The theme for the August 6th meeting of the Harry Riser Assembly was "new beginnings." The idea was to showcase tricks that each magician had recently begun working on. Considering that they were new beginnings, the tricks were extremely well performed. It was also the first evening for our new educational format which was also well received. Here is a quick review of the "new beginnings" which were enjoyed by the members. Jim Croop went first with with his version of Alex Linian's "Puncture 2.0" in which the black Bic went through the quarter. Aaron Kalinowski followed with "Psypher and the Holy Grail." Aaron had three spectators, one at a time pick a card, look at it, put it back in the deck and then send their brainwaves to the next person who picked a card and put it back in the deck and then send brainwaves to the third person.  It was only after the third person picked the card that Aaron revealed the name of the card that each of them had picked using his psychic powers. Taylor Martin did Paul Harris's "Free Flight" which involved four coins, his Okito Box, the coins disappearing through his hands (Taylor's original idea), and finally turning up under a card. As a part of the finale, the Okito box also ended up going through his hands. Mike Root did a Halloween-themed version of "Will the Cards Match" which one of the audience members suggested should be called "Will the Ghoul Match".  It put the audience in a pre-Halloween mood. Bill Coffee then topped off the magic with what on the surface started out to be a mind reading trick, then appeared to be messed up, but ultimately was brilliantly salvaged. The new educational format involves a member teaching a bit of magic found in one of the classic books of magic. This evening it was The New Modern Coin Magic, which is the 1966 revised version of J. B. Bobo's classic, Modern Coin Magic published in 1952 for the express purpose of, "reestablishing coin magic as a popular branch of conjuring." President Steve Spence shared interesting historical notes such as coins were first noted in the 8th Century BC and that it is safe to say that magic with coins likely began 2,000 years before cards. Steve then taught the group several classic coin moves including the classic palm, the thumb and finger palm, the back finger clip, and the Bobo and utility switches. It was a fun evening combining magic performance and magic education.