By Pete Taylor

05/25/2006

David Blaine is considered an illusionist, a magician, an insightful stuntman, and a man with unexplainable abilities. He is here to test human abilities and what is possible. To understand why Blaine does the things he has done and is truly overlooked, his background is the first step to learning who Blaine truly is and nothing that he is not. From ABC's interview offering that lad to his first show "Street Magic" to his failed attempt to breaking the breath under water record, there is no doubt that Blaine should be taken more seriously.

At age 4 he inherited his first set of tera cards from his grandmother who as a gypsy. Born April 4th 1973, his mother raised him by herself while working multiple jobs. Because Blaine had a lot of time (as a child) to himself he learned to entertain herself through the art of magic.

By age five he began showing how the emotion mind can be tested by a deck of cards. At age sixteen he levitated for his doctor which caused him to undergo many tests. All the tests proved no abnormal quota. He, at age ten moved to Jerseyville where his mother’s new husband lived. He never knew or met his real father. Soon after the move, Blaine’s half brother was born. As a teenager, Blaine traveled to acting school in Manhattan every day. He became a talented actor and appeared on a few commercials. However, an actor wasn’t his true talent he soon found out. He became completely engaged in his magic skills to take his mind off his mom’s death. This was the jumpstart to his career and there was no doubt that he would someday be the next Houdini.

Soon after his mother’s death, he began going to a lot of clubs and parties and drew many crowds with his magic tricks and unquestionable. He had his magic down to a science, it became his life style. He had his friends tape his tricks to send in to ABC. Once the tapes were seen by ABC studios, he had an interview and in the interview, he was asked to do a show. Street Magic was extremely successful and has been heavily aired in the past on TLC. From this snow on, he invented a new style of magic, a style that wasn’t materialistic, fake, or full of lame rabbit out of the hat stunts. All of his material was original, fresh, and completely amazing.

Street Magic May 19, 1997 Blaine’s first appearance was made on mainstream television. Nobody had ever heard of him before or anyone like him. Before him, the idea of street magic was something that would have never been aired on TV. Blaine presents it in a way that he instantly hooks his audience with his rational, sly personality and does things that most humans can simply not explain. The show consisted of him going to six different cities in the US: Atlantic City, Compton, Dallas, Mojave Desert, New York City, and San Francisco. In each city, he would just walk the streets with a t-shit, casual pants, and a deck of cards in his pocket. There were no props, no out of the blue things he would pull out from his pockets, there was only what everyone could see.

Once Blaine found willing people, after many people didn’t want to stop for him, he would just say “I’m going to do something, let’s see” The people would see the camera and just go along with whatever he may do. For instance, he pulls out the only prop he ever really has, a regular deck of cards. He targets couples often, he asks the woman to see if she can rip the whole deck of cards in half. She doesn’t even try, it is simply not possible. The man tries it, and he can’t even make a dent. Blaine takes the cards, and with a little strained effort, without doing anything other than take the same deck, he rips the whole deck in half.

Blaine asks a woman if she’s right handed or left handed. She closes that hand and he tells her to clench her fist really hard. Because there was no props or anything, when she opened her hand to find ash of some sort in her palm, she was simply stunned.

At one of many points of the many magic tricks, Blaine approaches a group of construction workers. He sets up a thick piece of plywood supported on each side of the slab of wood. He takes a bandana from one of the workers and asks for a nail. "Alright, this is what I'm going to do. Let's see if I can put this through the wood with just one try." Blaine explains as he uses the bandana as padding for his palm and drives the nail strait throught he wood. He has the workers try to take it out, it takes more than five or six tries to actually budge the nail. The workers are just stunned. They have nothing to say.

The most famous magic event he does is where he gives the deck to a person on the street, and these are people who have no idea what he is going to do. Asks the person to pick a card out of the deck and write their name on the card, put it back in the enter of the deck. Sack them neatly in the same order that they were in. He takes the deck and taps the top card. He then asks the person to pick up the card and see if it is their card with their name on it. It was. There wasn't really an explaination for it, so he just left his subject speachless, like ususal.

With his first show under his belt, introducing a completely unheard of number of viewers, he was known as someone who was simply mysterious and could not be explained. This magic was a whole new genre. This was only his first impression.

