42 members and guests turned up to watch and learn from the master of silks, Duane Laflin. Those members who came will know what I mean when I say that he baffled everyone with his opening effect in which he took 6 balls from a basket, placed them into his hand and vanished them. When he revealed how this was achieved at the end of the evening, the audience was astounded. And that sums up the evening. A master in all he displayed. And a very nice gentleman as well. Items that he demonstrated included a sponge ball routine in which the balls became larger, and a changing colour sponge ball routine. He also took four silks and placed them into a tube – the silks were different colours. He pushed the last silk in with a wand. When the silks came out they were one multi-coloured; the tube being empty. The silks had come away with the wand, which had a gimmick at one end. To a story, Duane placed a red silk into his hand. This changed into white. "Showing" how it was done, he put the red silk into his hand, which was then shown empty. He then placed a white silk in, and it came out red. He used a gimmick called a Palmo – like die tube – to achieve this. The Palmo holds two silks easily. He used this in quite a few effects during the evening. For the childrens entertainers there was a gloomy clown silk which changed into a smiling clown; as well as Shadow Rabbit, which involved silks changing into a coloured rabbit silk, after suitable bye-play, of course. Asked about how he keeps his silks clean and tidy, Duane revealed that he never ironed them, other than when he has just purchased them. He lays them flat at the end of the show and rolls them up. Neither does he wash the silks as the colours might run. If any get really dirty, he puts them in a basin and adds some Johnson's Baby Shampoo and swishes them around to clean them up. A story of a boy and girl rabbit led into the production of baby rabbit sponge balls. Showing what appeared to be 4 separate different coloured ropes, he tied them together and wrapped them around his hand, to reveal just 1 rope. He placed a red silk into his hand and vanished it. Likewise a yellow and green silk. Finally a blue silk vanished to be replaced by the red, yellow and green ones. This was the gimmick Duane had used for the first effect, called a Handkerchief Ball. It can hold 3 18" silks, or, as was shown at the beginning, 6 sponge balls, without any problems. A gimmick invented in the late 19th century was shown to be extremely effective today. Finally Duane showed how he placed 8 12" silks into a Handkerchief Ball, twisting them together at the corners. This was then all used in a Silk Fountain, the production of which brought a superb evening's entertainment to a close. Duane received a long and well deserved enthusiastic round of applause from the assembled throng, who had witnessed an evening of magic from a magician who is at the top of his tree. Duane and wife, Mary, did a roaring trade with the items they had for sale – so look out for silks appearing and vanishing at future meetings. | 
