The gullibility of the public at large.
Well, one obvious way of seeing whether this was a trick or a feat of endurance, which seems to be the crux of the OP, is to, at the end of the 6 weeks, determine how much weight (or not) he lost.
Ahhh…yes…without it reality television would be no more either…
And I can say this because damn it I’ve been sucked in to a few of them myself. 
But…I can think of at least 1,999,999 things I could be doing rather than watching or keeping up with the latest insane David Blaine publicity stunt.
Here’s a magic trick…getting him to give some of the cash he will earn this year to an organization that could make better use of it than he has.
I don’t understand, Aries, why you’d hold him to be any more of an idiot than any other entertainer. Is what he doesn’t any more worthless than, say, what Danielle Steele does? Matt Groening does? Emmy Lou Harris does? Jackson Pollock did?
He’s very good at doing weird and unconventional magic tricks, which amuse some people and not others. I saw some of his old TV specials, and even though I could figure out how he did some (but by no means all) of his tricks, I admired his artistry, his competence. I like Penn and Teller better, and I liked Blaine’s old routines (up close and personal card tricks and coin tricks and such) more than his current, pseudo-Houdini tricks, but I can still recognize that he’s a good magician – so good that he’s gotten people to forget he’s a magician, an entertaining con artist.
Sure, he’d be better off giving his money to nonprofits. Who wouldn’t?
Daniel
Gingersnap, I think the problem here is that you are taking the word fed literaly, as in fed = eating/injesting. I think the way fed is being used here is more akin to piped in, like"We had the information fed into the computer."
In this case the water is fed into the box via a small pipe, much as water is fed into your home using pipes.
How much will he smell when he comes out?
Will he be able to smell himself in the box?
Technically, I think it would be the non-profits who would be better off. If Blaine gave all his money to non-profits, he’d end up homeless and starving. Which, come to think of it, is more or less what’s happening to him right now.
At any rate, Aries, how do you know he doesn’t already give significantly to charities? The guy’s a stage magician, not the CEO of Enron. Why assume that he’s a selfish bastard just because you don’t like his act?
Lordy, this has to be the weakest Pit rant. Ever.
Uhhhh… he’s a guy.
Nice one lieu. Heh.
Now THAT I would pay to see!
What a muffin. When he did his ‘hanging out in big block of ice’ stunt I seem to remember he came out all shaken up and acting really sorry for himself. I hope he doesn’t go all silly with this box thing.
I suspect DB will be doing the trick straight up. Magicians tend to be pretty moral about their magic, and there’s a difference between a trick and a stunt.
When a magician is performing a “trick” it is understood that he is using artifice to create an illusion. When David Copperfield “flies” it is a trick.
When a magician is performing a “stunt” it is understood that while he may be using artifice he is performing artifice within the boundaries he has layed out as the “stunt.”
When Houdini was straitjacketed and shackled with chains and locks before being thrown into the bay, it was understood that it was a real jacket, chain and lock.
And it was. Lots of people thought he was cheating, but he wasn’t. Houdini made a study of the implements and understood how to beat them. He might use artifice in beating them (a hidden lockpick.)
Houdini made a big deal about the authenticity of his stunts within the framework he described and invited anyone to prove he was violating them.
He went to such lengths that he would allow the policemen to provide the locks, and handcuffs sight unseen, stipulating only that they be standard.
On one occasion this almost led to Houdini’s death when the Cops cheated!
So convinced were they that Houdini was somehow cheating, they altered a pair of handcuffs so that they could not be opened. Period.
He would have drowned, but Houdini was a very careful planner who left nothing to chance. He knew exactly how long he could hold his breath and function. He had contingencies worked out. He had the trick figured from all angles. The fastest way was remove cuffs, remove straightjacket, remove chain, because breaking open the cuffs was easiest and fastest and afforded the most mobility once complete.
When Houdini failed to break open the cuffs in a way that he knew was infallible, Houdini knew the cuffs were altered.
His contingency in that case was to slip the chain enough to crack a lock thus losing the weights holding him underwater. Then he would be able to make it to the surface and be rescued. Getting loose from the chains while cuffed proved difficult, but he did it, and half-drowned he made it to the surface and called for help.
