Ring Report
November 9, 2008

The theme for the November meeting was Turkeys. The names of the performers and manufacturers have been omitted from this Ring Report, but they were shared freely at the meeting.

Brother Don Paul began by telling how, as a child, he had been fascinated by a Rice, Orange, and Checkers set in a magic shop. The kindly owner told him that he really didn't want that. Years later, when Brother Don learned that the Chinese did not play checkers with three-inch blue and yellow wooden checkers, he had reason to recall the owner's good advice. Brother Don told his tale of a cheap, unworkable Fire Bowl he once owned that relied on dropping a lit cigarette butt into the bowl as it was produced. He shared the tale of a performer using a Fire Bowl that was designed to ignite via a chemical reaction caused when two liquids mixed. The bowl was designed so that when it was vertical in the performer's coat, the liquids would not mix, but as it was tilted horizontally upon production, the liquids wuld mix, and it would ignite. As the performer was being introduced, he dropped an item, and bent over to pick it up. This made his opening act an escape from a flaming jacket, which burned colorfully on stage after the performer had torn it off and patted out the flames on his shirt.

Professor Miller showed a wretched multiplying pocket watch set with several major flaws. The initial display of the watch was rather sensitive to angles; a view no more than ten degrees to either side revealed a thick stack of watches in the performer's hand. The method required the performer to wear gloves, and produced sharp noises at sensitive moments. Professor Miller was at a loss to imagine an artistic escape from the closing position, in which the left hand is immobilized as a display rack. He then showed a homemade set with several improvements, which still failed to dazzle the assembled members.

Danny Baker showed a busted-every-time Vanish Box with angle problems, especially for those who, like Danny, perform for children sitting on the floor. He showed a peculiar Miracle Coins effect, in which four coins vanish one at a time when removed from a large, unattractive coin display rack, only to make their appearance in a plastic glass held in the other hand. Finally, he brought down the house with an garish Balls and Tubes set. He used large square tubes to vanish tennis-ball-sized plastic balls, accompanied by sliding and thunking noises, as the allegedly empty tubes were turned over to show that the ball had vanished. As the tubes were turned over, Danny found it difficult to conceal the large slits on the back of each tube that allowed this turkey to flap its wings.

Gary Jewell showed a poor choice of Halloween magic, based on animating a plastic skeletal hand held in the palm. The Okito-doll mechanism exceeded Gary's pain threshold. Sideshow performer Dr. Wilson, immune to pain, undertook a successful animation of the hand, but pointed out the superiority of the straw Okito doll due to its light weight compared to the cast-resin hand. What were they thinking?

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