2007 Archives...

This page contains a chronological listing of articles and reviews about PMA events and activities from 2007. These reports were initially published on our News page. Find links to our other archives at the bottom of the News page as they become available.

The 2007 PMA Annual Picnic...

Sunday, August 26, 2007

The August PMA picnic was a lot of fun as usual. Club members got together with families and friends to enjoy some great food and fun. Thanks to Doc Lowery for arranging a great location at Independence Park in Marquette Heights. The unofficial chairman of food, Gordon Snow, brought plenty of chicken and ham and made sure everyone was well fed. Other members and friends brought some delicious salads, breads, munchies, and desserts. We were lucky enough to have perfect weather, too.

About thirty people showed up for the picnic which started at 5:00pm and lasted until around 7:30. After the delicious meal we all got a chance to relax and enjoy some entertainment. Troy Keefer invited some friends who performed an interesting and impressive fire juggling act. Greg McNeil showed us a quick card routine and a humorous Linking Rings bit with a spectator assistant. And Mike Tate demonstrated his skill at making various animal and bird sounds. Jerry Tupper introduced the acts. A good time was had by all!

September Monthly Meeting...

Monday, September 17, 2007

The September 17th meeting of the Peoria Magicians Assembly was fun, entertaining, and productive.

During the business part of the meeting we discussed membership requirements and incentives. We decided to offer a gift certificate to anyone who gets a new member to sign up over the next four months. More details will be posted on the web site as they become available. We also talked about our public show coming up early next spring. And we're still trying to find just the perfect place to hold our regular meetings. You're encouraged to email Greg or Adam if you have any ideas about that.

The topic of the meeting was "It's Alive, It's Alive!" Animated objects, puppets, ventriloquist figures, levitating things, rising stuff, anything that looks or acts alive qualified. Several members stepped up to help make this a lively session.

Mike Tate did a quick routine with a couple bird and animal sound effects, then later he entertained us with his vent character and some well done impersonations of famous singers. Kathy Martin demonstrated a cute Rabbit-in-a-Hat puppet. Greg McNeil gave us the how-to of Rocky Raccoon and his cousin the skunk. He also showed a nicely made Folkmanis orangutan. Adam Shake spooked us with Hyrum the Haunted Hank, then let us in on the inner workings. And to finish out the evening, Doc Lowery presented a very informative mini-lecture on puppets, marionettes, and vent figures.

Thanks everyone!

October Monthly Meeting...

Monday, October 15, 2007

The October meeting featured magic related to Famous Magicians from the Past. Greg McNeil performed the Don Alan Invisible Deck routine with Malissa volunteering (accompanying member Allen Broomfield). The Invisible Deck has its roots in the past under the name "Ultra Mental". Kathy Martin showed a vintage Harlan Tarbell book Chalk Talk and demonstrated an example using a dry erase board. Kathy drew some lines to start a drawing while accompanying with a poem. As the poem progressed, the drawing evolved into the figure of a bird in a tree. It was discussed that there were others that used similar chalk talks to express a religious message.

Char Gott performed an interesting routine with cut and restored newspaper clippings (Clippo) evolving from an experience in her old childhood home. In the routine, a column of newspaper was cut several times and restored. The accompanying story that was told was actually written on her bathroom wall before her father put tile over it. Char told some personal stories of being in the Peoria Magicians Assembly in the old days when she was perhaps the only female in the club and stories of Harold Martin, who owned a local magic shop, and visits at her home from Harry Blackstone Jr. and Jay Marshall. (Our club is named with respect to Harold as the Harold Martin I.B.M. Ring.)

Allen Broomfield performed a packet card effect where two red cards switch places with two black cards. Doc Lowery brought a couple youth size orangutan puppets in green Hawaiian shorts to demonstrate that are also for sale from Doc. A replica of the large-headed/large-handed vent figure from the movie Magic, about an evil ventriloquist, was brought in to show.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Gordon Snow brought a white cardboard animal box with air holes on the side up to the counter to show the young lady at the counter and one of the young cooks. Of course, Mike Tate was along as well as a few other members. From somewhere inside the box came the sounds of frogs croaking but when the box was opened, there was only some sunflower seeds and some sort of green "evidence" that some kind of animal had been there.

Greg Joyce - October 18, 2007

Tom Craven Lecture...

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Tom Craven's lecture for the PMA was held October 30, 2007 at the Holiday Inn Express in Pekin. Tom's lecture featured a variety of magic and mentalism that was entertaining and enjoyable. Tom featured silk magic, card magic and mentalsim.