And the crowd and police laughed at him for his failure. Though he cried for help nobody ventured to rescue him from his “failed” trick. He got out himself.
Magic is misdirection. All great magic tends to be very simple in what is being misdirected. In the case of escape magic from water, the most common misdirection is holding one’s breath.
Everybody assumes the magician is cheating because we all know that nobody can hold their breath for five minutes. If the magician is underwater for five minutes we all know he has a secret way of breathing.
That is what the policemen figured when they almost killed Houdini. They didin’t know that the misdirection Houdini was employing was that he could hold his breath for five minutes.
In fact, most people can. An escape magician in the Houdini tradittion is employing misdirection. Most people are simply not aware that a healthy person can train himself to make it five minutes or longer. Most people are not familiar with the upper limits of human ability or endurance.
It’s a wonderful piece of misdirection because everybody knows Houdini was cheating. The misdirection was that he wasn’t. He has holding his breathe for five minutes or more.
This assumption of artifice cost Houdini his life. One of his stunts was to prepare himself so that he could absorb blows to the midsection from strongmen with sledgehammers and the like.
Everybody knows that you can’t take a hit from a strongman with a sledgehammer in the gut. It must be artifice. Nobody could figure out how he was cheating what the trick was.
Again, the misdirection was simple. While people were looking for trick sledgehammers or absorbent shirts, Houdini had simply figured out what the upper limit was for the strenght of abdominal muscles and how much they could absorb. He worked very hard and strengthened those muscles to that upper limit. When he made them rigid they could absorb tremendous force. Houdini knew what he was doing. It’s a really beautiful piece of misdirection (and a favorite tactic of Houdini.) Nobody suspects that a man could train himself to that extreme. Nobody suspects anybody would be insane enough to do so. Everybody is convinced of the artifice and nobody beleives that the magic is real. Think about it. It’s a reverse magic trick. Everybody’s convinced it’s a trick. That’s the trick. Nobody will ever guess the gimmick because the gimmick is that there is no gimmick.
And, Houdini died. Nobody believed he was actually absorbing these blows with his physiology. Clearly Houdini had a foolproof method to protect himself. Just like the handcuffs, somebody “Cheated.” A man hit him before he expected it. He hit Houdini before he had the chance to rigidy his superbly trained muscles. Without the tensed muscles to protect them Houdinis vital organs were ruptured, and he died.
Apparently the man was quite surprised. He was sure there was a trick and Houdini was in no real danger.
The Amazing Randi is a magician in the tradition of Houdini… as is David Blaine.
Randi almost lost his life repeating Houdini’s water coffin trick. This is a tiny airtight coffin that spends its time at the bottom of a river. There is nowhere near enough air in the coffin for a man to possible live through the ordeal. So there must be a trick, right?
Again, the “trick” is that the upper limit for how long you can survive in that coffin is a lot more than any spectator would be possibly willing to believe. If you stay really really calm, and really really relaxed you can force your body to use less oxygen.
So Randi was down at the bottom of the river… staying really calm.
All of a sudden the bottom shifted and he was caught in a current that moved the coffin quite a distance. He felt it move.
Randi thought about this for a moment. The coffin was no longer where the divers would be looking for it. He wasn’t working with much margin. He was right at the limit of what could be survived for this “trick.” He decided that maybe it might take the divers a bit longer than was originally planned to actually find the coffin since it had moved. He had two choices. He could panic, or he could stay really really calm.
Several magicians have died trying to repeat some of Houdini’s stunts. There’s always that disbeleif when something goes wrong because everybody know it’s a trick.
But as I said, like Randi, Blaine is a magician in the tradittion of Houdini.
Nothing pisses off such a professional as the true charlatans who defraud. Such magicians have learned the lessons of Houdini. Their lives and livelihood depend on their integrity and the integrity of those around them. They are very serious about defrocking hucksters, and are clear on the difference between a “trick” and a “stunt.”
Blaine would shame himself and the magic community to be caught taking nourishment that was outside of the framework of the stunt. Such “cheating” would have a horrible backlash against him and other escape artists.
