I would think people concerned about world hunger would be more upset at those who threw eggs and tomatoes at the guy. I would be wrong, it seems.
Seriously. David Blaine not eating=more food for starving people.
Daniel
Thanks, Scylla. Good information there.
I thought I understood from an early morning TV interview, that he said his urine was also being collected and would be analyzed to document that there were no nutrients being provided during the 44 day fast.
Also, I have to believe he will have some type of privacy like a curtain or something. Like I said earlier, he stated he would have diapers to dispose of his solid waste. Surely, he would need some type of screen to change his dipes, no?
The only thing I’ve heard about urine testing is to make sure he stays healthy.
Heh heh, it gets better - UK Farkers are now planning to “Flashmob” him by shining laser pointers at him.
They never had anything like this in New York? Did she forget the gang from the Howard Stern show coming down to taunt him during the “Ice Cube Blaine” stunt? Or is this a new model girlfriend?
If his journal entries are anything like the stupid psuedo-mystical shit he says in interviews, he would be better off eating the paper.
Endurance artist? Londoners are the endurance artists for putting up with that moron for 44+ days.
Hey everybody! Let’s all show some support for David Blaine
Yeah I also heard that they’ll be checking his urine to make sure his kidneys don’t pack up or anything.
The latest news is that a hamburger stall has been set up beneath him. That’s harsh.
You know in the olden days how they’d have cages in public squares, put criminals inside them and let them rot, and keep their corpses on display as an example to others?
Find some wax museums, see if they have anything like that in their Chamber of Horrors, and put them in front of Blaine’s cube for a couple of days.
if any london dopers are interested, on saturday me and a few friends are going down to fire biscuits at him from my patent biscuit cannon
ginger snaps and them great big bookies are most welcome.
i also dont particularly care if he cheats or not, i just dont really care. its just one more target for the biscuit cannon upon londons south bank…
blau!------------crunch!
also, has anybody else noticed how he appears to have had his brain replaced by a T-bone steak? that lad is distant!
that would be great big cookies, rather than people who take bets. although they can come also.
paulberserker - Biscuits sounds a good start - give 'im a Custard Cream for me.
There must be about 6 Friday nights of this nonsense to come. I’d be rather surprised if the local yobbery - and al those bankers coming out the City boozers - don’t develop a habit of going down there after the pubs close with supermarket bags of rotting veg – it’ll be like the good ol’ days of putting idiots in stocks.
It’s well-lit by there, there’s a food van, the evenings are warm . . I can see this turning into a something of a party scene.
I fear Mr Blane will have the opportunity to ‘get’ the wonderful British public sooner than they will grasp worthiness in the concept of the ‘endurance artiste’.
They do know a silly wanker when they see one, though.
Yes, my reference was to him filming himself being lifted by an apparatus and splicing it in with footage of the crowd reacting to the Balducci levitation. While reported on the Net, it was well documented and fully supported by the people who were there. I have no doubts that it is what happened. Blaine doesn’t seem to have a problem with it.
He also got papers with the names of subjects (which appeared on his arm in ash, IIRC) twice, and only showed one on film. It’s standard street magician stuff, people remember what they want to remember and forget the rest, but the TV audience doesn’t get that option, they are only presented with bits and pieces.
If anyone believes that he’ll go 44 days without food, fine, it’s certainly possible. But in this case I’d require extraordinary proof to support an extraordinary claim, based on past history.
Oh, they’re taking the piss, surely?
They should sell to the crowds in little commerative jars.
They should sell to the crowds in little commemerative jars.
I don’t know what they should do, other than maybe they should sell to the crowds in little commerative jars.
Deja death ray?
If this is the case, and he really does have to maintain the stupor, aren’t the actions of the British public (in trying to wake him out of the stupor by chucking rocks at him) pretty fucking irresponsible and dangerous? Yes, I know, the stunt is dangerous in the first place, but it seems like the only way to survive it is to do exactly what the people aren’t letting him do.
Regarding the biscuit idea, I am told that a well-known biscuit manufacturer has sponsored somebody to attach its products to a radio-controlled helicopter and perplex the Perspexed one, so to speak.
Also I should add that thanks to a well-known betting exchange running a book on the challenge, I have a fairly great financial interest in his failure… 
**
Thank you for the compliment. I’m basing opinion on some assumptions but I think they are very strong ones.
Blaine is and accomplished magician which requires a great deal of effort. To achieve that level without having respect for what he is doing seems very unlikely to me. Hucksters and charlatans and con men typically are not accomplished from a technical standpoint but rely on basic gimmicks. If Blaine is going to be a con-man there’s no reason for him to have made the effort he has to be so technically proficient.
Secondly, he has performed several of Houdinis more notorious tricks including the infamous coffin of death (which has claimed several lives in attempts to repeat it.)
