Mad about Magic

I picked up this great Mad Magazine pocket novel "The Mad book of Magic and other Dirty Tricks" by Al Jaffee (1970) at a local thrift shop the other day. Bing a huge fan of magic and Mad, I was thrilled to find this amongst a bunch of romance novels and out of date computer books. Well worth my 65 cents, as this book is filled with great magic tricks, and other dirty tricks.
The forward to the book reads: [If there is one word that is the byword of all magicians that word would have to be SECRECY. In the foreword of every book ever written by a magician, the reader is always constrained never ever to reveal a trick's secrets. The reader is told that this is some sort of unwritten but nevertheless inviolate magician's code. And somehow, this code is honored by millions of readers of millions of books that show how millions of tricks are done.
But as far as we are are concerned, this is all nonsense. Our tricks do not need to be kept secret. Our tricks do not have to be hidden. Our tricks do not have to be reserved for a chosen few. Why...? Why do we fly in the face of tradition? Because our tricks do not work, that is why.
Anyway, we just don't go in for sill codes and restrictions. Go ahead and tell anyone whatever you want from this book. Tell them all you like to your heart's content. Just one little thing we ask you not do do with this book. Don't lend it. Lending means not buying. Not buying means that not only won't the tricks in this book work, but the author of the book won't work either.
And now on this entertaining, engrossing, fascination, and ofter diverting volume about which one reviewer said, "Once you've started reading, you'll certainly want to pit it down."]
Ok, I know what they just said, but I don't want to get in trouble with the Secret Magic Society, so do me a favour and don't tell any one you just read this blog.