Society of American Magicians #94
Magicians from all over the San Francisco Bay Area meet
in Palo Alto, California. We're a local assembly of the international Society
of American Magicians. Our club offers a monthly meeting for magicians -- those
who are trained (or who are training) in the performing art of prestidigitation.
This is an "unofficial" web site for SAM94, but you will find things here about SAM94 and Bay Area Magic that you won't find anywhere else...
A weekly lunch for magicians in or visiting the Bay Area... still going strong!
SAM94 officers last year were: President, Kim Silverman; Vice President, Jonathan Steigman; Secretary, Joe Caffall; and Treasurer, Blaine Garst.
Thursday, 1 March 2007
A Lecture by Alain Choquette
"A Tribute to Gary Ouellet"
This lecture will be at a special location:
the De Anza 3 Auditorium of Apple Computer
7:30 p.m. (doors open at 7:00 p.m.)
Alain Choquette is a profilic creator of magical illusions used by professional performers all over the world. The Thursday night lecture will be a tribute to Gary Ouellet, who was a very influential magician, and also producer for David Copperfield's TV specials and for The World's Greatest Magic TV shows. Among other things, Gary Ouellet wrote the definitive work on the Gypsy Thread. In it he says "Over the years I have worked on ways to quickly set up, and decided ont he most tangle-proff preparation. I taught the method to Alain Choquette [...] It was Alain Choquette who first suggested the use of black light to make the thread more visible in a large theatre. Indeed, on World's Greatest Magic I, Alain performs it to a poem written for the occasion (The Canvas of Love)." Alain is like Canada's equivalent to David Copperfield. He performs large venues and large TV specials, and tours internationally. He is famous for ending huge shows (thousands in the audience) with arguably the world's smallest close-up effect (Gypsy Thread).
$30 for those not a member of SAM 94 (you can not join at the door!)
The Alain Choquette lecture will be at the De Anza 3 Auditorium of Apple Computer.
For the lecture, the doors will open at 7 pm for a 7:30 start to the lecture. Arrive on time, because after 7:30 the doors will be locked by Apple!
DeAnza 3 Auditorium
Apple R&D Campus
10500 N DeAnza Blvd, Cupertino, CA, USA
De Anza 3 Auditorium is on the BACK side of the ground floor of Apple's De Anza 3 Building. De Anza 3 is a slightly older building located on the opposite side of Marianni Avenue from Infinity One and the Apple Campus Complex. (It is on the opposite side of the street if you are standing on the grass between Buildings 1 & 2.)
If you are arriving from 280: turn South on De Anza, turn Left onto Marianni Avenue. Turn right into the first driveway on the right, and drive to the back of the building around the right end, parking in the back parking lot. A set of double glass doors at the back of the building is the correct access - you will enter the glass doors and then go immediately right through the doors into the auditorium.
Alain Choquette
Limited Seating Master Class
Friday, March 2, 2007
For reservations, place, and time Contact KimSilverman kimsilv@apple.com or Blaine Garst blaine@mac.com Cost to be announced, will be in the area of $45 - 50 per person. The Alain Choquette Workshop will be in the Mission Impossible conference room in Building 2 of Apple's Main Campus: 2 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California. The workshop will start at 7 p.m.
Our next meeting is...
Monday, 12 March 2007
We meet on the second Monday of each month at the First Lutheran Church, Palo Alto, CA
Directions to our regular meeting place
The First Lutheran Church, Palo Alto, CA
What happened at some recent meetings:
At September's meeting, veteran tradeshow performer Bill Goldman delivered an entertaining lecture filled with hilarious bits of business and a number of strong and direct effects, mainly with cards. Goldman also regaled the audience with tales of his tradeshow days, in which he traveled all over the world and worked for presidents, captains of industry, celebrities, and kings. Goldman's lecture was very well received. Thank you to all who attended. The following evening, Bill Goldman met with six very interested and motivated attendees from 7:00 PM until nearly midnight for an intensive hands-on workshop. Bill taught the details and subtleties of several routines, including a coin matrix, several card routines, a fire-assisted torn-and-restored, and a ring-on-rope. This included details of the handling of the props, advice about timing and pacing, and performance scripts. Some of the routines had been briefly shown during the lecture, but the rest was additional material. Thereafter four of the attendees performed their own pieces, and got feedback and discussion from Bill himself and from other participants. Overall the whole workshop was very valuable to all attendees. Everybody left a better magician than when he/she arrived.
Our January, 2006, meeting was preceded by a Beginners Workshop
led by Kim Silverman, on refining and enhancing the Professor‚s Nightmare
routine taught at our November meeting.
During the regular meeting, Blaine Garst gave us a book report on Jim Steinmeyer‚s "Hiding
the Elephant," which Blaine recommends highly both for its personal view
of a number of famous early magicians and for its history of the development
of certain types of large illusions.
Jonathan Steigman led a discussion on "Making Magic Magical." He
used his own presentations of the Professor‚s Nightmare and the Boo Boo
Bar (like a PomPom Pole) to illustrate his key points. Even though effects
like these are familiar to us, this isn‚t true for most of our audiences.
Know what magical effect you want to convey. Take the time to let the audience
see what is happening. Pause and bring focus to the magical points, and take
credit for making the magic happen. Other participants included Jeff Haas,
John Signa, and Richard Myer. Jonathan recommended the book "Strong Magic" by
Darwin Ortiz. Jeff suggested watching the Deleted Scenes portion of movie DVD's
and understanding why those scenes were deleted, and applying what you learn
from that to your own performances.
