in thoughts...

Monday, January 05, 2004

David Blaine's magic...

was watching David Blaine's magic shows on AXN that day... i really really really cannot find any logical reasoning for HOW he does the things he does... it's amazing...

for his day to day on the street kinda magic, his aim is to shock people... to amaze them... to astonish them... make them question... he said something like, we don't have to show babies magic, cos they're amazed by so many things around them... but for us, we need magic to make us question and challenge things...

there's one trick he does that's damn good i think... he gives a person on the street a notepad and pencil, asks the person to stand far away, write down the name of the most important person to him/her, fold up that piece of paper and head back to him. He then, without looking at the paper, burns part of it with a lighter, then slaps the still burning paper on his arm or shirt, and the name of the person written on the paper will appear on his arm or stomach...

and there was this girl he tried this on, and she was so amazed he got the name... and he just looked at her and said, "It's okie, he's watching over you..." and he walks away... the girl said the person whose name she wrote, was her best friend who died some time ago... and she had tears in her eyes... That must have been quite a moment for her...

and then he goes and does these life-threatening "stunts"
first stunt - lying in a "glass coffin" for a long period of time, in a very confined space, with a tank full of water just inches above him... the small space he's lying down in has only a small hole to allow air in...
second stunt - "Frozen in time" he stands upright for i dunno 67 hours or around there in an "ice prison" - he only has space to stand, only allowed water, no food... when they cut through the ice to get him out, he's freezing like mad, his legs are weak, and he went into shock for some time... he couldn't move his legs properly for 2 months...
third stunt - "Vertigo" he stands on top of this small thin TALL tower-like thingy for about 3 days - no sleep no water no food, the "tower" only has enough space for him to stand... can't move around... and the 2nd night was one of the coldest night in New York or something and he was wearing only a long-sleeved cotton shirt... the last part of the stunt he's supposed to jump right down from the tower into this boxes like thing to cushion his fall... but because he stood for so long his legs were wobbly, he jumped in a wrong way and he got a slight concussion...

so why does he do these "stunts"? he wants to show people that these are done without magic... he's not trying to show off or something... he says it's when he's doing these that he feels most alive... and that's why he'll go on doing it...

watching him reminded me of something... something in my lit text - Waiting for Godot... think we mentioned something about how Pain makes you feel like you're really alive and living.... how pain makes us feel real... pinching ourselves to make sure you're not dreaming when something happens to you... Pain tells you you're in the real world...
posted by Sodium-squared at 1/05/2004 01:06:00 AM

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