Early life
Blaine was born David Blaine White in Brooklyn, New York and is of Puerto Rican descent on his father's side, and Russian Jewish on his mother's. His mother, Patrice Maureen White (1946–1995), was a school teacher living in New York, and his father William Blaine was a Vietnam veteran. When he was four years old, he saw a magician performing magic on the subway. This sparked an interest in Blaine. He was raised by his single mother and attended many schools in Brooklyn. When he was ten years old, his mother married John Bukalo and they moved to Totowa, New Jersey,where he attended Passaic Valley Regional High School. He has a half-brother named Michael James Bukalo. When he was 17 years old, Blaine moved to Manhattan, New York.
Career
Street Magic and Magic Man
On May 19, 1997, Blaine's first television special, David Blaine: Street Magic aired on the ABC network. According to The New York Daily News, “Blaine can lay claim to his own brand of wizardry. The magic he offers in tonight’s show operates on an uncommonly personal level.”When asked about his performance style, David explained, “I'd like to bring magic back to the place it used to be 100 years ago.”' Time Magazine commented, "his deceptively low-key, ultracool manner leaves spectators more amazed than if he'd razzle-dazzled." The concept of focusing on spectator reactions changed the way that magic has been shown on TV. The New York Times wrote, “He's taken a craft that's been around for hundreds of years and done something unique and fresh with it."
In Magic Man, Blaine is shown traveling across the country, entertaining unsuspecting pedestrians in New York City, Atlantic City, Dallas, San Francisco, Compton, and the Mojave Desert recorded by a small crew with handheld cameras. Jon Racherbaumer commented, "Make no mistake about it, the focus of this show, boys and girls, is not Blaine. It is really about theatrical proxemics; about the show-within-a-show and the spontaneous, visceral reactions of people being astonished." USA Today calls David “The hottest name in magic right now”.
Buried Alive
On April 5, 1999, Blaine was entombed in an underground plastic box underneath a 3-ton water-filled tank for seven days across from Trump Place on 68th St. and Riverside Drive. According to CNN, "Blaine's only communication to the outside world was by a hand buzzer, which could have alerted an around-the-clock emergency crew standing by." BBC News reported that the cramped plastic coffin offered six inches (152 mm) of headroom and two inches on each side. During the endurance stunt Blaine ate nothing and drank only two to three tablespoons of water a day. An estimated 75,000 people visited the site, including Marie Blood, Harry Houdini's niece, who said, "My uncle did some amazing things, but he could not have done this." On the final day of the stunt, April 12, hundreds of news teams were stationed at the site for the coffin-opening. A team of construction workers removed a portion of the 75 square feet (7.0 m2) of gravel surrounding the six-foot deep coffin before a crane lifted the water tank. Blaine emerged and told the crowd "I saw something very prophetic ... a vision of every race, every religion, every age group banding together, and that made all this worthwhile."Reiterating Marie Blood's remarks, BBC News stated, "The 26-year-old magician has outdone his hero, Harry Houdini, who had planned a similar feat but died in 1926 before he could perform it."During the preparation of the stunt, Jonathan Demme told Time Out New York, “He’s the most exciting thing in America ... And I’m not just talking entertainment.”
Frozen in Time
On November 27, 2000, Blaine began a stunt called "Frozen in Time," which was covered on a TV special. Blaine stood encased in a massive block of ice located in Times Square, New York. He was lightly dressed and seen to be shivering even before the blocks of ice were sealed around him. A tube supplied him with air and water while his urine was removed with another tube. He was encased in the box of ice for 63 hours, 42 minutes and 15 seconds before being removed with chain saws. The ice was transparent and resting on an elevated platform to show that he was actually inside the ice the entire time. CNN confirmed that "thousands of people braved the pouring rain Wednesday night to catch a glimpse of Blaine as workers cut away at the ice."[19] He was removed from the ice in an obviously dazed and disoriented state, wrapped in blankets and taken to the hospital immediately because doctors feared he might be going into shock. The New York Times reported, "The magician who emerged from the increasingly unstable ice box seemed a shadow of the confident, robust, shirtless fellow who entered two days before."Blaine said in the documentary follow-up to this feat that it took "a month" before he was able to walk again and that he had no plans to ever again attempt a stunt of this difficulty. In the early hours of January 1, 2010, Blaine's record set during "Frozen in Time" was broken by Israeli entertainer Hezi Dayan; who spent 64 hours in a block of ice.
Vertigo
On May 22, 2002, a crane lifted Blaine onto a 100-foot (30 m) high and 22-inch (0.56 m) wide pillar in Bryant Park, New York City. Although he was not harnessed to the pillar, there were two retractable handles on either side of him to grasp in the event of harsh weather. The Evening Standard's James Langton wrote, "He was battered by high winds and unusually cold May weather during his first night and would have been killed or seriously injured if he had fallen." He remained on the pillar for exactly 35 hours. The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik wrote, “David Blaine, standing up there, is actually as good a magical metaphor for the moment as Houdini, fighting his way out of the straitjacket of immigrant identity toward prosperity, was for his."With his legs weak from standing atop the pillar for so long, he ended the feat by jumping down onto a landing platform made out of a 12-foot (3.7 m) high pile of cardboard boxes and suffered a mild concussion.