"For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who don't, none will suffice" - David Blaine: Magic Man Opening The second time David Blaine appeared on television was when he released his second show, Magic Man. This show featured even more amazing "entertainment" as Blaine calls his magic tricks. He travels to six different places. First he goes to Haiti, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, and Venezuela. He does this to see how different groups of people react to his work. Starting in Haiti, he approached a child and with a translator he gives him two foam balls, he told the kid to pick a number and whatever number he thought of would be the number of foam balls that would appear once he opened his hand. He picked 9, there were nine balls once he opened his hand. The people standing around (I'm guessing his family) were all dumbfounded. Continuing in Haiti, he acknowledged that the idea of magic is slightly different there. There, they think voodoo and magic are one in he same. And that presents a challenge because he doesn't want kids running way screaming bloody Mary, as he explained. He made a Haiti dollar bill levitate, there was no wind. She didn't know how to speak English so she just laughed and kept the money and smiled at him as she re-entered her house. In Manhattan he approaches an alley where some poor people are settled, looking to be a family he kindly says (keeping in mind they know there is a camera, they do not resist) "I'm going to try something, is this the string I just pulled off your shirt?" He asked the five year old boy. He says yes and he eats the whole string; opens his mouth afterward to show that there is nothing left of it. He then lifts up his shirt and tells everyone to look at his stomach. "That's not a hair, (he makes a tensing motion with his abs) you see that? You see that? He slowly pulls the hair as he pulls it, it is not a hair at all, it is the black piece of string he just swallowed. Because none of his entertainment stunts are lame or drag on for an extended unnecessary amount of time, everyone that is on the show is completely interested. Some are completely frightened, that's how much power Blaine had over them. There is no mistaking taking a chicken head completely off and then putting it back on and having the chicken ran around, like it has been completely untouched. There is no mistaking his abilities, and he defiantly is passionate at what he does, that is something to be taken very seriously. Third Impression: The third appearance by Blaine was a televised event where he did something he trains for. This event was called "Buried Alive" which consisted of being put into a glass coffin under 4000 pounds of water in the ground. This was something Houdini always wanted to do. This was on April 5th 1999 at Trump Park in New York. For seven days he was buried alive with a small tube for air and an allowance of water (4 tablespoons a day). No food, no movement, no interaction; complete isolation for 7 days. By the third day he became delusional but kept his rationality. By the sixth day many, many people were crowded around just to see him. Everyone had criticism and jokes, along with worries, but he made it the seven days and said a few words to his viewers: ""What I saw was every race of people, every age group, and every religion all gathered together smiling; and that made all of this worth it." - David Blaine" Because of the amazing transition to doing mysterious tricks on the streets, to traveling all over the continent, to then burying himself alive, there was something about Blaine that the public had to realize. This was the realization of he should definitely be taken seriously because he puts his life at stake to show what anyone is capable of if they only set their body, attitude, focus, and mind to it. Forth Impression: On November 29, 2000, David Blaine at 27 years of age aired Frozen In Time, his biggest, most popular event ever. This consisted being encased in ice for 67 hours, stand up strait with a thermal shirt, pants and boots with a little beanie hat. The previous world record for being in a case of ice was 57 minutes. The six ton block of ice, standing 8 feet tall left very little room of space between him and the ice, barely enough to scratch his nose. There was a small tube running through the ice for air and water. The only other tube was a catheter. There were sensors placed on his chest for vital threats in case of emergency there were paramedics standing by. This was in the center of Times Square on 44th St. and Broadway. The start point was at 10 am and he anticipated on being in the ice for only 58 hours, he achieved 61 hours and 40 minutes. Blaine said that the point of what he does is to accomplish common fears, to help people overcome them. Throughout the show there was many prerecorded stunts in Italy, Israel, and Indonesia. The one of many prerecorded stunts for the show contained a girl who was told to think of someone important to her. He asks if the book she is holding is hers, she complies and says she just bought it. He asks her to open the book and turn to page 30, when she turns to page 30, the letter M is burnt onto the page. M is for Meagan, the person she was thinking of. He goes to a New York Knicks basketball practice and asks one of the players to examine the deck. Once examined, he asks the same player to pick a card, he shows the card to the camera. He places the card back in the deck, Blaine then shuffles the deck, and then he launches the deck into the air, creating a huge scatter of cards all over the floor. He looks around as the players are confused as to how he's possibly going to find the card the guy picked. Blaine approaches a basketball; picks up the basketball and asks if he can puncture it. He pulls out a knife and asks the coach if it's okay to cut open the basketball. He asks one of the players to slice it open along one of the black lines.  