Applause Book by Senor Mardo (1st Edition)

Description

This came from an old magician’s estate purchase. First edition; copyright 1947 by Samuel Berland. Soft covers; staple bound.; page size 6″ x 9″. Some light cover stains; interior pages are very good and clean.

Sixteen beautiful routines, moves, and effects that, like the title says, will earn you plenty of audience applause. Most of the audience-pleasing routines use props that you likely already own, such as a Vanishing Cane, Comedy Funnel, Liquid Appear, silks, rope, magic wand, and other standard items.

Plus, Mardo tips a trio of coin effects that use standard coins and a modicum of sleights to accomplish the magic. Also a neat card flourish that was later featured in the movie “The Sting,” starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.

Paul Fleming wrote:

This little book is a sequel to Routined Magic, by the same author, which we examined in Review No. 108. It is “not in any way a literary essay or the explanation of newly-created tricks,” says Senor Mardo in the Introduction. “It is a series of routines with standard apparatus used by almost every magician, but presented with a new slant; … and every routine has been successfully tested before an audience.”

Included in the sixteen feats are three which make use of the “Walsh cane” – (1) a combination with an Al Baker paper tearing stunt and the production of a feather bouquet, half-dozen silk handkerchiefs, and a goldfish bowl; (2) the disappearance of a cane wrapped in a piece of newspaper; and (3) Johnny Jones’s cane vanish from a coin envelope. There are three feats, also, with coins – Eight Pieces of Eight, in which coins pass from hand to hand; The Migratory Coins, Senor Mardo’s method of doing the familiar trick with a handkerchief and four coins; and Copper and Silver, a variation on Eight Pieces of Eight (not The Migratory Coins, as the text says).

Other tricks explained by the author are Count Again Please, the magical transposition of three cards from the pack into a sealed envelope; the Gali-Gali Ring on the Stick effect, performed by an easy method; a simple but good thumb-tie procedure; a pretty bit of card manipulation called Twin Bucksaw Flourish; and Cut Yourself a Smoke, in which the magician snips the end off a piece of rope – and thus procures a cigarette, which he proceeds to smoke!

Finally, there are several more combination routines: Liquid Levitation, performed with a milk pitcher, magic funnel, four paper cups, and four paper plates; Sil-Sol, with a wand, a salt shaker, and a silk handkerchief; Liquid Mélange, with a milk pitcher, a wand, several silk handkerchiefs, and some odds and ends; A Smart Opening, which is a handkerchief, cigarette, and glass of wine effect; and Bubble Magic, a feat that makes use of a bubble-blowing outfit, a cigarette, a silk handkerchief, and four glass balls.

Applause has 32 pages of explanations, well illustrated with over 80 drawings by the author, and neatly printed and bound in soft boards. Senor Mardo is a conscientious, capable performer, and his booklet of well-devised routines should prove useful to many magicians, especially to those who have on hand the pieces of equipment that we have noted above.