Being able to pull off one of Houdini’s classic greats is the holy grail in the insular world of the professional magician. Houdini took many of the secrets of his best tricks to the grave with him.
Should a magician become proficient enough to duplicate one of them, he is unlikely to reveal the secret even to other magicians as exclusivity is key in the magic business. If everybody can do it, what makes you so great? Why would you tell?
And, IIRC, Blaine is the only one to duplicate the coffin of death. He had to figure it out, and reinvent Houdini’s trick.
He also accomplished a trick Houdini had talked about attempting but had never worked out, which was the “buried alive” thing.
Blaine is also openly a student of Houdini and is accepted by others who emulate Houdini’s tricks, notably the equally proficient but less edgy Lance Burton, and the aforementioned James Randi.
Blaine has accomplished just about everything a magician can, and has won the respect of his peers, and a public eager for more.
David has a lot to lose by being shown a fraud, and not much to gain.
But this is all according to the rules. Blaine does the trick straight up for the observers. These things have a different effect live as they do on tv, so the editing is required.
And, the concept has precedent. David Copperfield is notorious for similar things. For example, when David makes the statue of Liberty disappear, the live audience is in on the trick. It’s obvious to anybody at the scene how the trick is accomplished.
Copperfield basically cuts a deal with the audience. He makes it clear that there is one show for the audience and another show for the TV, and he is able to enlist his live audience as an accomplice by doing special things for them in return for going along with the big TV trick.
(if I told you how me made all that big giant stuff like the statue of Liberty, and a battleship disapear, you would groan with disbelief. It’s that lame.)
So as a magician, it is ok to lie sometimes. BUT, (and this is a big but) you can only lie honestly.
In a trick, your lies are actually honest, because everybody knows it’s a trick.
In a stunt if you break the parameters you’ve set, you’re a liar.
This is the confusion that cost Houdini his life. It’s something that modern magicians who emulate him take very seriously.
Well, I think I’ve covered why Blaine is in the tradittion of Houdini (he does his tricks,) and is widely accpeted among his appears as such.
Geller is simply a fraud. Like most frauds he is pretty much technically incompetent.
Blaine says he’s a magician. He says he’s an entertainer. He does not claim actually superpowers. Blaine sells books and kits showing how he does some of his minor tricks so kids and third rate hack like myself can emulate them. There is no question about the artifice in his tricks.
Geller claims his cheap dimestore tricks are real. He sells books saying they are real.
Blaine capitalizes on his skill.
Geller capitalizes on his lies.
Do you see the difference. For his tricks what Blaine is really demonstrating is his skill. He asks for and receives the willing suspension of disbelief from his audience and smiles at the “How’d you do that? That’s impossible?” comments.
He doesn’t ever say “I did it for real.”
He says “it’s magic.”
Such is his skill that even though he up-front works as a “magician” he is so good that he scares people with impossible tricks. He makes people beleive even when he admits he’s faking.
So, if he attains the level where he admits that, why would he lie about a stunt?
Geller does not ask for the willing suspension of disbelief. He does not operate under the umbrella of “magician.” He claims for even the hokiest of his tricks that it’s for real. He has no real skill.
For more on the difference between magician and charlatan, check out Randi.org.
The Amazing Randi you may know is one of the foremost investigators and debunkers of the paranormal.
Trust me on this one if you trust me on nothing else. Magicians hate real frauds with a professional zeal that is frightening.
If Blaine were cheating beleive me, he would not have the respect of his peers.
The professional magic community is very tight. Joel Bauer is another houdiniesque magician with a niche who was respected enough by the magic community to represent the prosecution on behalf of the magic community against the idiot who shall not be named who did the fox special that gave away a whole bunch of secrets.
He has a niche and does a lot of shows. He is very very good as a mentalist. Possibly unequalled.
At one point he did a show for Fox. Bauer performed as a magician. Fox didn’t mention this on TV, and put him in the company of several charlatans and frauds who claimed they were straight up. The implication was that Joel was straight up as well and doing it for real.
Joel got slammed by skeptics and the magic community. He explained that he thought he was going on the show as a control to show what could be accomplished with artifice. Apparently Joel was so good though that he basically blew away all the people who claimed to have superpowers. They looked ridiculous next to him. Apparently Fox decided to omit the part where Joel offered himself as an example of artifice. All the guys who claimed superpowers did so bad on the tests that the show would have been a total washout if somebody didn’t do something astounding. So they made joel who was supposed to be the control, the actual test!
In Joel’s defense a portion did get aired where Joel openly said he had no superpowers and was simply a performer, but his tricks were so good nobody noticed.
So, it tends to be a pretty big deal if a magician appears, or comes close to crossing the line into Fraud. If he does he’s going to have everybody he knows gunning for him.
No way Blaine wants that.