My theory about David Blaine Drowned Alive

Factual Questions
41

[QUOTE=devilsknew]
My Theory about David Blaine is that he has trained for endurance. After his initial special, his trade is in physical feats, a more slick, and “extreme” but Millenial pioneering of Harry Houdini’s legacy. I believe as a magician and mystic he has consulted both yogis and Deep Blue Diver technique and practiced with respective mentors and coaches in experience. He will truly attempt to hold his breath for 9 minutes. I predict 8:44.

It will still be amazing under 9 minutes and perhaps even more suspensful and believable… I think that David Blaine’s true enigmatic ability as a Magician is his compousered exxageration.
[/QUOTE]

C’mon, that’s all part of his schtick. He find’s a trick to pull off a stunt and then hoses the media with all the “I’ve been training for over a year, I’ve had to condition my spirt and soul for this. I’ve spent hours researching in libraries around the world. I’ve traveled the world training with yogis in India, witch doctors in the Amazon, and Eskimos in Alaska. Danger and mystery enshroud me.”
Quoting Tom Cruise “Don’t be so glib!”

42

Mr. Blaine is a great illusionist. He has been caught decieving the public in regards to a number of his tricks. I do not believe for a moment that what you will see is real.

If I was asked to perform this illusion, I would spend a little money and make some little high pressure oxygen tanks that I could place under the tounge, or other empty mouth volume. There would be some kind of (tounge controlled?) regulator and the outflow would be directed down into the lung to mix the gasses. With the oxygen already colder it would tend to mix down into the lungs. Enough of a shot could be contained in a small area to give him a few minute’s edge. What’s the bettting that not only does he not speak before being submerged or there is a point where he is not visible so he can don his little supply. Watch to see if he releases bubbles (to displace stale air), and maybe even struggle (to mix the oxygen around a little) as a finishing touch. The oxgen canisterette could be warmed to any temperature so the outgoing O2 temp would be right. I am sure there are some chemical wizards that will provide a simple formula of junk (maybe in a chewable capsule) that would release 02 and dispense with the sticky problem of getting rid of the apparatus.

Another method would to be to peform minor surgery through the cheek on a side of the face that is never shown to the camera during the ILLUSION, and insert an oxygen tube there. If the water he is dunked in is clean and full of chlorine, and he is clean, and he gets the wound serviced immediately after, it is really just an extreme piercing. David Blaine is the kind of guy who might actually go to such an extreme. Like all his big stunts, it is a one-off, so don’t rule out anything.

I am sure there are other means for attaining this illusion that don’t involve magic breathable water.

Never trust a magician. They are honest liars, in that all they fleece thier victims out of is the admission, and they give a fair return of wonder and entertainment. As a magic fan, I have never seen any trick I could not at least provide a plausable way of attaining and most are obvious to the point of boredom.

The theories I outlined here may or may not be what Blaine is trying, but they would top my list of things to try if I was charged with doing the illusion.
That is my take, anyway. 9 minutes is a long time. If he trained for it and it is physicaly possible, then fine. Based on his history, I am betting trick.

43

I decided to swing by the goldfish bowl on Thursday. And it really is a goldfish bowl full of water, with an open top, sitting in the middle of a public plaza. He’s getting mooned by high school students :wink:

Blaine’s been sleeping in the thing at night, waving at the crowds during the day, all while breathing from his extended scuba gear. He’s eating nothing but liquids (pedialyte and gatorade, apparently) and I couldn’t tell exactly how his waste elimination tubes were attached.

Jurph, I read that wiki page on caisson workers, but it fails to mention anything about being increased pressure affecting your oxygen retention. Care to elaborate?

44

Okay, I know it’s boring, but someone’s gotta do it: the gentle insertion of some facts.

  1. Breathable liquids are not fiction, but neither are they a feasible way for Blaine to do what he’s going to do (not with the technology as it currently stands).

  2. DocCathode suggests that Blaine swapped places with a double during his ‘ice’ stunt. He didn’t.

I know several people who work with Blaine on his projects, and I have met and talked with at least two people who were involved in that specific stunt, one being part of the TV crew and one being an advisor. It was Blaine in there the whole time. I’m a professional magician myself, and I’m pretty well-connected in the trade. People level with me about stuff. Sometimes, they level with me about stuff that I can’t share with people here on the SBMD, and if this is the case then that’s what I say here on the Boards. This is not one of those times.

