Friday, November 16, 2012

Yesterday we did a bit of shopping and Susan did a bit of cooking.  Thanksgiving’s cranberry relish is now sitting in the refrigerator and an apple pie was delivered to Jordi Morera, as promised.  We delivered it in person and then stayed on for lunch.  In addition to the three appetizers we enjoyed a paella made with an assortment of winter vegetables.  There were carrots, potatoes, artichokes, green beans, mushrooms and zucchini.  It was a treat!  Afterwards we headed back home to rest and relax.

I had a meeting of the veteranos last night and I got there a little after 8:00.  Pepe and Gurrea were already there and Gioco would arrive some thirty minutes later.  Our talk centered on magical apparatus and Jerito told us about a gift he received.  It was a piece of apparatus that had a fall away bottom.  He needed to have a similar piece that was not gimmicked.  He went to a metal smith and asked him if he could reproduce the article in question.  The metal smith said there was no problem and told Jerito to return in a week.  Jerito came back a week later and there sat the metal smith’s creation – a perfect reproduction of the gimmicked piece.  As he handed it over he told Jerito that in addition to creating the new piece, he had fixed the other piece so that the bottom would not fall out!  Jerito went directly to the hardware store, bought a file and spent a good half hour undoing the mental smith’s repair.

Gurrea showed us a new effect that he had ordered from the States.  There is a cardboard pet store that opens up to show all kinds of supplies.  In addition there are a number of 8X11 cards that have drawings of various pets on them.  One of the pets is chosen and it disappears.  It reappears inside the pet store.  There is one sleight problem with the effect and it is unique to Valencia and Catalonia.  The front of the pet store reads PETS.  I discovered last night that PETS in Valenciano means FARTS.  It will be interesting to find out how Gurrea works his way around that problem.

Gioco did an effect for us where blank cards turned into mirror images of a selected card and then turned blank again.  I ended up doing three effects, although I had only planned to do one.  Two of the effects were by Paul Vigil that I had learned from a magazine and the third was my treatment of an effect that I had learned from Dani DaOrtiz.  I am pleased to say that they went off without a hitch.

After our meeting, we headed out in search of a sandwich.  Every place we tried was mobbed and it was a Thursday night.  We finally found a place that was not too crowded, but a few minutes after we arrived three groups arrived and filled up the place.  As usual, Gurrea drove me home.  When I walked in Susan was watching TV.  We shut off the TV a little before 1:00 and went to sleep.