The theme for the August 6 2012 meeting of the Harry Riser Assembly was "magicians' choice." The choices turned out to be most interesting and abundant. Nine magicians performed. Jim Croop, who also served as our master of ceremonies, began the evening with his version of Paul Gordon's "Psychotronic Rides Again." Jack Weigle then took a deck of cards and did two effects. The first one was entitled, "It's Up His Sleeve" by William Zavis found in Divers Deceits, (1973). The second was Jay Sankey's "Outsider" from his DVD "Sankey's Best Card Magic." Gerry Thompson demonstrated his newly obtained "Sixth Sense" effect. He asked the club members for assistance in developing a story to go with the effect. Jay Newby performed the Johnny Thompson version of the "Endless Chain" or "Fast and Loose."  Daniel Lee did a nice rendition of Oz Pearlman's "Clutch." Taylor Martin used 50 year old slates to do the "Spirit Slates." The slates were sold to him in Canada by a toy merchant who said he got them from a school in Ontario. And finally, Michael Ray did his version of Calin Merelli's "Dress Code." It was a fun evening with much magic as each performer did one of his favorites.

Here is the report submitted to MUM magazine for our May 7 meeting. The report included a photo of Jim Croop and Dee Saul doing Jim's ring on string routine. The theme for our May 7th meeting was "Rings and Strings." Master of Ceremonies, Jim Croop, kicked off the evening with a very fun version of Diamond Jim Tyler's Ring and String Routine his own patter and ending with Ron Vergilio's Offring. Shawn Hull then shared with us a piece of sculpture he had recently purchased, much to his wife's dismay. It was a model of a hand enclosed in a glass case. Continuing with the theme of the evening, Shawn then placed a ring on a rope. The ring eventually disappeared, only to be found on one of the fingers of the sculptured hand. Taylor Martin, explaining that rings are nothing more than simple circles, then proceeded to do a very nice rendition of the Afghan Bands. Finally, Tom Winterrowd, in an effort to be "fair and square" reminded us that the classic linking rings started out as eight rings, then six, then three. He showed us only one ring, which suddenly became a square. Following the presentations there was a stimulating discussion regarding the history of rings on ropes (strings) which goes back at least to the 1500's. Reflecting on the pros and cons of using borrowed rings generated several horror stories. The conversation drifted onto the multiple variations of the linking rings--mentioned were effects such as floating rings, linking coat hangers, barbed wire linking rings, and linking rings with black light effects. The election of officers for the coming year resulted in all of the current officers being re-elected--President, Steve Spence; First Vice President, Don Miller; Second Vice President, Taylor Martin, Secretary, Karen Miller; Treasurer, Jay Newby, and Scribe, Dale Benson.

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.

SAM #31 March 2012 Meeting The theme was coin magic. The "coin guys" turned out in full force. Coins were appearing, disappearing, multiplying, flying through the air, turning up underneath cards and ending up in impossible places. Our esteemed President and MC for the evening, Steve Spence, kicked things off with a coin routine called Chinese Miser's Dream by Henry Evans. He used his own original patter. The bar having been set quite high by Steve, Mike Kohrman followed by doing his own presentation of a matrix routine with two coin related twists. For twist number one he used the Danny Archer "Coin Card" which secreted four coins onto the mat. The second twist used a shimmed magnetic card which enabled the magnetic coins, Canadian quarters, to disappear at the end. Taylor Martin performed a flurry of coin illusions including his own independently developed "Four Coins Through Hand", a very nice Okito Box routine, and an original with a watch bag, "Two Bits, Four Bits, Six Bits...". He concluded with another original, a "Broken and Restored Coins" routine. Jim Croop entertained us with Michael Rubinstein's version of "Nest of Boxes". This is a close up illusion where the magician's assistant's copper coin, trades places with the magician's silver coin. Both coins are signed by the magician and the assistant, and then quick as a flash, they trade places. The assistant's signed coin is found buried deep within a nest of boxes. As always, Barry Rice astounded us with his dexterity and showmanship. This time his coin routine included a very nicely done muscle pass. He also included a retention vanish, some hand washing, and a giant coin production. Tom Winteraud presented "Nine Coins on a Tray". Four spectators selected one each. Much to our surprise, upon counting it was found that there were still nine coins on that tray. A highlight of the evening was the membership initiation ceremony for Christian Painter. In his uniquely entertaining style, he fulfilled the requirement for membership by performing some magic. He did a card routine, his own invention on the oil and water premise and "Nether Blind nor Stupid" from Juan Tamariz. For a bonus, since it was Coin Night, he threw in a coin magic variation he developed out of the book Now You See It, Now You Don't by Bill Tarr. The membership vote was unanimous. Christian is now a proud member of SAM #31.  

