Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/11/14/david-blaines-excellent-card.html
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Blaine’s illusions are f’ing awesome!
However, Jimmy Fallon is a complete shill and Trump enabler. Never forgive him for humanizing that racist train wreck Cheeto. As our country is being burned down Fallon will laugh all the way to his bank. Until the next Great Depression that is…
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Always been a fan of David Blaine and how understated he is when compared to other big name magicians. It works very well for his style of performance. I recommend watching his TED from some years back on him training to hold his breath underwater.
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I liked him when he was doing his card tricks, street magic stuff.
When he started sitting in a box hanging under Tower Bridge and all that other stupid ‘endurance’ crap I rapidly got bored of him.
Give me Derren Brown instead any day.
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Does Godwin’s Law apply to Trump, now, too? If so, winner in ONE SENTENCE!
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I didn’t mention anything about Nazi’s but since you asked…
Here is a nice piece on some of the best magicians: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2013/may/04/the-10-best-magicians
I feel like he realized that his stunts had stopped being Houdini-esque and started being Bono-esque — all of the stuff I’ve seen from him in the past few years has been close-up card tricks and one-on-one illusion work and street magic. I’ve seen his multiplying card trick before that he does here, and it never fails to be truly terrific.
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So happy to see Ricky Jay on that list rather than, say, David Copperfield.
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Ricky Jay is a legend. I spent a few hours a couple of months ago rewatching some of his specials that were up on Youtube.
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What’s nice is that, as far as I can tell, he really does bring the human psychology/“mentalist” aspect of his magic into otherwise-every-day card tricks.
In this one, for instance (minor trick reveal), you can see him palm a stack of cards onto the deck when the side-kick is first counting out 13 — he gets to 10, and then Blaine hits the deck saying “ten!” and you can see he adds a new stack of cards (I only saw this on rewind, mind).
But he still had to force the two guys to say numbers that added up to seven. I think having two people do it helped — after the first guy said “three,” he asked the second to say a number between one and five, which I bet for whatever mentalist reason he knew would almost certainly be four — but these kinds of forces really add to the trick.
And then this stuff also adds to other tricks for another reason — I think he can use his reputation to make people think he’s using psychology. I’ll bet that having Fallon say all the numbers and all the suits actually had nothing to do with the trick.
(Note: I know very little about Blaine, and could be far off on everything I say.)
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In this one, for instance (minor trick reveal), you can see him palm a stack of cards onto the deck when the side-kick is first counting out 13 — he gets to 10, and then Blaine hits the deck saying “ten!” and you can see he adds a new stack of cards (I only saw this on rewind, mind).
yeah, I think knowing what people are likely to pick with subtle audio prompts is how that second part likely worked… the original 10 into 13 appears to have been done when he picked up the 10, placed them on the deck, then pulled them off again. Perhaps from the bottom (still pretty impressive to be able to pull exactly 3 cards, mind you), definitely upside down, so then when you hit the extra 3 after the initial 10.
Still very impressive to have the skill to pull off these tricks smoothly without the audience really noticing.
I’ve seen some magicians fully disclose what they’re about to do, and even how they will do it. Penn & Teller (and i think even Ricky Jay) have done this, and the performed trick can still come across as 100% amazing.
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Exactly – one of the magicians on the list posted above is Apollo Robbins, whose pickpocket work is just amazing to watch. He’ll explain exactly what he’s about to do and how he’s going to do it, and even demonstrate it in slow motion, and when he has his mark feeling confident that there’s no way they’ll be duped, he’s taken off their watch, stolen their wallet, and even removed their glasses without them noticing. It’s pure skill and fantastic to watch.
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There’s no reason to stop at 2 people either - he had 4 people available, so if QL said ‘2’, he can ask the next person to choose a number between 1 and 3.
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I guess if your country’s future depends on a Late Night TV host being hard hitting enough on fascist politicians, you’ve already lost.
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Exactly. Nobody took it seriously and look where we are now. FUCK.
Some of David Blaine’s less successful street magic…
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Can you explain the frog? I guess he palmed it into his mouth, but then maybe really swallowed it at the end. RIP frog.
Sure. There’s a guy who made his stomach into an aquarium.
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