SAM Assembly #206 September 2023 Meeting

The members of SAM Assembly #206 met in downtown Austin on Monday, September 25th for a “Something Wicked This Way Comes” themed meeting.

The meeting opened with a discussion of the different conventions that members had attended over the past few months including the Texas Association of Magicians in Houston, Magic Live in Las Vegas, Magifest in Columbus and Magistrorum in Irving. Members shared their highlights and experiences, overall there were a lot of good times had by all at the conventions they had attended.

Next Kent Cummins shared information about the upcoming World-Famous Austin Magic Auction. The auction is a joint effort between Assembly 206 and IBM Ring 60 that benefits both organizations. The takes place this year on Saturday, November 4th starting at 10AM. More information can be found by visiting austinmagicauction.com.

President Adam Dunraven kicked off the magic by performing a Harry Potter themed trick where participants chose the house they wished to be sorted into and Adam announced their choice à la the Sorting Hat. After a short break Adam followed up by introducing Tom Riddle’s diary, which levitated as his volunteer tried to cast a spell to bring it under control.

Next, Bertil Fredstrom performed a Halloween themed version of the classic Hippity Hop Rabbits with a ghost and a gravestone that ended with the revelation of a skull in place of the ghost.

Albert Lucio then set the stage for an Electronic Voice Phenomenon demonstration where nothing was heard during the testing but when Dan Pace played back the recording from his phone the spirits were heard responding with knocks to the questions they were asked.

Secretary Joe Weaver then told the story of his favorite horror movie, Halloween, and explained how the movie established the elements of the genre as the characters moved throughout the deck in a variation of Royal Acrobats using cards featuring the actors from the film.

Jackson Edwards closed out the magic for the evening with a mentalism routine using ESP cards that he picked up at TAOM.

The evening came to a close with a mini-auction for the members consisting of 5 items that Kent put on as a preview of the upcoming auction.

It was a spooky meeting of SAM Assembly #206, with a lot of great performances. We hope that more magicians from the Austin area (or even those that happen to be in town) can join us in October for the next meeting.