I know he has his critics, but I’m awed by his sleight of hand abilities. This looks like it will be a lot of fun to watch:
Hey while we’re on the subject of Blaine, I saw him on Jimmy Fallon where he did a trick in which he gave someone ten cards, had them hold the cards against his (not Blaine’s) chest, then after a while, the man had 13 cards in his hand, then after holding the cards against his chest for a while again, he now had 20 cards.
There was banter and number picking and so on going on but that’s the basic skeleton of the trick.
How did he do this? My only idea is some kind of glue or something that loosened up once warm, but, this doesn’t seem super plausible. Seems too easy to screw up.
[quote=“Frylock, post:2, topic:772061”]
Hey while we’re on the subject of Blaine, I saw him on Jimmy Fallon where he did a trick in which he gave someone ten cards, had them hold the cards against his (not Blaine’s) chest, then after a while, the man had 13 cards in his hand, then after holding the cards against his chest for a while again, he now had 20 cards.
There was banter and number picking and so on going on but that’s the basic skeleton of the trick.
How did he do this? My only idea is some kind of glue or something that loosened up once warm, but, this doesn’t seem super plausible. Seems too easy to screw up.
[/QUOTE]He added three cards already flipped over to the stack of ten. That’s why he insists that the guy flips it over as he counts. The guy then counts all ten original cards, stopping when he hits the newly added cards. The second part is just number trickery.
I’m more interested in finding out how he did the first trick - reading all 5 of Fallon’s cards and pinpointing which one he had isolated.
2nd trick was pretty obvious.
The last trick with the glass of water was really weird.
That didn’t make any sense when I read it but after rewatching I understand what you meant.
Oy!
I thought he had made himself disappear several years ago. Not much of a trick if he just shows up again.
The human aquarium trick is real, right? I know he studies regurgitation tricks/skills and I think this is one of them.
I got the first part, thought it was the most obvious of his tricks. The second part–where he added seven cards to the total–confused me. I figured that his asking people to choose two different numbers was trickery, forcing a choice of seven, but I wasn’t clear on how he got those additional seven cards into the pocket.
The first one was pretty impressive, and this is I think where he’s at his strongest, with his supposed mind-reading.
A related question, that I’ve had trouble Googling: about a year ago I watched a magician who had ten cards, like blue on one side and red on the other or something. He asked me to choose a number between one and ten, and then flipped over the cards to show somehow that only the number I’d chosen was marked.
He explained it/I figured it out that every number would lead either to the third or fourth card, depending on whether he spelled the number or counted it and whether he went from the left or the right–but he had both cards marked in a way that made it look like they were the only one. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what the exact way to mark them was.
Is this a common trick? Does anyone have any thoughts?
Watch the video at 7:11. When BlackThought is counting out cards, Blaine puts his hand on them to signify the original ten cards, then lets him count out the “extra” 3. That touch let him add 7 more. When he asks for more numbers, he can combine them different ways to get 7 every time. “I’ll add your 9 and take away your 2” for example. If the first two numbers are 8 and 2, then he can ask for a third number, and so on. It makes it seem more random!
I haven’t watched Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show. Is he always as childish and annoying as he is in the David Blaine video? It was distracting.
[quote=“Frylock, post:2, topic:772061”]
[/QUOTE]I tried watching the vid, but Jimmy Fallon’s giggly-child behaviour kept repulsing me in a manner more efficient than could be managed by a rotting corpse covered in spinach.
Well I watched the special last night - I thought the best trick was the wedding ring/hanger retrieval at the beginning. Almost everything else he did was done previously on the Tonight Show video.
I do really enjoy people’s reactions though. Great stuff. He had David Beckham ready to commit himself.
This is what I was asking about. Is he always like this?
No not really. He was reacting to the fact that Blaine tries to freak people out and was acting like it a kid walking into a haunted house.
I used to be critical of him too, mainly because his early stuff was illusions anyone could buy from a magic shop combined with come “creative” camera editing. I think he’s come a long way though, the recent Fallon performance is an entertaining a bit as I’ve seen in a while.
I especially like how he’s often combining real stunts with slight of hand in the same performance to keep people guessing. I believe the frog thing at the end was totally real, but seeing it after typical style card tricks keeps the audience not knowing what to believe. He did a similar thing a while back sticking a big needle through his bicep in front of Ricky Gervais after doing some more typical tricks. I think there was debate on this board whether it was possible or not even from people well versed in illusion, but I’m convinced that psycho really put a needle through his arm. But the fact that people are discussing what’s real and what’s not at all is evidence that he’s doing his job well.
I haven’t seen the new hour special yet, but look forward to it.
Way too much time spent on the “drama” re: the bullet catch, but I found the “stunts/illusions” quite entertaining. Loved the ring/hanger one, and the card stuck to the cellphone.
He has to have the buffest dentist around! 
Very disappointing.
Probably only 5 or so minutes of actual magic in the one hour show.
Between the drama, build ups and commercials, it just wasn’t worth watching.
Thank heavens for DVRs! It took me only about 10 minutes to watch the entire program.
I did enjoy his other specials, but this one sucked!
I finally got around to watching the special. So what the hell did I just watch, re: the bullet catch?? I’m knowledgeable enough about illusion to know one when I see one, and that didn’t look like any illusion. But it can’t possibly be real right??! I know nothing about firearms, but wouldn’t a rifle bullet from that close range still push the “cup” right through the back of his throat? Even with a mouth guard spreading the impact across all his teeth, isn’t there way too much momentum in a bullet to make that possible? I guess in theory they could alter the amount of gunpowder in the bullet to lower the force, but this seems insane any way you slice it. Was this stunt really performed on stage many times as the show would have us believe?
I believe he did it and David Blaine is about foolish enough to eventually die or be seriously injured from a stunt like this. I agree only he should pull the trigger if he’s going to risk blowing his own head off. [It’s being discussed in General Questions here.
Edited: Wait, he only did it once, right? I thought he had NOT been doing it in his stage routine. No way is he doing that nightly. No way.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=811079)