Someone may say that since I’m a magician, and since magicians lie and deceive, I can’t be trusted. This is flawed reasoning. A magician only ‘lies and deceives’ when performing, and only within a framework of understanding that exists between performer and audience. This understanding goes something like this: ‘I am going to use my talents to create magical moments for you; you know it’s not real (just like you know Ewen MacGregor isn’t really a Jedi Knight), but I can help you suspend your disbelief for long enough to create a moment of magic for the purposes of entertainment. You know this is what I do, and I know you know this is what I do.’ Apart from these specific circumstances, magicians are as honest and reliable as anyone else. If not, if some guy uses deceptive techhniques in real life, and without this framework of understanding, then he isn’t a magician: he’s a con artist, and he can go to jail.

  1. Doc Cathode further asserts that trickery was involved in the ‘living in a box’ and ‘standing on top of a pole’ stunts. Again, I respectfully disagree, to the extent that in both cases Blaine was the only person involved (no doubles or switches), and that he was doing what he said he was doing. These are (or were) genuine feats of endurance.

You are free to believe or not believe, of course, and yes, there’s a small chance I could be wrong. But these are the facts as best as I’ve been able to ascertain them, and I’ve done a lot of talking to a lot of people in the trade about these stunts.

  1. Mssmith537 refers to Penn & Teller’s routine involving Teller submerged in a tank of water. Yes, there’s a trick to that, and no, Teller was not actually required to hold his breath for any long period of time. Penn & Teller cheerfully admit as much, as muldoonthief is aware. However, there is no correspondence between that stunt and the Blaine stunt, and the method by which Teller could (secretly) breathe would not apply to the Blaine stunt.

  2. DocCathode wrote “I’ll believe it when I see it in person. Blaine used editing to fake his levitation. I see no reason to believe his other tricks are not also the result of movie magic.” It is correct to say that editing was used to enhance the levitation effect Blaine used in his first TV special. The basic effect does not require TV editing, but the TV editing made it look more spectacular than it would appear in real life. There has been much discussion within the trade about the ethics of doing this, and some of us agree that it was something of an own-goal, in that (a) the version without the TV trickery would have been quite good enough (it has fooled and entertained many people over the years), and (b) once word gets out that TV editing is used in some of your tricks, it’s hard to persuade people that this isn’t the explanation for all your tricks. DocCathode’s post is an example of this very problem.

DocCathode is incorrect to say that Blaine’s other tricks are also the result of editing techniques or special FX. David Blaine is a reasonably accomplished close-up magician with some very good, well-practised techique, especially with cards. The great majority of things you’ve seen him do on TV, he would be able to do for you right in front of your eyes.

In terms of technique and skill, as a close-up magician he is nowhere near the best, but he is good (if you want to see the best, check out Shoot Ogawa, Armando de Lucero, Darwin Ortiz, Simon Lovell, Michael Vincent and guys of that calibre). However, he has a presentational style that found a new audience for magic and made it seem cool and hip, and that was quite an achievement at the time of his first TV special.

And now, we return you to your thread.

45

[QUOTE=bup]
According to Wikipedia, breathable liquids are not fiction.
[/QUOTE]

Read the link you posted. It has only been done for animals and has never been successfully demonstrated for humans. David Blaine is a human AFAIK.

[QUOTE=devilsknew]
This could maybe be as incredible as the black Yogi who fit his entire body in a 3 foot, lexan, cube and held his breath for 7-8 minutes at a a time underwater on the '84 season of That’s Incredible.
[/quote]

Yogi Coudoux. Apparently he’s still around.

46

<<You are free to believe or not believe, of course, and yes, there’s a small chance I could be wrong. But these are the facts as best as I’ve been able to ascertain them, and I’ve done a lot of talking to a lot of people in the trade about these stunts.>>

I think a “small chance” would be if you had been sitting next to the ice cube the entire time and looked away for a half hour. It’s hearsay IMHO. People lie, people are mistaken, etc, etc, etc. It’s been demonstrated that Blaine easily could have been replaced by a double. Did he? I don’t know, but anybody who’s ‘certain’ he did it without trickery bewilders me, because it CAN be done convincingly with trickery, and no one aside from Blaine himself and the crew members there the entire time know.

