Here is the report from our "April Foolers" SAM #31 meeting held April 2nd. This report, along with a photo, has been submitted to MUM magazine. The theme for our April 2nd meeting was "April Foolers", otherwise known as "sucker effects", or to be more politically correct, "failure effects." There was much discussion about the ethics of sucker effects. The general consensus was that the magician leads the audience down a path where the magician appears to be in trouble (the failure) . But then, a surprise ending fools everyone. Kicking off our evening of "April Foolers" our club president, Steve Spence, entertained us with his "Cup of Deception." It was based upon an effect called "Just a Cup" by Axel Hecklau. The intriguing patter was created by Steve. Tom Winterrowd told the tale of the magician with the white top hat and white rabbit. It turned out to be a very nice version of Hippity Hop Rabbits. He threw in a few true stories of when this "failure" trick really did fail, and it was all his fault. In keeping with the theme for the evening several die boxes appeared. Mike Root did a Shenanigan's Die Box. Taylor Martin followed up with a nicely done performance using a 1920s Thayer Splitting Die Box which he has had since the '60s. It was originally owned by a vaudeville magician named Preston. His patter was wonderful. Christian Painter did his own version of a "failure trick." The selected card seemed to get totally lost in the four highly shuffled piles. So lost, in fact, that Christian was forced to call upon Katalina to bail him out. She knew the card! Don Miller fooled everyone. His set of cards had the names of famous people. Of course, the selected card, Tom Cruise in this case, turned up in the envelop upon which his audience volunteer was sitting. Both the trick and the Miller humor were quite entertaining. Daniel Lee then did a series of moves using a variety of objects. There was no failure in this one. Just excellent slight of hand. The highlight of the evening was the initiation of two new members--Robin Myers and Katalina Painter. As required, each performed. Robin Myers spun a tale about the development of his particular effect which included an abundant use of legos and the ultimate production of a card castle. Katalina did two close up effects using cards and dice-each had very strong endings. The vote for both was unanimous.