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 and fellowship. Cocktails start at 6 p.m., dinner at 6:30 p.m. and the meeting at 8 p.m. Dress code: please remember that the Assembly is a guest of the National Press Club. Gentlemen should dress business casual or better–no Tee-shirts, shorts, jeans or flip-flops to the dinner meetings. Ladies should dress correspondingly appropriately.
OUR NEXT MEETING – MARCH 19, 2008
SPECIAL MARCH EVENT:
Our March meeting will be the first Annual “Sammy Award” night honoring Barry Taylor. The evening will begin at 6:30 with cocktails, dinner at 7 p.m. is optional for $25 and the program will begin at 8 p.m. The program (not including any dinner) is free to Assembly 23 members and $10 for non-members. Attached to this newsletter is a flyer promoting the event for distribution to interested non-members.
FUTURE THEMES:
April-“Annual Close-up Show”
May-“Show us what you want to show us” and nomination of new officers
June-“Show us what you want to show us” and election of new officers
PERFORMANCES FROM FEBRUARY 2008 MEETING.
Rick Beatty performed three effects with the four aces. First, three aces were made to magically join a fourth ace held in a spectator’s hand. Then, the deck was divided into four piles, with one ace being placed in each pile and the piles returned to the deck. Rick spelled to the ace of diamonds and then to the ace of clubs. The last two aces were found when Rick cut them to the top of the deck. To finish, Rick again lost the four aces in the deck, had the deck shuffled and cut by a spectator, but still successfully cut the deck to each ace.
Noland Montgomery performed a “multiple selection” routine in which seven cards chosen by each of seven different spectators were lost in a shuffled deck, and then found by Noland in different ways, as follows: the first card was found by rubbing the deck against Noland’s nose; the second, when Noland “read” a spectator’s mind; the third, when Noland cut the cards to the chosen card; the fourth, when Noland blew on the face of the third card, magically changing it into the fourth spectator’s selection; the fifth, when one card turned over face up in mid-air; the sixth, when it popped up from the deck; and the last (which had been signed by a spectator), in Noland’s wallet.
Larry Lipman performed a variation of monte using four cards, called “Poor Man’s Monte.” Using three tens and one queen, Larry first showed the three tens, placed the queen among the tens and put one ten in his pocket. The pocketed ten then seemingly changed into the queen. Again, the queen was replaced among the tens and one ten placed in the pocket. This time all the cards in Larry’s hand changed into queens.
Jonathan Walker performed a three card monte routine using an ace, two and three in which the location of the ace repeatedly proved impossible to track.
Cristian Vidrascu performed a guessing routine he called a “Tribute to my mentor.” Spectators were asked to guess the name, height and age of Cristian’s magic mentor. Cristian recorded each guess on the back of separate business cards. At the conclusion, each guess was found to correctly match the information Cristian had earlier written down on three other cards. Cristian also performed a routine in which five spectators were asked to write down their favorite destinations on some cards and then asked one spectator to mix up the cards. Cristian was subsequently successful in guessing which spectator had chosen which destination.
Joe Tessmer performed a color changing disc routine called “Black and White or Not,” in which two discs were shown to be white on one side, and black on the other. The discs then magically changed colors to red/green and then to yellow/blue.
Matt Hiller performed a quick coin production in which a card was turned over four times in succession, with a coin appearing under the coin each time the card was turned over.
Dwight Redman performed a version of Professor’s Nightmare, as follows: first, Dwight folded a single piece of rope into three equal lengths and had a spectator apparently cut the rope into three equal pieces. The pieces were again shown to be equal, then balled up and handed to a spectator to separate. When the spectator separated the pieces, they were found to be three different lengths. Next, Dwight magically stretched the ropes until all three were equal again. Finally, Dwight, together with a spectator, tied all three pieces end to end and then made the knots magically disappear, restoring the rope back to one, long piece.