This is the report being sent to MUM magazine regarding our February 6, 2012 meeting. It seems to take the magazine a couple of months to get the report in, so expect to see it in the April issue. The theme was magic with everyday objects, also called household or impromptu magic. Whatever we called it, the meeting had to do with how to do interesting magic with the objects around you, often, but not always, on the spur of the moment. Before we began the magic, the Assembly took time to recognize Taylor Martin, who was the recipient of a well deserved President's Citation for "keeping magic alive in the public eye." (The January 2012 issue of MUM Magazine includes an article describing all of his extensive "magic in the public eye" activities.) Master of Ceremonies, Jim Croop, then began the everyday objects evening by mysteriously passing a pen through a ten dollar bill with no damage to the bill. He then took off his ring, placed it on the same pen. Suddenly it disappeared from the pen and ended back on his ring finger. The tone being set for the evening, Daniel Lee borrowed a woman's ring and slid it off and then back on the "eating end" of a spoon. Steve Spence took another household item, a newspaper, and entertained us with the Axel Hecklan version of the torn and restored newspaper. Phil Dubbs started out with a sponge ball on his nose, which upon removal became as many as ten sponge balls and then back to two. He credited Martin Gardner for the effect. Phil announced that sponge balls are definitely household items, at least in his house! Don Miller, assisted by eight year old Jack Thompson, shared his newly developed patter with the Horizontal Card Rise. He covered the dome with a towel, clearly a household item, although he did claim that it was a magic towel! Mike Root topped off the evening with some fast paced rubber band magic. Several members of SAM #31, Taylor Martin and Don Miller among them, worked as professional entertainers at the Super Bowl Village which took place in Indianapolis the ten days before the Super Bowl. They performed an exorbitant number of hours on the street, met some very interesting Patriots, Giants and Colts fans, and had a really good time. They received very positive feedback from the Indianapolis Super Bowl Committee, and represented with distinction our city, the profession of magic, and the Society of American Magicians.

This was the month for silks. We enjoyed some well performed silk magic and much interesting discussion regarding the pros and cons of using silks. First, Barry Rice did a very nice version of the first magic trick he remembers seeing. He was eight years old at the time. Two silks--one blue and one yellow--much to his surprise continually changed colors and never seemed to be the color he anticipated. We became even more perplexed when he "demonstrated" how it was done. Taylor Martin then accompanied his cleverly performed silk mystery with a mini lecture on silk magic, showing us how to do dissolving knots, solid through solid using silks, the knot around the wrist, and other possible effects with silks. The group discussion centered around the question of why is silk magic not used more often in the everyday general repertoire. For every downside for using silks, another member mentioned an upside. The general consensus was that in spite of problems with wrinkling and time for set up, etc., silk magic well done can add a great deal to the ambience of a show. To wrap up the evening, MUM columnist Christian Painter and his wife, Katalina, each entertained us with marvelously performed versions of fun effects. Christian shared with us the story of the Borga family in Italy, members of royalty, who enjoyed the entertainment of poisoning the common folk. Three audience members tried to stump him, but Christian always knew which of five possible foods contained the poison. Katalina did a very creative rendition of what the rest of us call "Will the Cards Match?" The cards were unique, her version was unique, and, yes, the cards matched.