Also, crew members testifying to the authenticity aren’t foolproof. I can think of very few tricks that they did not, at some point, SWEAR were real, only to end up being exposed at a later date.

I don’t know if he uses tricks or not, but there’s too much room for trickery and too little evidence of authenticity for me to tune in. For me to turn on a TV show like that, there has to be something truly amazing, and the impact of the amazing feat is severely diminished for me if there’s ample reason to believe it could have been faked. I don’t know enough about the water thing to comment, but the possibility of doubles came out after the ice cube stunt was finished, and I have little doubt that a plausible explanation will surface after this one.

Whether he USED such tricks, no one will ever really know.

47

Was he actually frozen into the ice cube, with ice contacting his body, or was it just a big block of ice with a room inside it for him to hang around in?

If the latter, what makes you think he was cold? The body is a pretty good heat source. As was mentioned already, Eskimos have been living in igloos for a long time, and it’s a standard winter survival technique to bury yourself in snow for its insulating properties. So not having seen it, I’m not so sure what’s so special about the ‘ice cube’ trick.

48

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
Was he actually frozen into the ice cube, with ice contacting his body, or was it just a big block of ice with a room inside it for him to hang around in?

If the latter, what makes you think he was cold? The body is a pretty good heat source. As was mentioned already, Eskimos have been living in igloos for a long time, and it’s a standard winter survival technique to bury yourself in snow for its insulating properties. So not having seen it, I’m not so sure what’s so special about the ‘ice cube’ trick.
[/QUOTE]

I’ve been wondering about that with a lot of his stunts. At first mention they sound interesting but at second glance you wonder “is that really as hard as it appears?”.
Stand on top of a post for an extended period of time and then jump into some crash boxes? Mmmm…okay. I’ve stood in one place for a long time. Is it really that hard?
Sit inside a hollowed out block of ice? Looks neat. Looks kinda cold. Is it difficult? I guess no one really knows.
Sit underwater with breathing gear for extended amount of time. Mmmm…so what? What does that have to do with holding your breath? Kind of like Evil Kenival sitting on his bike for 24 hours before making his jump. Why would he?

All his stunts seem to have that “Is that really that hard?” head scratch to them.

49

[QUOTE=ianzin]
2. DocCathode suggests that Blaine swapped places with a double during his ‘ice’ stunt. He didn’t.
[/QUOTE]

I’m willing to take your word on this. However, this still leaves me unimpressed. ‘Man in in warm clothing spends time in cold environment’. As a man who wears shorts and eats ice cream while walking down the street on a 44 degreee night, I fail to see the spectacle.

I once knew a guy who was born and raised in Texas. He wore long pants and a black trenchcoat on an 80 degree day without even sweating. That blows my mind.

Trickery covers a lot of things, for example hidden nourishment while in the box, or hidden harnesses etc while on the pole.

Enhanced? He performed, admittedly rather well, a trick that requires no prop and can be done by an eight-year-old. Then, he editted in footage of him levitating several feet off the street by means that would not have been possible under the conditions he established before levitating.

Any reasonably co-ordinated, agile person can do it.

,

The basic trick will get you just a few inches off the ground. Blaine edited in footage of him getting several feet off the ground by other means.

50

Those quotes are from a thread from 2000.

Despite your words, ianzin, you have repeated that “I-know-how-to-do-it-but-I’m-not-telling-you” line in every magic thread for over five years. Stop it already. This is GQ. Either answer the question properly or stay out of these threads.

You have said in the past that it will hurt our enjoyment as audience members to know how tricks are done. If it will salve your conscience, tell yourself that you are completely wrong in thinking that. I am bored to death of magic shows, but it would greatly enhance my pleasure to know exactly how the trick is done and to watch the technical aspects of presenting that trick to the audience.

Stop adding to ignorance. If you can’t say something useful, then use some of that famous magician’s self-control and not post at all.

