The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-11-04
As Svenedl Willed Trllby to Sing So Mercedes Wills
 His Pianste de Mysfere 10 Play by Thought Wdves"
By DOLLY DALRYMPLE

Do you happen to know anything about waves?
 1 don't mean Marcel" waves, or ocean waves. or waves of prosperity, or moral waves. but thought waves" If you don't, 'spose you drop in at
 the Lyric and get line on the newest supernorma1 proceeding of the age, which Mercedes is demonstrating and through which like Svengall willed Trilby to sing. he wills his "Pianiste de Mystere" to play like a Padarewski. a Hoffman or just an ordinary ragtime artiste.
 Mercedes showed me photograph of perfectly good thought wave" and
 believe me. it was the queerest, strangest. weirdest looking little thing I ever saw.
 Looked like 1t was too young to be out without its mother, for 1t was as infinitesimaI as a microbe, or a germ
 kinder crazy like with a very fashion able figure, slender and svelte. It had long tail like Ha1ley's comet, and it was slinls-y and "skeer-y" and snak-y looking like Nazimova in Bella Donna, and it didn't look like it had right good
 
 often.)
 Still, it must have some sense, be- cause Professor Muensterberg of liar yard and Professor David E. Rice of Columbia and James Fl. Hyslop, founder of the Society for Psychological Re- search, and a lot of other high brows have all become interested in Mercedes and his wonderful thought transfer ence," and even MT. William Randolph Hearst requested a private demonstra- ton, which was marvellous, Mercedes being in Boston. and Mile. Stantone in Providence-miles away, and accom- plishing Just what he does on the stage at the Lyric this week.
 He's some puzzle-that Mercedes is.
 And he looks unconcerned! He just walks about in the audience, sort of careless. just like that, looks like a Spaniard. his well cut white flannels and stylish black stock bring ing out the remarkable color of his dark eyes and jet black hair, and be- fore YOU can say Jack Robinson, ne has transferred to Mile. Stantone at the piano on the stage (blindfoided sne ls' your request and she plays any olu se lection you ask for, from m My aarem" to Brahms Hungarian dances. Mercedes has confronted aggregauons since he's been here made up from dilie- tants who don't know the difference De- tween Irving Berfin's music and Chopln' to those to whom Bach and Beethoven and Iiszt are as old college chums Just to show you the variety of music 1 ascked for, let me quote: La Boheme," Mendelssohns spring Song" 'Too Much Mustard" Rachmnai- noff' s ''Pre Jude in sharp" (dont bother l there were lots of us besides you who
 couldn't pronounce it; Beethoven's | Moonlight Sonata" "The International
 Rag" Annie Laurie Hes a Devil'
 tof course), "The Evening Star" from
 Tannhauser, "The High Cost of Loving, Chopin's Funeral March,, Annie Rooney" dts been ages since l even
 heard the name), Everybody Loves a Chicken" and the Lord knows what else for everything from Rubenstein to Fin l stein was asked for.
 1 There's lots of etiquette about the re- quest, too, let me say. | It's most as polite as Auction" eti- ouette Please play"-it's the form in both.
 1 An awfully funny thing happened at one of the matinees.
 l A big old red faced bum who looked as
 If you punched his face the beer would
 squirt clear across the street, and who
 was trying his best to look musical-Ike- | his middle name" was Harmony. you
 know-reauested Ishabibblesky's Bull
 garian Scherzo -Romantique in the key of "umpty-ump" flats.
 Did he phase Mercedes or Mile. stan
 tone?
 1 Not on your life
 They knew he was ''kiddin'" and Mer-
 cedes read his mind like book and quietly said
 What you want played is How Dry I Am.'
 | Another equally diverting incident was when a small fluffy. fiossy. cute. little I damsel, with cute little curl and cute l little dimple, whom you certainly expected 1 to ask for You Made Me Love You" sud- denly had her mind read (we didn't give | her credit for possessing such an article),
 and it revealed request for some un- | pronouncable thing with name like U
 dish of scrambled alphabet-one of those pieces that go skating and gliding up and 1 down the piano like a thousand brick. Gee! If this thought wave" really l strikes Birmingham all in a heap, some of us will surely have to have a general l "house cleaning for our little Think l Tanks"--won't we?
 Have care, you who declare your fife
 to be an 'open book" for If you are not
 telling the truth. you'd better paste some of the pages together, because Mercedes ! like Whitcomb Riley's famous goblins,
 twill git you, if you don't watch out
 To one whose repertoire on the piano consists of 'Leybach's Fifth Nocturne, and one other piece-but who has for gotten the other piece-imagine the shock 1 with which the news Is received that
 Mercedes and Mile. Stantone number be- l tween 40,00O and 50,000 selections in their l repertoire?
 | Wonderful feat of memory-that! Of course, with my prying turn of mind 1t was up to me to see Mercedes and try Shreveport, La., today after spending | a fortnight with Miss Dorothy John | son.
 1 Mrs. Jack Swoope of Courtland is the