Blaine would rather die than face that.
Of course, the fun of it, the misdirection is that everybody will be sure he is cheating, and trying to figure out how.
Without that misdirection, it is just torture we are witnessing. The real magic is that he’s going to do it. Just like he says it.
It’s no big surprise how. It’s pretty well-documented that it takes about 60 days for a man to starve to death. After a few days without food, the body goes into starvation mode and takes radical steps to conserve energy. It’s actually better for David not to cheat. He can’t afford the energy of eating just a little. It takes energy to run the digestive processes and he’s going to need his body to shut those down as quickly as possible. The confined space and lack of a book or activity works in his favor. He can’t afford the energy to move, or even think. Thinking might get him interested enough to get the body excited. He will try to maintain himself in a stupor basically from day one.
While it takes about 60 days to die from total starvation (positing a sedentary state) the process becomes irreversible somewhere around 6 weeks. The body has consumed itself to such a degree that the point of no return has passed.
Blaine is going to count on the stupor he is going to maintain himself in, as well as the monitoring to push this limit, and to save him if he’s about to cross it.
All said, he’s risking severe damage.
Personally, I don’t think he makes it. He’ll make 30 days, but less than the full 44.
In case anybody’s curious, the design of handcuffs has been improved because magicians interested in the safety of police officers showed how they were being defeated.
Turning the key in the lock removes a one way ratchet from the teeth of the cuffs allowing them to slide off. When the key is not in place a spring holds the ratchet against the teeth.
The way Houdini and those to follow defeated the cuffs was another piece of misdirection. The assumption was that the simple lock was being picked, that magicians had trained themselves to contort their hands and pick the lock.
To improve the handcuffs, the manufacturers started making obscenely complex and bulky locks on the handcuffs, and police placed the cuffs very tightly against the skin.
Oddly these two things made the handcuffs easier to defeat, not harder. The secret got out and some criminals were defeating the cuffs.
So, in making the next generation of cuffs some escape artist type magicians were consulted, and in the interests of public safety they revealed the design flaw to the police.
They weren’t picking the locks, and they weren’t contorting their hands.
If you banged the handcuffs at a precise angle that little spring that held the ratchet against the teeth would compress. If you practiced and had perfect timing, you could twist your wrists as that spring was compressing and the handcuffs would slide open.
The bigger locks made the handcuffs heavier to bang open! The habit of placing cuffs tighter actually gave one more leverage for the necessary twist! The previous “improvements” just made the cuffs easier to defeat.
Today’s cuffs are of course invulnerable to this trick (thanks to the magicians!)
Escape artists are clever and obsessive though.
There are two methods in which modern police handcuffs can be easily defeated by somebody who knows how (I’m not talking about slipping the cuffs or picking them either.)
I’m not going to tell you.
Guess why not?
Because I don’t know either of them.
Among magicians who know, it is a very closely guarded secret.
Despite five years as a reasonably accomplished amateur magician in my mid teens I never was able to find out how.
Maybe Cecil knows.
But Blaine has already proven himself to be dishonest by using camera tricks to jazz up his Balducci Levitation in his first TV special. I see no reason to believe he has any moral difficulties faking this stunt.
I, for one, would have a lot more respect for Blaine if he did drink the water out of the monkey’s ass tube as he was supposed to.
Who said Blaine used camera tricks? And who said he was going to drink from a tube? Do you people believe everything you hear from the Internet?
You’ll be pleased to hear that his box has been pelted with eggs, and aimed at by a mad golfer. Also an Indian bhangra drummer went down to wake him up on the first night, and two girls flashed their breasts at him and offered him fish and chips.
The great British public.
I watched the program where he went into the box, and this is what the presenter said.
I don’t doubt he’s going to employ some sort of trickery, since that’s his job. But as has been said already in another thread, it’s kind of hard to fake emaciation.
Telemark, I appreciate the distinction Scylla made between a trick - something like the levitation - and, say, Houdini’s acts. There are tricks, and then there are feats - of endurance, of skill, training, practice, whatever.
Just because he used a camera trick for one doesn’t mean he cheats on everything.