The Harry Riser SAM #31 October 2011 Meeting Report October is the month for ghosts and spooks. So we gathered with much anticipation and a fair amount of apprehension for our "spooky tricks" themed evening of magic. First though, and this was not spooky, we had two candidates for SAM#31 membership--Daniel Lee and Aaron Kalinowski. As required, they both performed. Daniel did a breathtaking rendition of the Professor's Nightmare with multiple amazing variations. Actually that nightmare was kind of spooky with all of its surprises! Aaron then presented a fascinating history of magic shops. We learned of the oldest magic shops in the world. He concluded with a description of his visit to Davenports (the oldest family run magic shop) in the London Underground and his rather spooky encounter in The Tube outside the shop with a little old lady and a mysterious gift. Both candidates were then accepted by the membership and survived the official induction ceremony. Master of Ceremonies, Jay Newby, capitalizing on the Halloween atmosphere, while discussing the history of spooky magic his right eyeball popped out. Fortunately he was able to replace it. He then did the matrix accompanied by a frightening story of four innocent people camping in four separate tents along a river which happened to be next to an insane asylum! His sound effects frightened us all! Taylor Martin then added a bit of mentalism to the mood of the evening. He introduced us to The Complete Works of Shakespeare, 1.4 million words. He then had audience members randomly choose a page number out of the 800 pages in the book. Aided by the mysterious spirits of Halloween he was able to mentally sense the first and last word on the chosen page. If that wasn't astounding enough, he did it again with a randomly selected Shakespearian sonnet found at the back of the book. Contributing to our eerie meeting, our esteemed president, Steve Spence, then shared a video of Neil Patrick Harris performing Tobin's Palingenesia--one of the more frightening, albeit entertaining, illusions ever created. As a grand finale, brand new member, Daniel Lee, asked an audience member to write a random name on a business card and to circle the first initial. He then asked the spectator to squeeze his (Daniel's) arm very hard. The initial on the business card gradually became visible in the resulting red patch of skin. Now that was spooky! SAM #31 meets the first Monday of the month at 7:00 pm. If the first Monday conflicts with a holiday weekend, we postpone the meeting one week. Unless otherwise announced the meeting location is the Irvington United Methodist Church, 30 Audubon Road on the east side of the city. See our website for details: www.sam31.com.

The Harry Riser SAM #31 September 2011 Meeting Report More than twenty magicians of all ages made it to the combined SAM #31 and IBM Ring 10 meeting which was held at The Forum retirement center so that Harry Riser could be in attendance. The theme was favorite card tricks. As you can imagine, nearly everyone had a favorite card routine--except for a few hard and fast coin guys! Ten magicians performed and we saw everything from the classic Curry's Out of This World presented by George Nataros to a Stinky Card Trick created by Taylor Martin. Dee Saul did a variation of Larry Jennings' Invisible Palm, but added coins to the card effect. Significantly, out of the ten card routines, there was only one "pick a card" trick. A highlight of the evening was Harry Riser, our club's namesake, teaching us several one handed routines. Harry is recovering from his stroke and is still working on regaining function in his left arm and hand. Thus, he has developed right handed routines. He taught us the right thumb break and demonstrated other lessons in smooth card handling. As always, Harry's teaching was clear, to the point, and interspersed with interesting and relevant stories from his magic career. There was enlightening discussion regarding what makes card magic so compelling to magicians. Many of those attending noted what originally attracted them to cards.There was also dialog regarding the three moves most essential in card magic. The consensus was the double lift, the break and the false cut. An important observation made by Dee Saul is that card magic is like playing a guitar. It is easy to play it poorly, but is is very difficult and takes much practice to play it well. The other magicians who performed included Sean Hull, David Lee, Jay Newby, Joe Scott, Don Miller and Barry Rice. SAM #31 meets the first Monday of the month at 7:00 pm unless there is a conflict with a holiday weekend. Unless otherwise announced the meeting location is the Irvington United Methodist Church, 10 Audubon Road on the east side of the city. See our website for details: www.sam31.com.

