Some of our members performed June 30 at the Second Annual National Press Club Picnic at Bon Air Park in Arlington. Here are some photos. (Top to bottom: Dwight Redman, Larry Lipman (a.k.a., Lorenzo the Great), and Sam Brothers)

Egg Bag, July 2007

THE EGG-BAG
Monthly Newsletter of the Larry West Assembly No. 23
Society of American Magicians

The Larry West Assembly Meets the 3rd Wednesday every month at the
National Press Club, at 14th and F Streets, N.W. in Washington, D.C.

Join us for magic, fun & fellowship. Cocktails start at 6 p.m., dinner at 6:30 and the Meeting at 8 p.m.

OUR NEXT MEETING – JULY 18, 2007
Theme for this meeting
PICNIC

Tricks you could do to entertain at a company/group picnic. Ideally, these would be tricks you could immediately repeat with little or no reset.

DUES ARE NOW PAST DUE

Dues are now past due – Our dues are only $10 per year, a real bargain. If you have not yet paid dues for this new fiscal year (April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008), you may pay the Treasurer, Noland Montgomery, at the meeting or mail you check payable to Larry West Assembly 23 to Noland Montgomery, 3621

Dunnington Rd., Beltsville MD 20705.

OFFICER FOR 2007-2008

President - Larry Lipman
Vice President - Matt Hiller
Treasurer - Noland Montgomery
Secretary - Ray Eyler

Egg-Bag Reporter–Sam Brothers

JUNE HAPPENING

Due to the national convention schedule and summer weather, the meeting was attended by about 10 brave people. It seemed that the mail was delivered as most performed to the theme, Please Mr. Postman, with several card tricks, one rubberband trick, and a stamp trick. Note: It was Rick's last evening as he was moving out of the area.

This was our out-going President's, James Munton's, last meeting as he is relocating to Dallas, Texas. We will miss him and his magical contributions. Good Luck and good magishing James..

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

Friends:
If you're like me, there are primarily three reasons for being a member of S.A.M. Assembly 23:
* the opportunity to improve your magic
* the opportunity to learn new magic
* the opportunity to share in the fellowship of other magicians.

The Assembly officers had those objectives in mind as we tried to plan activities for the coming year. Here's what we have come up with.

There will be less emphasis this year on themes for the monthly meetings. I thought the idea of basing the themes last year on old Beatles songs was brilliant. If you tried to adhere to the theme, it forced you to be creative.

But, at the same time, some members may have felt constrained by the themes or inhibited about trying to perform a so-so trick just because it met the theme. So, this year we are going to try something different.

Our overall theme for this year will be: "show us what you want to show us" either because you want to get more practice performing the trick before a live audience or because it's a work in progress and you'd like to get some input from your peers. We'll give both types of performers ample opportunity to meet those needs.

We'll have a few themes based on the calendar. For example, our October theme will be Halloween magic. That will give you a chance to dust off some tricks you may only do once a year (I know I've got a couple that fall into that category) in time to get some performing practice in before you may have to do it in an actual show. Our November theme will be Holiday magic for the same reason. Bring out those Christmas, Hanukah and Kwanza tricks you may only perform once a year. And our January theme will be Love Story – in time to get ready for Valentine's Day.

And our theme for this Wednesday night's meeting will be "Picnic Magic." What I mean by that is basically strolling magic that you could do – and redo without the need to slip away to reset your tricks – at a picnic or similar function. I'm going to expand on that a bit because I know that at least two of our members will be performing strolling magic two nights later at bookstores offering late night Harry Potter book events. So the theme is basically non-reset strolling magic

Regardless of what the theme is for the month, you DO NOT have to follow the theme. "They be more like guidelines," as the famous line from Pirates of the Caribbean goes. The overriding theme is "show us what you want."

In addition, we are hoping to have at least two lectures. The officers had some good ideas of folks to invite, but if you have ideas please send them to me at lorenzomagic@cox.net.

In addition to the two professional lectures, we'd like to try monthly "mini-lectures" by our members. The idea there is to have one member a month demonstrate a move, a technique or a trick and teach the rest of us. Ideally, you will have hand-outs, but they are not required. Obviously you won't be demonstrating proprietary, commercially sold tricks, but there is plenty of magic in the public domain that can be shown and taught. If you'd like to be a demonstrator one month, let me know. If not I may have to "volunteer" some members.

Finally, the best way to improve your magic performance is to perform. So we'll be giving you opportunities to do just that. Of course you will be expected to perform at all meetings that do not involve a lecturer. In addition, we'll have performing events at the National Press Club. Three of us, Sam Brothers, Dwight Redman and I, performed recently at the NPC annual picnic. We hope that becomes an annual performance opportunity for our members. In December, the Press Club will have its annual children's holiday party and we'll be looking for performers. In late January, the NPC will inaugurate a new president and we'll be looking for a couple of classy strolling magicians. In April, we'll have two opportunities to perform: we'll be looking for a couple more classy strollers for the Press Club's centennial celebration; and we'll have our annual Press Club close up magic show. I'd love to see some new performers at some of these venues.

Speaking of the Press Club, please remember that the Assembly is a guest of the National Press Club and act accordingly. That means dressing appropriately – no T-shirts, shorts or flip-flops to the dinner meetings – and be sure to pay your dinner and bar tabs.

This is your Assembly. You can keep it strong in three ways: coming to meetings and participating; urging new members to join; paying your dues on time. If you have suggestions for improving the Assembly, please don't hesitate to contact me or any of the officers.

See you Wednesday.

Larry Lipman
President, Assembly 23, the Larry West Assembly