The Modern Mystic League
FEBRUARY 2023
Blackburn & District Society of Magicians
WINTER LECTURETTES
The wide variety of skills and interests within the MML membership came to the fore at our February meeting, when six of us presented a series of brief lecturettes.
I started the ball rolling with ‘Magic Wands and Professor Hoffmann’, tracing the magician’s most popular accessory back to its biblical origins. A number of novelty wands were shown and demonstrated, along with some tricks incorporating this simple piece of apparatus and examples associated with famous performers. The wand was the first topic addressed by Professor Hoffmann in his book Modern Magic in 1876, and I was able to illustrate how this had been ripped off (indeed, copied word for word) by later writers.
Carl Pearson continued the historic theme by bringing to life some of the facts he had researched for his MeMeL series on The Egyptian Hall, subsequently incorporated into his thesis presented for Associate Membership of The Inner Magic Circle. On the way we heard about colourful figures such as P.T. Barnum, Colonel Tom Thumb, the unscrupulous Kellar and Albert Smith, the self-styled Baron of Piccadilly. Carl had uncovered some rare images of people and places, complemented by a number of old maps. Appropriately, he rounded of his presentation with a magic trick which could have been seen in the days of Maskelyne and Cooke.
Donald Monk has been drawing pictures for as long as he can remember, beginning with the copying of cartoon characters from a Walt Disney annual received for his fifth Christmas in 1951. Pictures of his namesake, Donald Duck, were so popular among his school friends that he was soon supplying them for everyone and passing cartoons round the class behind the teacher’s back. Donald performed an amusing item featuring a skeleton, to rhyming patter, and showed his pictorial method of entering the MML. Donald has illustrated many books over the years, including Demagic, the Magic of Jesse Demaline, edited by Roger Woods and myself. We saw his booklet My Grandad’s Wand, his revised version of the ‘Bunny Trick’ (the method for which he still hadn’t worked out) and his wonderful DIY book which allows children to construct their own tricks from the cut-out images provided. Donald has created caricatures for virtually all the members of the MML, several of which are seen as column headers in the MeMeL each month.
At this point, President Carl conjured up a delightful buffet of pies, pickle, savouries and cakes.
I started the ball rolling with ‘Magic Wands and Professor Hoffmann’, tracing the magician’s most popular accessory back to its biblical origins. A number of novelty wands were shown and demonstrated, along with some tricks incorporating this simple piece of apparatus and examples associated with famous performers. The wand was the first topic addressed by Professor Hoffmann in his book Modern Magic in 1876, and I was able to illustrate how this had been ripped off (indeed, copied word for word) by later writers.
Carl Pearson continued the historic theme by bringing to life some of the facts he had researched for his MeMeL series on The Egyptian Hall, subsequently incorporated into his thesis presented for Associate Membership of The Inner Magic Circle. On the way we heard about colourful figures such as P.T. Barnum, Colonel Tom Thumb, the unscrupulous Kellar and Albert Smith, the self-styled Baron of Piccadilly. Carl had uncovered some rare images of people and places, complemented by a number of old maps. Appropriately, he rounded of his presentation with a magic trick which could have been seen in the days of Maskelyne and Cooke.
Donald Monk has been drawing pictures for as long as he can remember, beginning with the copying of cartoon characters from a Walt Disney annual received for his fifth Christmas in 1951. Pictures of his namesake, Donald Duck, were so popular among his school friends that he was soon supplying them for everyone and passing cartoons round the class behind the teacher’s back. Donald performed an amusing item featuring a skeleton, to rhyming patter, and showed his pictorial method of entering the MML. Donald has illustrated many books over the years, including Demagic, the Magic of Jesse Demaline, edited by Roger Woods and myself. We saw his booklet My Grandad’s Wand, his revised version of the ‘Bunny Trick’ (the method for which he still hadn’t worked out) and his wonderful DIY book which allows children to construct their own tricks from the cut-out images provided. Donald has created caricatures for virtually all the members of the MML, several of which are seen as column headers in the MeMeL each month.
