David Stone

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Yesterday began as most Mondays do. We had breakfast; straightened things up a bit and then hopped on to the computer to catch up on the news of the day. I worked on the blog and when I took a look at the clock it was already 1:00 so I put on my workout clothes and headed to the gym for some cardio. Susan headed off to La Petxina thirty minutes later for her Pilates class.

It was a little after 2:30 when I returned home and I raided the refrigerator to put together a little lunch for myself. At 4:30 I headed down the street to Las Torres to meet with Melissa for our Monday afternoon English conversation class. I settled into a table and five minutes later Melissa walked in.

Melissa had recently returned from Granada where she attended her sister’s wedding. Our main topic of conversation was the wedding, but we also talked about the classes she is taking and her upcoming exams. It was a lively hour and at 5:30 we said our goodbyes. I spent the rest of the afternoon working on my magic.

At 7:30 we both headed out. Susan and Zahava were off to the movies to see the new George Clooney flick and I was headed to the CIVAC for a lecture by French magician, David Stone. When I walked in preparations for the lecture were well under way. Several people were working on adjusting the lighting for the table where Stone would be doing his magic and many of tonight’s attendees had already taken their seats in anticipation of what promised to be a very interesting lecture.

Pepe was behind the bar working on last night’s paella and Paquito was busy dispensing beverages. I chatted with both of them for a while and greeted other members as they entered. It was great to see Juan Luis in attendance. I had not seen him for a couple of weeks. His recovery from tendon surgery on his little finger is progressing well and in ten days he should be out of his cast. His fall a while back while jogging caused a goodly amount of damage, but thankfully it seems that all will be back to normal shortly.

I took my seat and watched as Stone paced the room and it appeared that he was psyching himself up for his upcoming performance and lecture. Stone is a study in perpetual motion. Sometimes it appears that his spring is overwound, but, in truth, that is who he is both on and off the stage. The lecture was divided into two parts and after performing a number of effects, he would then proceed to give the explanation of how they were done. Everything that he did was available for sale after the lecture. The good news is that in addition to the commercial aspect of the lecture, he was also sharing very valuable performance information. The first part of the lecture included coin effects, a bottle production and a variety of card effects.

After a fifteen-minute break that allowed us to stretch our legs and to buy some of his effects, we all took our seats for the second part of the lecture. Stone asked me to sit at the table as one his two assistants. He was delivering his lecture in English and one of the club members was translating into Spanish. His other assistant was a very charming young woman named Sofia who is the newest member of the club and the ONLY FEMALE in the club. The second half was purely card magic and it was a demonstration of the newest effect that Stone has produced for the magic market. His aim was to show the versatility of the prop and he must have shown us close to a dozen ways to use it.

He concluded his lecture with a brief discussion of the need to have an ending for the effects that we do. He feels that his point is particularly relevant when it comes to making an object disappear. His point is that the audience appreciates the disappearance, but always wants to know what happened to the object that disappeared. For example, when you make a cigarette disappear the logical conclusion to the effect would be to make it reappear. He then proceeded to show us another effect that rarely has an ending, but needs one. In this case he inflated an animal balloon and pretended to swallow it like a sword. He then reproduced it, making it seem that he was extracting it from his stomach. In order to show us how he did it, he proceeded to drop his pants and show us the method. Without going into too much detail I will tell you that it involved pantyhose.

After the lecture everyone helped to clear the lecture area and set up the room for dinner. Pepe’s paella was finished and the twenty-five of us who had signed up for dinner took our place at the table and proceeded to make quick work of a most tasty paella. I left a little before midnight and walked through the door a minute or two after Susan had returned. She and Zahava had enjoyed the film and afterwards had stopped of to have a little nibble. It was around 12:30 when we were able to reach Rachel via FaceTime and we chatted with her briefly before she was called away for yet another conference call. It was well after 1:00 when we went to bed.