I’ve managed to catch one or two specials of his on whatever random channel has decided to play him, and I just have to say…he’s weird. Most magicians have a cocky, showy attitude when performing. Not him, no way. He’s just almost completely emotionless. Sometimes I wonder if he’s bored doing his stuff.
What’s even better than watching him, though? Watching the people he performs to. Some people just freak out. Some just get really emotional and dumfounded. The show I watched tonight had him in New Orleans and managed to perform an illusion where she wrote the name of a loved one down on a piece of paper, he lit it on fire, and then showed her the name written on his chest. This kind of freaked her out and she wanted to know how he did it. His response was to put his hand on her chest (inches away from her boob, mind you) and stare intently into her eyes for about a minute. Then he just walked away, leaving her dumfounded and confused.
Then he went to Haiti and did the old coin bending illusion. His audience’s response? “You break my cents! I need my cents! You broke my cents!” Poor guy was probably on his way to market to buy some food, when along comes David Blaine and steals his money, then bends it. I hope David was able to compensate him for it.
What takes the cake though, was his Crocodile Hunter-like journey into South American tribal territory. “The last group of outsiders to visit this tribe was chased away with poison spears…”(now we’re going to show up and perform what they’ll probably percieve as black magic. Brilliant!) The tribal people were amazed and for the most part not frightened, though. I can’t help but wonder if given time and enough isolation, they will eventually start idolizing him, and perhaps even start worshiping his image.
Oh, another of his antics involved beheading a chicken in front of a playground full of school children. At least the man has a sense of humor.
I figured some of the amazement was edited, or at least he did the same trick on a handful of others and picked which one had the best reaction. Still, that anyone would have that sort of reaction to any trick is kind of funny to me. Some people actually run off screaming when he pulls of something seemingly incredible.
Another funny quote from Haiti, after pulling a “I knew which card you picked” trick:
“Can you…see into my mind?”
Mr. singular was a very successful stage magician back in the day, and he’s still deeply involved in the magic world. This guy is despised by the magic community! He uses a tremendous amount of “Copperphotography”, a method of manipulating cameras perfected by David Copperfield, and his “impromptue” audiences are peppered heavily with shills that are well compensated for their ooohs and awwws of rapturous wonder. Add this to method of approaching marks like his a perv about to flash them (that half-lidded laconic “wanna see something interesting?” skeeves me out), and you’ve got a needy freak that’ll do anything, including hanging in a plexiglas box pissing in a diaper for a month, to get attention. Yuk!
I’m surprised Ricky Jay, for instance, or even James Randi himself haven’t taken care of him yet. If anyone can make it look like an accident, it’s them.
I completely accept that he’s post-editing to insert doctored footage of more impressive versions of the tricks than he actually performed on the street, but if that’s true, shouldn’t there be a load of people complaining “Hey, that’s me on the TV, but that’s not the trick he showed me!”? Where are they?
PS; don’t like the man; he’s a fairly competent conjurer, but this whole otherworldy affectation (and that’s all it is - just acting weird to grab our attention) just marks him as a total wanker in my estimation.
Actually, those complaints do pop up, but there are a lot of shills showing those reactions. A lot of the tricks are filmed with no one around, and the reactions are cut in from other tricks he did for an actual performance. He is a competant magician, but his tricks are not original (mr. singular has done many for me in the living room, and we’ve dissected every one down to a simple variation on a classic). Trust me, you can get really exaggerated reactions from people that know they are being filmed reacting. He can get lots of shots without giving away his biggie, the ( startlingly easy) levitation. It’s just an illusion that relies very heavily on angles, and not good for street magic.
One of the biggest complaints from his first TV special was he did the Balducci Levitation illusion, filmed people’s reaction, then spliced in footage of him being lifted by a crane to make it look like he had levitated in a much more spectacular fashion. After that, it’s pretty hard to trust anything you see of his on TV.
Part of his act is that he doesn’t act like “normal” magicians. It’s part of Penn and Teller’s act as well, it makes them stand out. P&T are just a bit more honest about it.
I’m no magician, I dabbled a lot growing up. I have a couple of books and I recognized the levitation he did. And I was livid when I saw him actually come off the ground, I thought it looked like computer generated that he had come off the ground - regardless I turned off the show.
Indeed. Another Haitian actually ran away in fear from him while David was trying to explain, “It’s not black magic! I’m an entertainer. I entertain. It’s not black magic…it’s just for fun!”
I am an entertainer
And I know just where I stand (har har)
Another camera-changer
And another flimsy scam
Today I am intriguing
I may have piqued your minds
But I know the game, you’ll forget my name
I won’t be here in another year
If I don’t freeze my man-paaarts
I laughed at this too. What are the chances that anyone in that group understood the English language? They were running away from a perceived nut job, speaking in a foreign tongue.
