He’s claiming that he’s going to fast for a couple of days before hand to flush the solids out of his system. That’s claiming …
Not that that would do much anyway - vitamins are not a notable souce of energy.
As for the “doodie” (say what?) issue, I believe he will have a supply of nappies in his little crate.
From a personal perspective, my office is very close to where Blaine will be hanging around. I will make sure I sit down by the river to eat my lunch so he can see my big yummy sandwiches 
Also, I was listening to the radio this morning and the presenter pointed out (quite rightly) that this area of London is not one of its safest - as he said “I give it 24 hours before all the local kids are out on the riverbank with their catapults and air rifles.”
This stunt could be a whole lot more risky than DB thought…
I feel quite certain, that this particular Fox show "Secrets of the Street Magicians, "nailed it exactly the way Blaine did it, not a proposed mechanism of how he could have done it. Possibly some inside information on this one as well. Fox, I think has already re-ran this twice, so perhap’s there is a good chance it will run again. “Secrets of Magicians Revealed!” seemed to have a bit more of the proposed mechanism’s of how those could be done.
JZ
To further hijack, how did he do the Bryant park standing on the pole trick? No room for a body double up there.
How long did he stand on the pole? I’m sure Blaine doesn’t mind a little discomfort if he has an audience. Was it really that great?
JZ
He spent 35 hours on top of the pole. Uncomfortable, maybe, but not that much of a big deal.
As for the ice thing, I never really got the point of that. I mean, it was several degrees above freezing in his cosy little air space. When I first heard what he was intending to do there, I thought he was actually going to be frozen into a solid block of ice. That would have been quite cool.
I think I could handle it then if it was 35 hours, especially if it was what made my paycheck. My problem would be finding enough suckers to pay out for it. Blaine has certain friends in the media which promote his stunts.
I don’t understand the attention he gets with these stunts either, because to me it was more like an igloo than a block of ice, just no normal entrance or exit from it, which is why I described it the way I did. And we all see how well eskimo’s live in those. But a block of ice sells it better.
JZ
I think the real trick with the ice was standing up for so long.
I would think standing on top of a 80 foot pole for 35 hours, the diameter of a tree stump and without a net to be fairly impressive, no?
Scurvy (which is the quickest detrimental/deadly effect of fasting) starts to set in at around 42 days. IIRC it can kill you at around a week after that depending on your circumstances and whether or not you get any vitamins. It is immenently reversable though, just start taking VitC and it goes away almost immediately. Most other malnourishment problems take longer than that to set in.
I have gone 40 days without eating before myself. After the first 3 or so days it gets fairly easy. You generally stop thinking about food much. Outside of the occasional hunger pain (which suck by the way) that start after a week or so, it feels no worse than not having much sleep, or having a really mild cold or something (slight lightheadnedness, tired, and a lot of fatigue in the bones and joints). You do have a lot of digestive problems though for the first few days after you start, the hunger pains don’t go away until about a week after you start eating, and it is really hard to keep any food more complicated than rice down. The fatigue and stuff start to be completely gone after about a week of regular eating.
There is a good article by cecil about man living on bread alone that explains part of the story. It’s linked on the main site if you do a quick search.
all that being said, this is going to be an illusion, he isn’t going to go that long without eating any more than the distance he lifts off the ground during his ‘levitation’.
May I ask under what circumstances you didn’t eat for 40 days, stick monkey? Did you get any nutrition at all? Don’t feel obliged to answer if you don’t want to.
The levitation trick is really quite easy.
If you notice David Blaine never faces his audience when he ‘levitates’ and this is why and how it is done:-
With your back to your audience who MUST be standing BTW, you raise one foot off the ground and at the same time lift the heel of your other foot as far as you can off the ground so that you are balancing on the toes of that foot.
To a standing audience it appears that both feet have left the ground and that you are floating some 4-6 inches off the ground.
If the audience is seated they will be able to see that you still have one foot on the ground.
Try it and amaze your friends!!
If you can use usenet you can read alt.magic.secrets
Im sure this is going to be discussed there.
As to whether someone can do without food for 44 days is another matter. Does that mean he can’t poop for 44 days too, would that seem logical to anyone? It doesn’t to me.
I guess I’m gonna have to learn to use ‘search’ please ignore my previous post :smack
:smack: and again :smack:
This is known as the Balducci method. There are others that also use mechanical means. Also, when Blaine did this stunt on TV, he also had the benefit of a editting team. His spectators seen a levitation that wasn’t near as dramatic as what the TV viewers watched, in which they showed both feet rising a considerably distance, which no Balducci method could do, but a friendly editing team and a hoist could.
JZ
http://www1.sky.com/skyone/articles/features04.htm
Looking at him in the promos on TV, Sky and CH4 see to be showing it, he’s put on a big a weight.
If faked he’ll have to look pretty emaciated after the 44 days to make the stunt look real.
http://www1.sky.com/skyone/articles/features04.htm
Looking at him in the promos on TV, Sky and CH4 see to be showing it, he’s put on a big a weight.
If faked he’ll have to look pretty emaciated after the 44 days to make the stunt look real.
I would just like to make a point on the “magic revealed” programmes. whiltst they are very interesting and entertaing i think people should take what they say with a pinch os salt. They do not actually know how MOST of the tricks are done, they simply find a way they COULD be done, and so therefore may not be exposing the correct secret.
Anyway on with the point, I believe that David Blaine is genuinely doing this stunt, 44 for days living on nothing but water is hard, both physically and mentally. When your body has used up all your fat reserves it will start to eat away at your muscles, casuing your skin to open up in certain places.
And as for all these people that say his previous stunts are not very good,i would like to try and see all of you stand in a block of ice, without sitting down for three days, and i would like to see u standing on a pole with no sleep or anything. David is an illusionist, his art is to amaze and entertain people, his street magic is obviously very clever but not real, his spectacular stunts however are real, he is prepared to die for his art, so he says, his stunts are not like convential illusions, no smoke and mirrors, he does them in plain view for everyone to see, they are endurance tests, not tricks.
Dick Gregory used to fast longer than that for political reasons, way back when.
David, however, wants publicity more than food!