At this point, President Carl conjured up a delightful buffet of pies, pickle, savouries and cakes.
When we resumed, Brian Berry had set up table full of his latest paddle trick acquisitions, carrying on from where he had left off a few years ago. He took us through the many ways in which the simple paddle has been modified over the years with increasing ingenuity. The wooden paddle using chalk marks, for example, became a white plastic version employing a felt-tipped pen. A rabbit jumped into a hat (although upside down – an obvious design fault!), a straight line became a squiggle and even a solid coin was produced. Brian paid tribute to Ken Brooke and Derek Lever for their innovations – and Aldo Colombini for introducing dice into the equation. Other examples employed ribbons and coloured knitted ropes. Cliff Lount was credited with a paddle of miniature cricket bat design, with pegs placed through holes – and the session was concluded with a virtually full-sized example. It was a wonderful canter through a magical genre which has apparently limitless possibilities.
Roger Woods had promised to teach us how to memorise a deck of cards, and this he did with reference to Juan Tamariz’s Mnemonica, also paying tribute to Simon Aronson and Bill Goldman. Essentially, each card is allocated a position in the deck along with a code word, which is then used in a memorable phrase, such as ‘Noah honing his chisel’, ‘nail through doll’s forehead’ or ‘pile of mash with a cadet in it’ – all memorably bizarre. I am even immortalised as the Ace of Hearts in 51st position – ‘Brian Lead in a hut’. Roger had thoughtfully produced a handout, and assured us that the process is not as difficult as it seems . . . . but I doubt whether many of our members will be trying it out any time soon.
Finally, Allan Clarke took the floor to tell us all about the Gilbreath Principle, named after its creator Norman Gilbreath. The theory was featured in Allan’s ‘Train of Thought’ article in last December’s MeMeL, but it was illuminating to have it ‘brought to life’ in a demonstration – and it also explained the modus operandi behind Donald’s ‘Bunny’ trick! Allan went on to trace further developments of this principle by the likes of Max Maven, Ali Bongo and Simon Aronson (Ultimate Gilbreath and Shuffleboard).
So concluded a very pleasant afternoon, made even more so by the attendance of Ron Baron, accompanied by his son Jonathan and grand-daughter Victoria. We were also pleased to welcome Dave Bamber, with thanks to him for bringing along. Brian B.
Brian Lead
Roger Woods had promised to teach us how to memorise a deck of cards, and this he did with reference to Juan Tamariz’s Mnemonica, also paying tribute to Simon Aronson and Bill Goldman. Essentially, each card is allocated a position in the deck along with a code word, which is then used in a memorable phrase, such as ‘Noah honing his chisel’, ‘nail through doll’s forehead’ or ‘pile of mash with a cadet in it’ – all memorably bizarre. I am even immortalised as the Ace of Hearts in 51st position – ‘Brian Lead in a hut’. Roger had thoughtfully produced a handout, and assured us that the process is not as difficult as it seems . . . . but I doubt whether many of our members will be trying it out any time soon.
Finally, Allan Clarke took the floor to tell us all about the Gilbreath Principle, named after its creator Norman Gilbreath. The theory was featured in Allan’s ‘Train of Thought’ article in last December’s MeMeL, but it was illuminating to have it ‘brought to life’ in a demonstration – and it also explained the modus operandi behind Donald’s ‘Bunny’ trick! Allan went on to trace further developments of this principle by the likes of Max Maven, Ali Bongo and Simon Aronson (Ultimate Gilbreath and Shuffleboard).
So concluded a very pleasant afternoon, made even more so by the attendance of Ron Baron, accompanied by his son Jonathan and grand-daughter Victoria. We were also pleased to welcome Dave Bamber, with thanks to him for bringing along. Brian B.
Brian Lead