Members of This Club Don’t Miss a Trick

There’s a bank in Seal Beach where strange things happen every third Saturday of the month.

Dollars become $20 bills, which then instantly multiply again, by five. Oddly, pencils pushed through playing cards leave no holes. And folded napkins torn into pieces reassemble themselves without the trace of a single tear. None of which has anything to do with financing or mortgages. It is actually a meeting of Ring 96, one of Orange County’s oldest magic clubs.

Wearing black tuxedos with silver chains, red handkerchiefs and flashing electric badges that broadcast their names, club members meet in a rented room of the Farmers & Merchants Bank on Seal Beach Boulevard to trade secrets and hone their craft.

“Our purpose is to promote magic, talk about it, learn it and share it,” said Jheff Poncho, the club’s secretary and spokesman who, when not teaching high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District, performs as a magician under his first name only.

“All you have to do to legally change your name is use it,” Jheff, 44, joked.

Founded in 1947, the club -- which Jheff said has about 50 members -- is a local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Magicians. The organization is a worldwide network of magician groups called rings. The Orange County ring is the 96th local group to be founded. There are more than 300 rings worldwide with 15,000 members, according to the brotherhood’s website.

In the Seal Beach bank, members perform magic tricks for each other, watch and listen to the presentations of guest lecturers and host two major competitions a year, one featuring close-up magic, the other a “weird magic and mentalism” night that focuses on “spooky, psychic” tricks such as mind-reading. Close-up -- or parlor magic -- is performed in an intimate setting.

“Magic was my first love,” said John Booth, the club’s former president who’s written 11 books on his favorite subject.After retiring from a dozen-year career as a professional stage magician, Booth, 92, also worked as a photographer, journalist, filmmaker and Unitarian minister.

“In my old age,” Booth said, “I come here for the friendships.”

David Gray, a 62-year-old retired astronomy and chemistry professor from Huntington Beach’s Golden West College and lifelong magic hobbyist, said he comes for the stimulation.

“Magic is intellectually interesting,” he said, “and sometimes embarrassingly easy.”

Interesting, easy and useful, the members said.

Magician Jaac Mandrake -- also known as Jack Torrance, detective agency owner -- said the skills he’s learned in magic have helped him solve cases.

“Magicians are the masters of deception and the best detectors of deception,” said Mandrake, 75. “This is extremely useful for detectives: In my opinion, every detective should study to be a magician.”

Marcia Harris uses her magic skills to help motivate the elementary-school students she’s taught for 32 years. “I call myself an ‘edutainer’. I use coins, alphabet cards, puzzles, rubber bands -- anything to teach a concept.”

Cliff Gerstman, 44, performs magic tricks to capture and hold the attention of his students as well, high schoolers in Gardena.

“Sometimes the kids just need a break from a long lecture,” said Gerstman, who teaches science. “I can hold [the impending magic show] over their heads.”

At the core of their art, most members say, is the basic human desire to be wowed.

That was evident on a recent Saturday night at the Parasol Restaurant, a Seal Beach landmark eatery, where the bulk of Ring 96 members gather after meetings.

“Can you show me a trick?” a waiter asked meekly after serving the magicians their soup.

Jheff obliged by pulling out two metal slugs -- one bearing a couple of holes -- out of his pocket and handed the one without holes to the waiter. A few seconds -- and several incantations -- later, one of the holes had moved from the slug in Jheff’s hand to the one in the waiter’s.

“Wow!” the young man said, his eyes shining wide. “That was cool.”

So ended the monthly night of strange things in Seal Beach.