Mike Caveney – Wonders

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For the past five years I have been working on a set of books that document basically everything I have performed during my career. When I started I had no idea that the finished product would fill 700 pages over two volumes. As a long time collector of books and because this will be my legacy, I decided to make the finished product as nice as I possibly could. And now that they are finished I can honestly say that they are everything I had hoped for.

I knew that I could write up the methods, theories, history and funny stories about each routine but I also knew that illustrating them would be a problem. I am no artist. That’s when my long time friend and Hollywood special effects man, Bill Taylor, came to the rescue. Bill turned my basement into a photo studio and for fourteen months we shot pictures. Many hundreds of them made it into the finished books and they are the clearest explanatory photos I have ever seen in a magic book. Because both of these books are printed in full color, each tiny detail is visible.

Volume I is called Mike Caveney Wonders and it contains all of the routines that I have performed going back to my days as a teenage magician in the Long Beach Mystics right up to my current act that includes Magic Paper, The Bow & Arrow and Scissors, Coat, Silverware & Chicken. More than just a How-To book, I have described the creative process behind each routine. In the case of Magic Paper (the torn, restored and animated toilet paper) I have explained all five methods that I have used and why each one was discarded in favor of a new version and why I stuck with method five for nearly thirty years. The goal is to teach and encourage the readers how to create their own original routines. A peek at the table of contents reveals the variety of material.

contents
Foreword 11
Introduction 15
Preface 19
The Long Beach Mystics 23
Giant Thimble Production 23
The Substitution Barrel 35
Trade Show Act 43
Amazing Mechanical Merlin 44
Split Deck 49
Crystal Card Catch 50
Anverdi Key Chest 53
Jumping Straw 57
The Nailed Card 61
The Benson Plunger 67
Two, One, None 83
Coin Vanish 89
Our Own Worst Enemy 94
Money Machine 99
Impromptu Linking Coat Hangers 109
Linking Coat Hangers 117
Lubor Die 127
Lie Detector 135
Halloween Card Stab 141
The Phome Book 151
Idiot Rings 159
The Powers of Darkness 171
Impromptu Powers of Darkness 187
Serious Laughter 195
Chinese Pipes 201
Nind Reading 209
Ten Dollar Bill Trick 219
Bill in Cigar 239
3-Arm Juggling 269
Coffee Juggling 281
Magic Paper 297
Bow & Arrow 345
Scissors, Coat, Silverware & Chicken 373
Billy’s Chicken Trick 417
The Chicken Chronicles 423
Mastering the Ceremonies 439