For our April Fools meeting the theme was coin magic.  Jim Croop started the evening off with his own presentation of David Williamsonâ??s â??The Wishing Well.â?? It is an ungimmicked copper silver coin transposition.  Jim spun a very clever tale which included the wishing well, highway robbers, and silver and copper coins.    

Jay Newby, while demonstrating Boboâ??s â??Coin through the Ring,â?? which he would later be teaching us in the educational portion of the evening, outdid himself with an intriguing tale of how he ended up in the federal witness protection program.  We, of course, would not think of including his photo with this write up.

Later Jay followed up with a seemingly rational discussion about the appropriateness of performance or script in relation to the age of the audience.  He then proceeded to attempt to break a bottle and eat the glass (Tomas Medinaâ??s Geek Magic.)    Unfortunately, the bottle would not break, even after being hammered on the floor, so Jay went ahead and ate the glass anyway.  He says that next time he will use a Miller Lite bottle.

Taylor Martin, who almost always provides an interesting historical sidelight to his magic, produced an ancient Chinese coin, or so he said on April Fools Day, with a hole in the middle.  He then proceeded to entertain us with  the Silent Mora Coin Trick, also  described in Bobo's Modern Coin Magic. 

Two guests also performed.  Lion Fludd  followed Taylor with his â??authentic chinese coins from Mexico!â??  He then proceeded to thread three coins on a ribbon.  The coins, one at a time and all together, mysteriously were on the ribbon, then off the ribbon, then on again.  Jeff Jay, who bills himself as a master hypnotist, demonstrated that if you watch intently the spinning stripes on a wheel, a coin will appear to become smaller...then larger.  This inspired Lion to show us his version of an optical illusion using playing cards.  The chosen card appeared to have the illusion of a hole in the card.  This became a hole in the entire deck of cards, which then became a deck of cards with no hole.  April Fools!

The finale was provided by President Steve Spence who flawlessly performed his original presentation of the four mischievous Kennedy brothers represented by four Kennedy half dollars.  The handling for the effect was taken from Michael Rubinsteinâ??s â??Knockout Coin Magic.â??  Michael called it the â??two card reverse matrix.â??