The Harry Riser SAM #31 August 2011 Meeting Report The theme was sponge balls.  The evening was fun with much creativity on display.  Our Master of Ceremonies was Jim Croop.  As usual, he did a superb job, not only in leading the discussion and introducing the performers, but also leading off with Daryl's Papa Hits the Big Time sponge routine.  First he produced a rabbit from his hands at the audience's request. And then to show it was possible, he produced a bird. A rabbit in one hand.  A bird in the other.  They magically traded places.  But was it magic? No just an illusion as sponges could be either a rabbit or a bird. He introduced the 2 rabbits as the lady and the gentleman rabbit.  They mysteriously jumped from one hand to the other both in Jim's hands and an audience member's hand.  Ultimately, the lady and gentleman rabbit ended up together in the spectator's hands.  What happened next cannot be described in a family magazine.  Suffice it to say that the result was multiple little rabbits. Then Taylor Martin did a beautiful job with Al Goshman's "And Then There Were Four."   He followed up with multiple surprises as shapes changed, colors changed, and a cube became a dog.  He credited Hank Lee for that one.  As a finale, Taylor performed his Gloved Sponge Ball routine which he has been developing over the years.  We all were amazed. Taylor interspersed his magic with very helpful teaching tidbits, such as "make your sponges a little moist.  They will look and perform better."  He also demonstrated the preparation and use of the sanada gimmick. Chris Henderson closed the evening performance with a surprising and funny effect.  The two of clubs was randomly selected and returned to the deck.    After a shuffle and a few cuts, Chris then announced that he would find the card which was unknown to him.  With a flourish he produced the four of clubs. Close, but two pips too many.  Bummer!  He got out his instructions and looked them over. With a thump to the card, two sponge clubs fell out from the card!  Lo and behold, he really did end up with the selected two of clubs.

The Harry Riser SAM #31 July 2011 Meeting Report The theme was manipulation. The conversation was fascinating. Exactly what is manipulation, since all magic is manipulating something? To be successful with manipulation, a lot of work is required. Is the pay-off worth it? But first the newly elected officers for the 2011-2012 year were formally introduced and inducted. Three officers were reelected for another term--Steve Spence, president, Karen Miller, secretary, and Jay Newby, treasurer. Elected to new positions included Don Miller, 1st vice president, Taylor Martin, 2nd vice president, and Dale Benson, scribe. What followed was some outstanding magic, some responding to the manipulation theme, others on the "just for fun" theme.   KIcking it off was Master of Ceremonies Jim Croop entertaining us with the Elbow, Neck and Knee by Daryl.  Three coins magically transported from Jim's fist, one each to his elbow, knee and neck. Jack Weigle then did Jay Sankey's Practice Deck, where cards are kept secure on a shoestring.  Two selected cards were added back into the pack. With a quick tug, the only cards left on the shoestring where the two selected cards.  And the holes in all of the other cards had disappeared!   Taylor Martin did some beautiful manipulations--first with sponges--the ball became a square which became a "doggie." He then moved from sponges to Vernet's balls--three silver and one green. Finally he shared a version of the universal pop up move. This one with Dan Garret's carrots. Barry Rice told us of his most recent trip to Home Depot during which he purchased three nuts and then proceeded to do "All Screwed Up" from Doc Eason's Bar Magic video series. He persisted in tossing two into his left hand and putting one in his pocket. All three inevitably ended up in the left hand, one of them becoming a carriage bolt. He also asked for feedback on his new gambling routine. He got it. Daniel Lee did Andrew Main's Ghost Bill and Marcus Eddy's rubber bands stairway. It was amazing to watch that bill walk up the steps. Steve Spence did a very fun version of what he called the Cup of Deception. Was that die in the cup, in the hand or in the pocket? It was never where we expected and the finale was a huge surprise. JIm Croop, our master of ceremonies, once again took the spotlight and set up a poker game with five players and five cards each. There is not enough space to describe what happened, but as you might expect, he was able to mentally discern a randomly selected card from each of the other four players. And finally, Mike Kohrman did a very smooth game of deuces with his Restless Colors. The cards turned all kinds of colors and all he had to do was to "rub it" and "shake it." Both the Indianapolis magic clubs, SAM #31 and IBM #10, have decided to try meeting together. This was the first fully combined meeting. It was a rousing success. On August 1 SAM #31 will meet at Wile Hall on the Methodist Hospital campus at 7:00 pm. On September 12 we will be meeting at the Forum at the Crossing at the same time. Contact president Steve Spence for details, sspence@mediationalternative.com.