After a short break, we went into the performance portion of our meeting. Rosel
Barowski had two jumbo cards selected from a packet. When she turned the cards
face-down the backs of the unselected cards said "Do Not Pick Me," but
the backs of the two chosen cards said "Pick Me." Rosel then showed
us a current article from the San Jose Mercury newspaper article, complete
with photo. As she ran a pair of scissors up and down the column, a spectator
said stop, and she cut the paper at that point. The line where she was had
stopped her matched a prediction she had made before starting.
Jeff Chiou showed the Jack, Queen, King and Ace of spades, and inserted the
cards into the deck at various places. Each card jumped to the top or bottom
of the deck at his command. Finally the Ace turned over within deck.
Both Rosel and Jeff were voted into membership in S.A.M. Assembly 94, unanimously
and with hearty congratulations.
Paul Cardoza, in a demonstration of Parapsychology had a spectator take a bunch
of cards from a full deck. He then named off each card that had been taken.
Andre Balic borrowed one half of a deck of cards from a spectator in the audience,
then had the spectator choose a card from the remainder of the deck. Andre
put his half into box, inserted the spectator‚s card into the middle
of the packet in the box, then caused the card to rise from the box. Eugene
Boyd had Andre pick card and not look at it, but sit on it. He shined a small
flashlight into Andre‚s mouth, and was able to identify the card.
John Signa showed us an anti-cheating card he uses to give the spectator an
advantage: a jumbo Queen of Hearts with a flap in the middle. While a spectator
holds the flap, he explained, a magician can‚t turn the card around.
But folding it up, while Rosel was holding the flap, John did turn the card
around. When he did it again, with the card facing the other way, the border
of the card turned around, leaving part of the face in the middle of the back.
John Bodine performed a Spellbound effect with a silver dollar and a cookie,
while explaining that he had done it with a pepperoni slice during walk-around
after a kid show. He pointed out that many packaged cookies are now about silver
dollar size. Then John had two people select a card from a spread deck while
his back was turned, then switch two cards and square the deck. John dealt
the cards several stacks, at random. He reassembled the deck. After some humorous
byplay he quickly found both cards. A third card was selected and remembered.
John used the original two cards, to find the third card. After more byplay,
one of the spectators had a packet of cards containing the chosen card. The
deck was reassembled, and the Jack and Five did sandwich the chosen Ace of
Clubs.
Miquel Ferrandiz had a volunteer from the audience put a Joker under his foot,
then choose another card. That chosen card, the Four of Spades, which transposed
with the Joker under the spectator‚s foot.
Richard Myer had a spectator choose a deck, shuffle the cards, choose one card,
and return it to the deck. He took two other cards out and tabled them. The
chosen card appeared between them. The deck was reassembled and the two cards
found the selection again. For a change of pace, Richard borrowed six dollar
bills from members of the audience. One was chosen by a two spectators. Richard
read the serial number of the randomly chosen bill by feel. Toward the end,
he had one of the original audience assistants focus on the last two numbers
on the bill and transmit to them to the other spectator, then do the same with
the letters. At the end, all were right.
and even farther back... in 2005...
December was our Annual Pizza
and Show night
In July we discussed card
handling.
In June we had
a lecture by Aldo Colombini that was great!
In April we had a lecture by John Carney.
In January we had a
lecture by Steve Hart
Click here to see what happened some other previous club meetings
Look at some pictures from 2001's banquet
Check out some pictures from our 1998 banquet! (Wow, that's an oldie!)
SAM 94 meets on the second Monday of each month at 7:30 p.m. at the First Lutheran Church, Palo Alto, CA (at the corner of Homer and Webster). Click here for directions and a map.
Who can attend?
Our meetings are usually open to all magicians (or serious students of magic) -- visiting magicians are encouraged to attend. Except for special events (e.g. lectures) there is no charge to attend our meetings while you decided if you want to join our club -- or if you are a magician visiting the area. When we have guest lectures (we've had Lee Earle, Dan Garrett, Docc Hilford, Guy Hollingworth, Loren Christopher Michaels, and David Roth to name a few) non-members are required to pay to attend.
What are the meetings like?
Some of our past meetings from years ago have been: November was our annual banquet with a few performances by some members; September's theme was Halloween and Haunted Houses; July was a special lecture by Mitch Williams; April's theme was RINGS; the February meeting was a special lecture by Jerry Andrus; and the January 1997 meeting was our annual flea market and auction.
Click here to see some pictures from our meetings.
Or click here to find out about some of our past lectures.
How about a lunch for magicians... every Saturday?
There is also a lunch every Saturday for magicians to just get-together, talk, show, and share -- not affiliated with any club, no membership needed... just be a magician, show up, and pay for your own lunch (not affiliated with SAM 94). We've been doing this weekly lunch for over twelve years!
Yes, it really is still going on every saturday after all these years... Sometimes 2 people show up, sometimes 6 or 8 show up. I know that it's still happening in January 2007 because I'll be there on the 6th.... will you?
In the PAST there was Glenn's Calendar of Magic! Let's see if he'll get the calendar up and running again...???? Will he? or won't he? I think he won't...