I.B.M. Ring 362
Dr. James William Elliott Ring
Bangor, Maine

Ring Report
August 20, 2006

The August Meeting for I.B.M. Ring 362 was held at the Sebasticook Valley Community Center in Newport on August 20, 2006 at 2:30 pm. The theme of the meeting was I Made It Myself!

The meeting began with a teaching table on prop fabrication. Dr. Wilson began a performance segment by asking Wes Booth to select a card. He produced sixty feet of multicolored silk streamer from the card case, then another sixty feet from his hat. A silk at the end of all the streamer displayed an image of Wes's card. Dr. Wilson then displayed both sides of a folding screen, folding it to produce a six foot dragon silk from within. To atone for his Prize Candy scam, he loaded a can with confetti and hurled it at the audience, only to have it turn to candy at the last minute. Following his performance, he showed the construction and operation of all the apparatus. He also showed a number of other stage props and magical apparatus made from simple craft materials to illustrate painting and sculpting techniques using craft materials, Sculpt Or Coat, and epoxy putty. The lecture notes are available online at the Ring's web site.

New Ring member Kim Hawkins, a Ringling Clown College graduate and veteran performer, displayed a wonderous array of comic spooky props that she built. Ring members marveled at the colorful original artwork and goofy feeling as Kim produced bats, spooks, monsters, snakes and messages from beyond from spooky tubes, scary boxes, coffins, haunted towers, and miniature spirit slates. Kim explained the details of construction and operation of each item.

Wes Booth showed three blocks with the top, middle, and bottom of a popular cartoon character, then dropped them through a tube to stack them. Wes just couldn't get them to stack in the right order despite multiple attempts and suggestions from the audience. Wes then introduced his marvelous flying carpet illusion. Using a prop in place of a child atop the magic carpet, Wes removed the supporting panels, leaving the carpet suspended on two swords. He then removed the swords, leaving the carpet floating in midair in front of the wonderstuck audience. Our wonder was not diminished in the least when Wes completely explained both effects.

Alan Drew showed a mysterious empty box, which produced a number of articles magically. Brother Don offered Kim a choice of two decks; she picked one to use and put the other in her pocket. The card she selected had a word written on it, while all the other cards did not. Brother Don looked up the word in the dictionary, only to find the card name written on that page. He showed the rest of the pages free of graffitti. Brother Don followed with a Three Card Monte done with four jumbo cards, and a card effect in which he guided the participant to pick the only card that was different. In the spirit of the meeting, both Alan and Brother Don tipped everything.

The business meeting followed. Full details of the business meeting, photos of the performances, and lecture notes on prop fabrication are available on the Ring's web site (www.ibmring362.org).