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

Ring Report
November 12, 2006

The November Meeting of I.B.M. Ring 362 was held at the Friars' Bakehouse in Bangor, Maine. The theme of the meeting was Turkeys. Members were asked to bring magic that hadn't worked out for them. The names of the dealers and manufacturers have been withheld from this report, but were thrown about freely at the meeting.

Dr. Wilson showed the Reliquary of Foo Ling Yoo. A cylinder bearing the Chinese sage's likeness was shown empty, as was the reliquary through which the enchanted cylinder is normally viewed. After a brief invocation, a large quantity of silk was produced from the cylinder, followed by cans of yams, cranberry sauce, pineapple and Spam (there's too much Spam these days). The effect was enhanced by electronic heckling from a foul-mouthed battery-operated unit.

Danny Baker shuffled some alphabet cards and asked members of the audience to direct their placement in a display. When all the cards were placed, they spelled "turkeys." He showed his Busted Every Time Silk Trick, a blendo effect that fails due to mismatched hemming. His cheap Hydrostatic Glass fooled no one in a demonstration of why magic for under $2 generally fails to amaze.

Professor Miller, who has researched every method for Sands of the Desert, showed the worst one. Members stared in wonder as the Professor's talented hands fumbled through this nightmare. Expensive, too! Brother Don Paul showed a beautifully crafted but ridiculously unworkable Walking Knot.

Dayton Salisbury told the long tale of a small dog named Ralph, afflicted with an intestinal condition that made him somewhat less than man's best friend. Such was the power of the malodorous pooch that when an image of the beast was hidden in one of three boxes, a flower wilted over the box that contained the image. There was a great deal more detail than we cared to know in the story, turning what might have merely been a bad trick into the ultimate stinker.

Wes Booth presented an Incomprehensible Silk effect, or rather talked about how this expensive piece of flimsy apparatus had defied his attempts to perform it even once. He then performed a masochist's billiard ball routine, manipulating some spiky billiard balls that looked like shrapnel. He showed us that he knew the moves with an old set of wooden balls that didn't turn his fingers to hamburger.

After the themed performances were over, Wes Booth pushed a silk through a silk, did a two-coin routine, and made a kiss travel to the back of a selected card. Brother Don redeemed himself with a card effect in which two Jokers escort the four Queens; when one of the Queens was named, all the other Queens turned into Jokers. Professor Miller performed David Roth's Three Ball Routine. Danny Baker scared the boots off Dr. Wilson with a post-Halloween performance of "The Web."

Full details of the business meeting and photos are available on the Ring's web site (www.ibmring362.org).