2008, Lakeview Museum, Peoria

A large crowd gathered to see the area's finest magicians perform.  Master of Ceremonies Jerry Tupper was produced from a Bryce's Screen.  In Act 1, David Taylor performed classic magic including his Rice and Checkers routine.  Brad Borland demonstrated some mentalism with audience members choosing random poker hands which were not enough to beat his hand and a routine with four audience members and four colored paper balls, correctly identifying which person would select the red ball.  Adam Shake produced some colored silks from an empty Square Circle box.  Then, using a large fish bowl of water, placed different colored sands inside the bowl and stirred up the water which turned purple and removed the sand one color at a time from the bowl with the water turning clear once again.  Chris Bontjes performed a  comedy routine with a youngster from the audience including a bit with a stiff rope.  Brock Cassidy and Billy Pierce performed the Substitution Trunk to modern rock music switching places from inside and outside a large wooden crate.  Doc Lowery demonstrated his unique talents with a vent routine using Grandma.  Tony Mitchell performed a colored parasol effect and later did his Zombie floating ball routine.

In Act 2, Gordon Snow did his famous Sidekick routine using a boy from the audience who selected one card from a deck of jumbo cards with alphabet letters.  After placing the deck on a stand on his table, Gordon asked the boy to aim the "light refractor" wand at the deck to shoot the card out.  Instead, the front black table skirting came off and a rose in a vase on the table popped out.  On the next attempt, a jumbo letter "E" appeared on the table, which was incorrect.  Upon finding out the letter was incorrect, mysteriously, a part of the letter fell off revealing the correct letter "F."  Allen Broomfield performed some mentalism including using a calendar day planner that had different cards written on each date of the year.  Upon asking an audience member for the birth date, Allen correctly predicted the card on that date.  He also did a routine where four audience members each select one of six poker chips wrapped in foil (three blue and three red).  He correctly predicted the color each person chose and the order in which they were chosen.  Paul Buob performed a wonderful routine using roses including a red silk to rose on his suit lapel, appearing roses, and color-changing roses and a special board of letters in which some letters moved to form the word "Rose."  Char Gott, assisted by Ed Gott, selected a boy from the audience to help out.  In the routine, milk was poured from a large Abbott's milk pitcher into a newspaper cone (accompanied by Char's original rhyming patter).  A little milk trickled out onto the floor from the bottom of the cone, but when the cone was held above the boy's head and opened, the remaining milk had vanished.  She also took a large piece of white paper and rolled it into a tube, inserted several colorful scarves, and then, when two youngsters from the audience pulled out the silks, they blended into one giant colored rainbow streamer that stretched across the width of the stage.  Upon opening the paper tube, "It's Magic - We're Spellbound!" was written inside.  Grant Golden performed a couple of illusions to conclude the show including one with his assistant Rayanna whose head was placed inside a chest and several swords were placed into the chest only to have her head vanish upon showing the inside.  An assistant was also placed on a board between two supports and remained levitating in mid-air when the supports were removed.

A special thanks to all those who helped produce the show including Greg McNeil (show manager), Kyle Bassett and Byron Niebuhr (stage hands), Karl Niebuhr (refreshments), Carol Lowe, Kathy Martin and Nicole Shake (tickets), Steve Spain, Alan Henricks (sound) and walk-around entertainers Greg Joyce, Jon Yates, Troy Keefer, and Mike Tate.  

April Meeting, Monday, April 21, 2008

This month’s meeting focused on magic that relates to elements of science or mechanical workings.  Grant Golden demonstrated an effect using a coffee cup, string, a washer, and a wand.  The string was attached to the cup and the washer and both were set onto the wand.  There was a challenge to drop both items from the wand and to catch the cup before it hit the floor.  With the set up, the string attached to the washer wrapped around the wand thus making the cup stop short of hitting the floor.  Doc Lowery showed a colorful streamer and transformed it into a cane.  Jon Yates performed an effect where a coin is placed into a bandana and dropped into a glass of water where it disappears.  Greg Joyce provided an effect relating to air pressure and water pressure after mentioning the local Clean Water Celebration and Earth Day.  With Byron Niebuhr volunteering, Greg placed three paper cups on the table with a different colored silk (blue, green, red) in front of each cup.  Byron verified that the cups were empty and chose two of the cups to eliminate, leaving the cup with the green silk.  From a clear bottle of drinking water, Greg poured water into the cup and placed a flat popcorn box on top of the cup and inverted them and placed them onto Bryon’s head where he held the cup in place.  After, mentioning that the air pressure is greater on the outside than the inside of the cup, the water stayed inside the cup.  Looking for directions to complete the effect, Greg removed the popcorn box from under the cup leaving a cup with no water on top of Byron’s head.  On the back of the popcorn box was a sign that read “Do Not Remove.”  Greg then revealed a sign that asked for applause and stated that he was still a little “green” with this effect.

Ken Scott Lecture, Sunday, April 27, 2008

The lecture was postponed due to a scheduling conflict and plans are to reschedule the lecture at a later date.

Ken was in Springfield for the Central Illinois Magic Get-Together and performed a nice set of family magic including silk magic and an egg bag routine with a youngster from the audience.  He had some very clever and interesting dealer items as well.  So look for Ken’s lecture later on.

www.kenscottmagic.com

Central IL Magic Get-Together, Saturday, April 26, 2008

The Get-Together was held in Springfield at the Hoogland Center located downtown.