Ring Report
March 21, 2010

Minutes for this meeting.

The theme for March was Old Wine in New Bottles. Members were asked reframe standard magic effects. Dr. Wilson opened the meeting with a Teaching Table on Ball, Cone, and Silk. This set of props was reintroduced to the magic community by Dai Vernon. The moves and routines are not well represented in the magic literature, with Dai Vernon being on record in the Revelations, volume 9, DVD that he was not satisfied with the routine that he had published through Lewis Ganson. Dr. Wilson cited sources for the moves, including Dai Vernon's Revelations, Jeff McBride's DVD set on Manipulation, and Jay Leslie's Ball Manipulation DVD. Dr. Wilson based his talk on the analysis of a Ball, Cone and Silk routine by Fred Kaps that can be seen on YouTube. He handed out a four-page analysis of the routine, then offered everyone a snooker ball and an 18" silk to learn one of the phases: the performer vanishes the ball, and after both hands and the silk are shown empty, produces it once again. Dr. Wilson worked up this presentation for a magic class at the upcoming Great Burlesque Exposition of 2010 in Boston.

Dr. Wilson, Professor Miller, Danny Baker, Prashant Srivastava, Bryan-Keith Taylor, and Alex Turanski each picked up a snooker ball and a silk. Several members had good tips on this phase and other moves with the ball and silk. Dr. Wilson and Professor Miller demonstrated cone moves with leather cones made by Frank Starsinic, while Bryan-Keith Taylor showed a cardboard cone with rolled edges beautifully made by an unknown manufacturer.

Professor Miller showed a beer bottle and a coin, demonstrating that the coin could not fit through the neck of the bottle. With a good strong slap, he sent the coin through the bottom of the bottle and showed it rattling around inside. He said that while any good magician could get a coin into a bottle, the hard part was getting it out again. He did so by turning the bottle inside out. Once the coin was out of the bottle, he showed us that the label was now on the inside.

Danny Baker asked each of us the old riddle about what's black and white and red all over. Over the animated conversations about newspapers and sunburned zebras, he showed a black shoelace and a white shoelace. He ran his hand down the white shoelace, and it turned red as he did so; then he removed the white shoelace from his vest pocket. The effect is part of Danny Baker's library show for this year's theme of "Dive Into Reading."

Full details of the business meeting and photos can be found at www.ibmring362.org.