We welcomed about 100 members and guests for our Holiday Party in December. Reba Strong coordinated all of the food arrangements: The club paid for the main entrees, and members brought either appetizers or desserts. Once we finished the great food, we began the show that Jeff Carson organized.
President Hunter Gaul performed first, with a continuous production of large coins from a silk hanky. He then did a vanish where he placed a rubber ball into a hole in a cardboard panel, and the ball vanished.
Jeff Carson then took over as master of ceremonies, and kept the performances moving. He introduced Peter Cuddihy, who showed us a talent that most of us had not seen before: A hilarious vent act with his talking pet puppet bird. The bird also did magic, producing flowers from his beak. For the finish, the talented animal dropped a rope into a paper bag, and pulled out a previously selected card.
George Hample then showed us a small golf putter club, and three small golf balls. One at a time, the golf balls vanished, then reappeared. Finally, all three balls vanished at once! Jim Capobianco used a large white board to do a prediction effect with numbers randomly selected from the audience. A short and effective piece of mental magic. Steve Freidberg, who usually demonstrates mastery of card magic, instead went in the mental vein. He showed a book he bought to read on a plane ride, and had three volunteers select random numbers. Another volunteer looked at that page in the book. Steve slowly revealed the first word on that page, then the first sentence. For the finale, he repeated the effect with three new numbers, and again revealed the first word and sentence. His patter fit his personality perfectly.
Jeff Carson then did a card effect that he combined with a pipe cleaner thumb tie. The selected card vanished, then appeared in a zippered wallet. Great comedy lines all along the way.
Master magician Marc DeSouza had an audience volunteer imagine that he threw a bowling ball into the audience, and told Marc how many pins he imagined that he knocked over. Marc then opened the locked box that had been on his table the whole time, and a paper banner inside had the number of the pins written on it! Amazing! Marc then performed his hysterical egg bag effect for us. This was a perfect way to end a magical night for everyone that had us all in the holiday mood.
DAVE KELLY, Recording Secretary