February was the month for valentines and romance.  Thus, our theme was Magic From the Heart.  Our hearts were warmed with stories of valentine flowers,, the two streams of life, dreams which come true, and magic parasols.

Jim Croop kicked off the evening of romantic magic with the Anniversary Waltz using the Doc Eason handling originally described by Chris Carter.  He introduced it as two people, two cards and two streams of life. Daniel Lee followed up with the 'Hula Fusion' version of the same effect by Carl Andrews.  They both were assisted by our very own romantic couple, Christian and Katalina Painter.  

Mike Root told us the story of the valentine flower he had purchased for his wife, which, unfortunately, fell off the stem and could not be found.  The story had a happy ending as the flower eventually reappeared and Mike was able to salvage his Valentine's Day remembrance.  Tom Winterrowd then shared an effect he has been doing for 60 years.  It had to do with his breakaway parasol (also 60 years old) and mysterious silks which his wife found in her purse in place of the money she was looking for.  

Christian and Katalina topped off the evening with their version of a Woody Aragon's The Other Half.  They called it dreams.  We each were given four dreams (cards).  After tearing them in half followed by a series of random discards and shuffles, the two remaining halves matched!  Thus, demonstrating that dreams do come true in the month of romance.  As a bonus, Christian taught us a coin trick, Impromptu Change, which will be described in one of his upcoming MUM columns.

A highlight of the evening was Christian and Katalina reporting on their recent  trip to Japan.  They were much impressed with the rigor of magic rehearsals, the expertise of the deaf magicians, and the magic bars for which admission  is $100 per person for two hours. 

Taylor Martin was our professor for our monthly teaching session. This month's lesson was from Volume 3 of Tarbell, pages 308-310.  Using 18' silks we relearned the art of tying a square knot and then learned the mysteries of the dissolving knot and the pull apart knots.  Taylor is an excellent teacher and his one on one tutoring was 'knot' in vain.