We started September with several announcements.  The October meeting will be replaced with the Chris Philpott lecture on October 2.  See the home page for details.  Please note the date is on a Monday at 7pm rather than the standard meeting night and time .  Also note the room change to 255, but the same building.

John Kingry visited the meeting and had a few items to give to members of the ring.  We also brought in remaining items donated by Ben Mitchel and gave a few more items out to Ring members.

We saw several great performances from several people then had a fun jam session after the official end of the meeting.

Joshua Jay arrived in Virginia Beach in the middle of his 45 city book tour in support of his new book, How Magicians Think and stayed to give a lecture sponsored by the Norfolk IBM, Richmond IBM, and Williamsburg SAM. 

The book tour started with a magic show that included tricks about time travel, predictions, and objects that would appear and disappear.  One of Joshua Jay's tricks started with the ending by displaying a card and ended with the beginning by having that card selected in the first place.  Watches and rings disappeared and appeared again in unexpected locations.  One of the highlights of the evening was where multiple audience members provided numbers that, multiplied together, turned out to be a significant date against all odds.  That date then appeared later on a predicted candy wrapper within the barcode, and later still when multiple audience members chose cards and Joshua found all them in record time which corresponded to the earlier date.  After the magic, Joshua sat down to answer questions about magic and his book.  The group then moved outside the auditorium where Joshua's books could be purchased and signed.

Joshua met up with a couple members of the Norfolk IBM and Williamsburg SAM the following day.  Jim McDonald of SAM Assembly 226 and retired interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg, gave a great tour of Yorktown, Williamsburg, and the surrounding historical areas. A couple more magicians met the group for meals before heading onto the lecture up the road in Toano.

Joshua Jay's lecture was one for the ages.  Members of the Norfolk IBM, Richmond IBM, Williamsburg SAM, and other guests gathered to see some amazing magic and learn a few things about the tricks and presentation.  The first half consisted of some of Joshua's classic material including Hitchcock, Charming Chinese Challenge, Inferno, Prism Deck, and Triad Coins.  All were performed beautifully and taught clearly.  Joshua closed the first half with a masterful presentation of his take on Cylinder and Coins which was set to music.  Coins continually vanished and re-appeared inside and outside of a cylinder made of a rolled up dollar bill and concluded when a full shot glass was revealed to be inside the bill.  The second half was a bit shorter, but was packed full of one magical moment after another.  He amazed with a series of card tricks where aces were found, sets of cards impossibly matched, and a card was found by memorizing every other card in the deck to eliminate all but the selected card.  He concluded the lecture with Trojan Deck, a trick he recently released.  Joshua used it as a closer in his shows where he and a spectator continually mix separate decks of cards which finally comes together where the cards in one deck match, in order, to those in the other all while telling the beautiful story of how his parents met.  Items were for sale after the lecture.  However, if you wanted to purchase his book or some of his products, you had to act fast as most of the items sold out quickly by popular demand.  I think everyone who attended found something they enjoyed, could use and also learned a few things along the way.  Overall, both days were filled with magical experiences that I won't soon forget.