David Blaine is No Magician

There is nothing "magical" in the least, about setting yourself up in a globe for a week and subsisting solely on fluids. There is nothing magical about starving yourself for 44 days. And I'm not sure I see anything special about leaping off the top of a building. But obviously the public does. Otherwise I guess David BLaine would be screwed. The man does nothing except plan stunts which will involve him a) risking his own life and b) television crews all over the place.

The only thing that impresses me about David Blaine is his complete lack of self-respect. How sad that the only way a man can make a living is to pull stupid stunts. Can't someone offer him an actual job? Or is he too much of a risk for company insurance? Many of my friends went up to Lincoln center this past week to check out Blaine floating around a bowl full of water, staring out at them (or seeming to. It seems he couldn't see while he was underwater. They made generalized comments about it, saying that he must be crazy, insane, it was weird, etc. But no one questioned it either, asking why the man would do this? And where is his family in all this? I can't imagine that his mother would have an easy time sitting back and watching her idiot son get all wrinkly and dehydrated, then try and force himself to hold his breath for nine minutes. For some reason I thought you sustained brain damage if you weren't taking in oxygen for more than eight. Of course, I imagine his body has sustained this abuse long enough that it doesn't even matter.

The more I see of David Blaine, actually, the less impressed I am with him. In his stunt last night he was handcuffed in something like eight places in this bowl. The idea was that he would be forced to complete this task or die. Except not really. The minute he really began struggling his team of doctors was right there, pulling him out and hooking him up to an oxygen tank. It wasn't like something you would do in the summer at the pool with all your buddies shouting out the seconds. He had actually been training with the Navy SEALS for this event. It was absurd. Training so that you could hold your breath for nine minutes underwater and then... what? Would you suddenly have some sort of ephiphany? Come to terms with the death of your grandmother? As far as I could see, the only thing he learned from this experience was that he couldn't do it, and therefore did beat the world record holder (who held his breath 8:58). I'm not sure where or how.

What I have to wonder about is why. Why did Blaine feel this need to make himself seem better than those who came before him? And what the hell does that have to do with being a magician? They showed him performing some sort of card tricks in the street, but I didn't see how that made him a true magician either. When I think of magic, I think of someone like David Copperfield, who actually makes himself disappear in weird places. At least that seems mystical. David Blaine trying to prevent his lungs from bursting doesn't seem all that fantastic. But I didn't really have any say in the matter, and America obviously felt differently since the whole hting was aired live on ABC and hordes of people filled Lincoln Center cheering him on.