51

[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
Either answer the question properly or stay out of these threads. / Stop adding to ignorance. If you can’t say something useful, then use some of that famous magician’s self-control and not post at all.
[/quote]
In my earlier contribution to this thread, I provided factual information pertaining either to the OP or to some of the things that had already been posted. I did not add to ignorance. I cleared up some misconceptions, and provided some facts where I was able to provide them. Sorry if you’ve got a problem with that!

52

[QUOTE=Cordial Jim]
There is no “trick” involved. He will attempting to break the World Record for holding your breath underwater: 8 min. 58 secs.

David Blaine is a magician, but he also does some pretty amazing feats of endurance: buried alive for seven days, spending 61 hours encased in ice, standing on a tiny platform at the top of a 100 foot high pole for 35 hours, and living in a transparent Perspex (Plexiglas) box for 44 days without food (over the Thames).

There is no trickery involved in these kinds of things. The guy is amazing.
[/QUOTE]

It’s all tricks. He’s a stage magician- it’s all tricks, it’s supposed to be tricks, and no one in their right mind thinks it’s anything but a trick. Now, the hard part is figuering out how he does/did it. But there’s no “body cooled down to nearly freezing” crap. It’s an* illusion. *

If the Guiness records dudes all this to beat the “world record” then they are pretty damn gullible, which so far they haven’t seem to been.

It is a trick, and just because I can’t say how he does it doesn’t mean anything. I’ll bet Blaine can do open heart surgery, write an iron-clad 40 page contract, do a complicated Income tax form- complete with financial planning, or anything many other professionals out there can do, but a stage illusionist can’t. I can show you some pretty cool "tricks’ in my profession too, ones that Blaine can’t do either. So? Every decent profession has skills and yes "tricks’ that takes a decade of education, training and experience to master. The fact that I can tell you how Blain does his doesn’t mean they are supernatural, any more than the way my brother does my taxes to get me twice the refund I though I should get, is sorcery either. Both mystify me. (Although I do sometimes catch a whiff of brimstone when my Bro is doing tax stuff. :smiley: ). Shit; “professional magician”- let’s see one of them get me an extra $500 from the IRS on April 15th! Damn, sometimes I do think Bro has sold his soul! :wink:
**
ianzin**- prove you are who you say you are. :dubious: Or, STFU about it. I am in complete agreement with Exapno Mapcase here. I am also a “professional” and with a code of ethics and all. But since anyone can claim they are anyone here, I don’t go blathering about my “special double-secret knowledge” :rolleyes: all over these boards. It’s rude and arrogant to do so- unless you’re like Qadopan or Blake or some of the other professionals that are willing to share some of their special knowledge with us. When they do so, they make a real contribution to this Board and the fight against ignorance. Since I can’t share my “professional secrets” I don’t go blathering on about how secret and special they are. I post my opinions and my huge store of trivia, and sometimes I twist my Brothers arm to share some of his Tax pro secrets with us all, and thus I hope I contribute back a bit.

53

[QUOTE=DrDeth]

II’ll bet Blaine can**'t** do open heart surgery, .
[/QUOTE]
:smack:

54

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
**
ianzin**- prove you are who you say you are. :dubious: Or, STFU about it.
[/QUOTE]

Well, he did write that Staff Report on cold reading. It included a link to his book.

It bugged me at first to. But now, I just think of him as Alan Rickman.

55

Look, magicians have an ethical proviso to keep the secrets of their magic, or at least limit knowledge to those within the brotherhood. It is an ancient realization, the first rule of illusion and the key to every magician’s livelihood.

If we reveal the secret, the magic, wonder, and entertainment disappears. Magicians are entertainers. Why would I want to destroy my act and crush your wonder? It violates me and you.

DrDeth, you are one of the angry 20% that magicians deal with everyday - the spoilers, that try to rob people of magical moments. I think you have a misconception about magic and should maybe lean back and enjoy the ride.

Why don’t you go and bother Coke or The Colonel for their secret recipe… see how far you get? Magic is a brotherhood and there are trade secrets and commodities within the Brotherhood.

56

I like the part about the editing “enhancing” an effect that would not have the same effect if presented live. Teehee! That’s right. I can look like Mel Gibson (young) with editing enhancements, sort of portraying me in a way that real life cannot. If you put me on a movie screen, my image can be enhanced to look 30 feet tall, in a way that real life has me only 6’2".
THAT’S WHY IT’S CALLED EDITING!!!
" " " " ILLUSION!!!
BECAUSE IT’S FAKE!!!

