All talented magicians are attention whores, but not all attention whores are talented magicians.
David Blaine may be the most ambitious attention whore of the new millenium.
250,000 spectators? Dang. I’m glad I already went a few weeks ago, when there were about 12 of us in the enclosed area.
Can anyone elaborate on the Paul McCartney spewing profanity thing? Are you quite sure it wasn’t just a tramp?
I not quite sure as I wasn’t there, but this is the generic newstory that circulated at the time:
LONDON, Sept 19 (AFP) - Scuffles broke out Friday when Paul McCartney went to see US illusionist David Blaine dangling from a clear plastic box on the banks of the River Thames in London.
The former Beatles star arrived early at Tower Bridge to take a look at Blaine, who is two weeks into a 44-day fast inside a clear plastic box suspended nine metres (30 feet) off the ground by a construction crane.
But the scene turned nasty when people described as friends of McCartney, then the musician himself, allegedly clashed with a photographer for the London Evening Standard newspaper, Kevin Wheal.
“His friends, who seemed more like minders to me, grabbed hold of me and pushed my camera towards the ground,” said Wheal, who also claimed that McCartney pushed him in the chest and told him: “It’s a private visit”.
Police said they were looking into allegations – and counter-allegations – of assault, lodged at the scene by McCartney’s companions and by the photographer.
Oh, I thought maybe Paul got drunk and decided to cuss Blaine out or something. Nothing like a private, quiet little visit with a close friend who’s hanging in a box suspended by the Thames. Good times.
250,000 spectators? all at once around his box? i dont think so. 25,000 maybe, but youve no chance of fitting a quarter of a million people in the space there around tower bridge he was in.
as i said in the pit thread, endurance tests are not magic. i watched the channel 4 thing last night. at his press conference he said he wanted to be remembered as the greatest showman ever. later on, he says theres no ego to being all alone in his box. the fact of his previous statement coupled with the $7 million or so he stands to earn from this makes him the biggest hipocrite ever. as well as the pretentious mumbo jumbo he was dropping over harmony korines artwank direction.
add to this the blatantly staged and scripted statements from the crowd before he was about to get out, and it adds upto a whole load of absolute wank.
he also looked far too healthy and was laughing and chatting away in the hospital afterwards. hardly the actions of a man starved for 44 days. no sign of going loopy, being disorientated etc. he looked worse after coming out of the ice after 3 days in the stunt he did before.
meh.
As my friend put so gracefully:
“Homeless people sleep in boxes all the time and don’t eat and there is no media frenzy over them”
I think Blaine should stick to his card tricks - it comes off as really selfish if you ask me. It is as if he is saying “Look at me, look at me!” when in all likelihood it is just an illusion just as his whole Frozen In Ice thing was.
0 posts, impressive photogeniq.
Do you have proof the ice thing was an illusion?