The player reaches in the ball and pulls out a seven of spades, the card he chose. Blaine approaches someone with and asks for a dollar and tells the black guy to examine it, to look at the treasurer signature on it. The man gave the dollar to Blaine and doesn't even ask for his name. He takes the bill and gently rubs his thumb over it, a few seconds later, he give the dollar bill back to the man and asks him to read the treasurer's signature, it's his. His name is on as the signature. He approaches a twenty year old man on the street outside a cafe; he asks the man "Do you think I would know your girlfriend?" The man stares awkwardly at Blaine, "No, why?" Blaine then describes her and the man is confused so he says "She lives in Japan." Blaine pulls up his shirt and there is a large tattoo of an exact image of this man's girlfriend. It was unexplainable. David Blaine became the symbol of the unknown and mystery. He was the magic man of all time and picked up where Houdini left off. The abilities he has simply can not be doubted or judged negatively. The magic he conducts is simply amazing, and needs to be considered as something past anyone else's abilities. He closed the show with his most admired quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. "If a man hasn't found something worth dying for, it means he isn't fit to live." This was his forth impression. Fifth Impression: Blaine traveled to London to do a stunt, just to show he isn't all about making New York a spectacle. On September 5, 2003, Blaine spent 44 days and nights inside a clear plastic box: 7ft by 7ft by 3ft. He ate no food and had one tube for water, and a catheter. At age 30 he had with him diapers, a journal, some pens, lip balm, and a thin air mattress he stayed in a plastic box suspended 450 feet in the air. This was of course unheard of, which is why it was done. Originally, Blaine received the idea from reading a short story “The Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafaka. The feat's purpose was how long could the human mind go without sound, interation and the pang of starvation. However, he said "days 30 to 44 will be a nightmare" which consisted of losing his mind and becoming dillusional. It was this that made people realize he wasn't just another weird magician, he was a person who challenged human ability and left people with nothing but questions. Sixth Impression: By this time, it was time a book was released about David Blaine. This book was called the Mysterious Stranger: A book of Magic, by David Blaine. This was part autobiography, part history of magic, and part instructions on how to perform some of the different tricks he does. This was released before his Above The Below stunt in England. It was informative for those who read it, however it was his first book. Failed Attempt?: Blaine submerged himself in the center of Times Square in a 80 foot in diameter bubble of water for seven days. After the seven days he was then going to hold his breath to break the world record. He didn't break the world record, which was 9 minutes and 2 seconds, he only made it 7 minutes and 8 seconds. He stayed underwater with a tube in his mouth for air and nutrition, he was tied up with handcuffs and chains. Nevertheless, people were disappointed and for people that no nothing of Blaine, they thought Blaine was a fake, a hoax, something to be throwing eggs at and laughing at him. Pay no attention to the fact that he's done things in the past he has indeed succeeded in and he did break the world record for submerging ones self under water: 177 hours. Blaine is anything but a failiar, it just proves that he is human, and there's only so much a human can withstand, which is why he came up 2 minutes early. The world record for breath holding under water didn't include being underwater with no food or exersise for 7 days prior. To conclude, David Blaine has accomplished a lot, has shown us as people that many things that we think can never happen, happen at the snap of a finger. David Blaine has my ut most respect and is taken seriously by myself. David Blaine should be taken more seriously by anyone, anywhere.   BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1- David Blaine: Bio and Much More from Answers.com. Answers.com. 5/18/2006/ http://www.answers.com/topic/david-blaine 2- David Blaine: Above the Below. Magic Directory. 5/18/2006. http://www.magicdirectory.com/blaine/abovethebelow.shtml 3- David Blaine: Street Magic. Street Magic, Magic Directory. 5/18/2006. http://www.magicdirecotry.com/blaine/streetmagic.shtml 4- David Blaine: Magic Around the World. Magic Directory. 5/18/2006. www.magicdirectory.com/blaine 5- David Blaine: Buried Alive. Magic Directory. 5/18/2006. www.magicdirectory.com/blaine/buried alive.shtml