Oh-oh, It's Magic

Hello there! (great, you know she's got nothing when she starts out with a greeting of some kind).

Now, now, don't be like that Pretend Voice of an Imagined Audience. Cynicism doesn't become you. Why don't you try unbridled, unthinking enthusiasm for once? Did you ever think of that? Why not take a cue from gullible marks all over the world and just... BELIEVE?

So, I was watching David Blaine's DVD last night and I must say that, as well as being a skilled magician, he's not too bad to look at. The guy must get tang like crazy. ("Unnnnggghhh... oh god... unggghh...ISTHISYOURCARD?!") He's a little creepy and off-putting, sure, but if the number of murderers on death row meeting and marrying women while in jail is any indication, chicks dig that.

Now, I don't much care for magicians, not so much because of the tricks they do (which in some cases can be very impressive - the amount of time they have spent practicing for their craft must be enormous), but because of their dramatics. I'm hoping, though, that guys like Blaine with their more down-to-earth (fake levitation not withstanding) and soft-spoken demeanour will eventually replace Copperfieldian flamboyance.

Whether theatrically vaudvillian or quietly commanding, though, everybody knows that this "magic" is fake, right? They all know it's a trick, the cards don't actually jump around or change faces. They know that a guy can't swallow a thread and pull it out of his stomach, or have ashes magically appear on his arm that spells the name of their dog. Right? Well, no. Watching the people watch the magician they really believe what they are seeing is supernatural (at least the ones that the editor chose to put in the DVD anyway). They wanna believe it's magic, the magician wants them to believe it's magic, and luckily for everyone involved, they do believe it's magic. Yay!

Having read a couple of Penn & Teller books (as well as Houdini's disappointing effort) I know that it's all fake, and I even know how some of it is done. How could David Blaine swallow a thread and seconds later pull that same thread that he swallowed out through his stomach? Well, he couldn't. He swallowed a piece of thread, made some hurty noises, then he pulled out a different piece of thread (that earlier in the day he had sewed into the first couple of layers of his skin) seemingly through his stomach. TA-DA!

Now, there is nothing magic about what David does, but is it any less impressive that he SEWED THREAD INTO THE FIRST COUPLE LAYERS OF HIS SKIN AND PULLED IT OUT? Not to my mind. In fact, it doesn't wreck it for me, it actually intrigues me more. What kind of person would do something like that? Well, by watching all of the people freak out and run away and generally gross themselves out and then praise him for his spooky other-worldliness, the kind of guy who likes to be the center of attention, who gets off on seeing people freaked out, and who doesn't mind suffering a little discomfort to be able to do it.

And you gotta respect that. I mean, I've tried to do magic tricks (to impress the young nephews with) and it takes a lot of preparation and quite a little bit of practicing. Frankly, it didn't really seem worth it. They said "that's cool" tried to figure it out for a minute or so, and then went away to play video games or some damn thing and never thought about it again. I mean, to continue on with something like that you've got to really, really want little kids to believe that you possess the magical power of cutting up a banana without peeling its skin first.

But after you're done, always the nagging question remains: "sure, that wasted five minutes of my time, but what was really the point?"

And of course, the answer is the same one that I have to give to Pretend Voice of an Imagined Audience after every single one of my posts (that cynical fuck). You see, it's like this--oh my god! Is that a killer bee behind you!?

*ducks out the back way*

Heheh, sucker.