One of his signature effects was an effect where there are five glass goblets, each containing a different color silk. An audience member selects a color. After the four unchosen silks are removed from the goblets, the chosen color silk is found to contain a special coin with it to indicate the predicted choice. As a finale, the coin then is then shown to have a sticker indicating the Zodiac sign of the volunteer.

Tom also performed a ring-off-silk routine with an audience member choosing either a small (about 4") or a large (about 6") ring which are both attached to the silk. The chosen ring is then pulled free from the silk.

Tom also demonstrated a dice effect using a game board made of four rows with four numbers in each row. A dice is rolled and the number on top is placed top up on each of four dice located on each of the four spaces in the top or bottom row. One by one, three of the dice are chosen and moved a quarter of a turn forward on the game board, each one moving an extra row forward so that one dice is left in each of the four rows. The new numbers on the tops of the four dice and on the corresponding game board spaces are added and a prediction is revealed to match the total.

Tom also demonstrated an effect where, from a hole-punched deck draped onto a ribbon, a selected card is removed and escapes from the ribbon (Houdini Deck).

The strangest effect was one where a white balloon, inflated inside of a Coke bottle, stays inflated after being released and when "poured" into a cup deflates as if pouring air into the cup.

The lecture was well-attended with over 20 enjoying Tom's magic. It has been said that Tom is one the great masters and we experienced that through his magic this evening.

Greg Joyce - November 15, 2007

November Monthly Meeting...

Monday, November 19, 2007

We had our November meeting on Monday, the 19th. The meeting started at around 7:00pm and went until around 9:00pm, and was attended by about eighteen people including a couple of newcomers.

The meeting was held in a new location for us. The Bergner's store at Sheridan Village in Peoria has a conference room on their second floor which they make available to local non-profit groups. We met there, we liked it, and we decided we should accept the offer to use this room as our meeting space for future meetings. Thanks to Kathy Trowbridge from Bergner's for working with us to make this possible.

We started our meeting with some discussion of a few current business issues including our banquet in January, our auction in February, and firming up some plans for our club's show coming up next spring. Looks like the date for the show will be April 19, 2008, and the location will be in the auditorium on the lower level at Lakeview Center in Peoria.

For the magic portion of the meeting we discussed magic for holidays, seasonal magic, and magic for special occasions. Greg McNeil started off by showing a quick birthday trick where he made a folded dollar bill mysteriously penetrate right through the center of another folded dollar bill.

Doc Lowery then got up to demonstrate a Santa puppet. He gave some good advice on performing at Christmas parties and how to use jingly bells to cue the entrance of Santa Claus. He finished with a neat Andy Dallas jumbo card trick, a routine about a kid, a trip to the North Pole, and a vanishing and reappearing gift.

Next Allen Broomfield did a very nice prediction effect using a deck of cards and a pocket planner calendar. He surprised everyone by making a playing card prediction match a page of his daily planner. When his volunteer assistant, Carol, opened up Allen's daily planner, the card name he predicted was printed on the same page as her birthday.

Jerry Tupper finished with an interesting Halloween rendition of the classic Die Box using a patter theme developed from Shakespeare's Macbeth. It was very entertaining with much audience participation in reciting, "Double, double toil and trouble," several times throughout the routine.

All in all it was a fun, interesting, and productive meeting. Thanks to everyone for participating!

December Monthly Meeting...

Monday, December 17, 2007

We held our December meeting on Monday, December 17, in the conference room on the second floor of Bergner's at Sheridan Village in Peoria.

Elections were held for officers and board members for the coming year. You can find the current officers listed on the Members page.

The topic of the December meeting focused on magic with round or nearly round objects. Greg McNeil showed his routine for the two-handed sponge ball count (from one to ten) with brown sponge balls.

Allen Broomfield performed a nice routine with a finger ring and string including various penetrations, replacements, and vanishes. Helping out was our most requested magical volunteer, Nicole Shake.

Mike Tate performed his famous Dime Rising on Hand effect and brought in a vent figure which is similar to the figure in the movie Magic. Mike had a funny routine with the figure appearing as Dr. Odd, complete with blue hospital scrubs and answering questions posed by Mike. When asked what someone should do who had broken an arm in two places, Dr. Odd advised that they should "stay out of those places!" The character was created after Mike saw a real doctor, Dr. Oz, who regularly appears on the Oprah show.

And young member, Byron Niebuhr, performed a coin transposition called Lethal Tender, where a Chinese coin and a half dollar switch places using a small black vinyl wallet.

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