:slight_smile:
hh

57

[QUOTE=DrDeth]

**
ianzin**- prove you are who you say you are. :dubious: Or, STFU about it. I am in complete agreement with Exapno Mapcase here. I am also a “professional” and with a code of ethics and all. But since anyone can claim they are anyone here, I don’t go blathering about my “special double-secret knowledge” :rolleyes: all over these boards.
[/QUOTE]

In addition to the fact that ianzin contributed to the cold reading report(ask Dex), he also maintains a personal website http://www.ianrowland.com/ which he was courteous enough to email me, a Mod, and ask if he could link to. I’ve done the linking.

58

[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
Those quotes are from a thread from 2000.

Despite your words, ianzin, you have repeated that “I-know-how-to-do-it-but-I’m-not-telling-you” line in every magic thread for over five years. Stop it already. This is GQ. Either answer the question properly or stay out of these threads.

You have said in the past that it will hurt our enjoyment as audience members to know how tricks are done. If it will salve your conscience, tell yourself that you are completely wrong in thinking that. I am bored to death of magic shows, but it would greatly enhance my pleasure to know exactly how the trick is done and to watch the technical aspects of presenting that trick to the audience.

Stop adding to ignorance. If you can’t say something useful, then use some of that famous magician’s self-control and not post at all.
[/QUOTE]
I thought that ianzin’s post was helpful in that it gave the opinions of a professional magician. And I did NOT read his replies as “I-know-how-to-do-it-but-I’m-not-telling-you” in this case.

If you want to know how tricks are done, I’m sure there are websites out there that may help.

samclem General Questions Moderator

59

[QUOTE=Shagnasty]
I agree that there probably is no trick per say. Blaine is like a human body hacker that looks to exploit exploits of physiology to pull off seemingly superhuman endurance stunts. They aren’t really superhuman since he still is but they are still pretty impressive if you appreciate what he is doing. He is using every known tactic to break the breath holding record. Part of that is staying underwater for an impressive length of time beforehand.
[/QUOTE]

Exactly. I my physiology lab, after blowing off my CO2 and breathing in nearly pure oxygen, I was able to hold my breath for 5 minutes. I had not trained to hold my breath at all (my regular breath holding was probably a bit over a minute). I could see that if someone could normally hold their breath for 3 minutes, after breathing pure oxygen they could extend it to 9.

60

[QUOTE=samclem]
I thought that ianzin’s post was helpful in that it gave the opinions of a professional magician. And I did NOT read his replies as “I-know-how-to-do-it-but-I’m-not-telling-you” in this case.

If you want to know how tricks are done, I’m sure there are websites out there that may help.

samclem General Questions Moderator
[/QUOTE]

If his replies had been helpful or beleiveable, then I 'd agree that it would have been “helpful in that it gave the opinions of a professional magician”. All he said is that is was done that way, but then again, we really can’t believe him either. Baline is an Illuinsist, thus his tricks involve Illusion- that’s OK, they are supposed to. The fun part is thinking “how the hell did he do that?”. So, if ianzin had come by and confirmed that “yes, it was an illusion, but I can’t tell you how he did it”, that would be fine. But read his post- he does nothing of the sort. First he says “that not how he did trick A”- but if Blaine really did do it that way, would a professional magicial reveal as much? The “nameless magician” went on TV a few years ago, and revealed exactly how many tricks had been done. Before that, I remember Pro magicians denying that that was how the trick was performed.

Next, on the other tricks, ianzin trys and tell us “it wuz no tick, it was a real feat of endurance”- and that is equivilant of a “Pro” saying 'It wasn’t* stage *magic, it was actual sorcery!"

"Magicians’ are in the business of performing tricks and illusions upon us. It’s OK that they don’t tell us exactly how the trick was performed, but it’s also OK when they do. Yuri Geller also performed simple acts of “stage magic”, but he claimed it was real ESP powers. Note that other than professional skeptics, few “stage magicians” came forward and said “No, it’s not ESP, it’s an illusion”. As soon as Geller started claiming it was “real ESP” intead of illusions, then he crossed the line from “entertainer” to “con man”.