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.

Compeers,

Cesareo Pelaez passed away on March 23, 2012. He was a PNP of the S.A.M. He was the creator of Le Grand David in Beverly, Mass. and he was a friend of Frank Dailey. Also among his friends were Dal Sanders, Maria Ibañez, Bruce Kalver, David Cresey, and Taylor Martin. He created the longest running magic show in history with L.G.D. and helped with the founding of the Society of American Magicians.

The loss of 2 Past National Presidents of the S.A.M. in a week is quite sad. Both helped the organization though rough times and showed that magic brings diverse groups together in the love of the world's oldest performing art form.

Compeers,

As has already been posted on this site, it is with deep sorrow that we mark the passing of our own, Past National President of the Society of American Magicians, Frank Dailey.  Many of you have asked about a broken wand ceremony.  There will indeed be a broken wand ceremony.  I am honored to have been asked by Frank's daughter, Sharon, to perform the ceremony as a part of his funeral service on Monday, March 26th at Noon at:

Chapel Hill United Methodist Church,
963 N. Girls School Rd.
Indianapolis, IN.

I would encourage all of you that are able to either come to the visitation on Sunday or to the funeral on Monday, to demonstrate the great love and affection that we all share for our beloved Compeer, Frank.

Friends: Frank Dailey has died. He passed quietly in his sleep on Wed. Here's the details for Franks' funeral. I hope someone will perform the broken wand ceremony for him. Viewing Sunday 5 - 8pm Stevens Mortuary 5520 W. 10th Street Indianapolis, IN 46244 317-241-6163 Funeral Monday noon Chapel Hill United Methodist Church 963 N. Girls School Rd. Indianapolis, IN 317-241-6163 In lieu of flowers please support the Society of Young Magicians SYM Fund c/o Brad Jacobs 234 Towyn Court Ambler, PA 19002 Taylor Martin Producer, Indy Magic Monthly

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.  

Magic Lovers and IML Members, We've got some great lectures lined up for you. They will all be held at Irvington United Methodist Church, 30 North Audubon, 46219: Paul Cummins Saturday, February 25th at 6:00 PM Aaron Fisher Monday, March 12th at 7:00 PM Blog link: http://blog.aaronfishermagic.com/?p=815 David Stone Thursday, April 19th at 7:00 PM Mark your calendars for these three great lectures. Google their names, and plan now to attend! Any questions, drop us an e-mail! Don & Karen Miller indymagiclecture@aol.com

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.

AM #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.

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.