Ring Meeting July 10th 7:15pm

GOIN' OUT TO LUNCH!

Here's something we haven't done before- an "Out To Lunch" night. This clever little tool (the trick, not me) is the basis of countless routines from the silly (Doc Eason's "sobriety test") to the bizarre (Eugene Burger's "Spirit Messages") and everything in between. It was made popular -in part- by Ring 22's own Clare Cummings -MILKY the CLOWN for Twin Pines Dairy. (see history below)

Bring your favorite OTL routine or adaption. IF you don't know what Out to Lunch is, you will make your own tonight and have a great "do anywhere" close up effect with a LOW skill to HIGH entertainment ratio. Bring a stack of business cards, or 3x5 note cards, a thick rubberband and something to write with.

And if you are interested, here's the History on OTL by: Max Maven
The Out-to-Lunch Principle gets its name from a marketed trick devised by Clare Cummings and Bob Ellis in the mid-1940s. The roots extend back much further, to seance gaffs of the 19th century. See, for example, "The Interrupted Flap" in _Spirit Slate Writing and Kindred Phenomena_ by William Robinson, 1898.

It has been commonly held by modern magic historians that the paper modification should be credited to Edward Bagshawe, used in "The Recurring Name" in _Twenty Magical Novelties_, 1930). However, in 1994 I tracked down the existence of a prior source, Tom Bowyer's "A Message From Nowhere" in the April 1928 _Linking Ring_. And, in 1995, I found yet an earlier credit: William Larsen Sr., "Finger Prints" in the July 1923 _Sphinx_.

This historical information has appeared in print more than once, but few seem to notice, and fewer seem to care. And thus, magic continues to spin, an unknowing ouroboros.