Above the Below
On September 5, 2003, Blaine began his 44-day endurance stunt sealed inside a transparent Plexiglas case suspended 30 feet (9 m) in the air next to Potters Fields Park on the south bank of the River Thames, the area between City Hall and Tower Bridge in London. The case, measuring 3 feet (0.9 m) by 7 feet (2.1 m) by 7 feet (2.1 m), had a webcam installed so that viewers could observe his progress. During the 44-day period, Blaine went without any food or nutrients and survived on just 4.5 liters of water per day.
The endurance stunt became the subject of much media attention. The Guardian wrote, "Blaine has created one of the most eloquent and telling visual images of our time."[29] The Times reported that "1,614 articles in the British press have made reference to the exploit."[30] Former U.S. President George W. Bush referred to Blaine’s stunt in a speech at the Whitehall Palace in London, saying “The last noted American to visit London stayed in a glass box dangling over the Thames. A few might have been happy to provide similar arrangements for me.”
A number of spectators were mischievous or hostile towards the endurance artist. The Times reported that eggs, lemons, sausages, bacon, water bottles, beer cans, paint-filled balloons and golf balls had all been thrown at the box.[30] The Evening Standard reported that one man was arrested for attempting to cut the water supply to Blaine's box. According to BBC News, a hamburger was flown up to the box by a remote-controlled helicopter as a taunt.
On September 25, BBC News reported that Blaine announced via webcam that he was feeling the taste of pear drops on his tongue.Dr. Adam Carey, who performed a medical examination of Blaine before he entered the box, said that the taste was produced by ketones produced by the body burning fatty acids, which are themselves produced from fat reserves via glycerol.
Blaine emerged on schedule on October 19, murmuring "I love you all!" and was quickly hospitalized. The New England Journal of Medicine published a paper that documented his 44 day fast and stated that his re-feeding was perhaps the most dangerous part of the stunt.[35] The study reported, “He lost 24.5 kg (25 percent of his original body weight), and his body mass index dropped from 29.0 to 21.6. His appearance and body-mass index after his fast would not by themselves have alerted us to the risks of refeeding. Despite cautious management, he had hypophosphatemia and fluid retention, important elements of the refeeding syndrome.” The event was filmed by cult director, and close friend of Blaine, Harmony Korine.
Drowned Alive
On May 1, 2006, Blaine was submerged in an 8 feet (2.4 m) diameter, water-filled sphere (isotonic saline, 0.9% salt) in front of the Lincoln Center in New York City for a planned seven days and seven nights, using tubes for air and nutrition. During the stunt, doctors witnessed skin breakdown at the hands and feet, and liver failure. The New York Times' Kenneth Silverman wrote "his feat of endurance brought a diverse crowd of thousands of New Yorkers together, renewing for a while the city's waning spirit of democratic community."
He concluded this event by attempting to hold his breath underwater to break the then-current world record of 8 minutes, 58 seconds held by Tom Sietas for static apnea—holding one's breath without the aid of breathing 100% oxygen beforehand,[38] although Blaine's attempt would not have qualified as static apnea under AIDA International rules. To his producers request to make the show more exciting, Blaine attempted to free himself from handcuffs and chains put on him upon coming out after the week in the sphere. He seemed to have trouble escaping from the last of the handcuffs. Around the 7 minute mark, he showed some signs of distress. He was pulled up and out of the water by his support divers after 7 minutes and 20 seconds underwater—one minute and fifty seconds short of his goal.Although he did not take home the record for breath holding, he was called “an everyday hero for an everyday age,” by The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post stated, “Blaine represented an opportunity to see something unbelievable.”
Blaine did claim to succeed in setting a record for being fully submerged in water for more than seven days straight (177 hours), and has since broken the record for holding one's breath using oxygen beforehand (as permitted by the Guinness book of records).
Blaine underwent multiple short hospital visits after the stunt ended and has entered an agreement with doctors from Yale University to monitor him in order to study the human physiological reaction to prolonged submersion. In an interview on The Howard Stern Show on Sirius satellite radio, Blaine spoke of the week-long fasting he did before the "drowning alive" stunt, to avoid having to be concerned with defecation.
Revolution
On November 19, 2006, Blaine announced his next stunt: he would be shackled to a rotating gyroscope. His goal was to escape from his shackles after the gyroscope had been spinning for 16 hours. The gyroscope was constantly spinning at a rate of eight revolutions per minute while hanging above an empty lot in Manhattan near Times Square.
The stunt began on November 21, 2006, with Mr Blaine declaring, "This one's exciting for me. This one's a fun one." 52 hours later, without food or water, a dehydrated and weakened Blaine, landed on a wooden platform 30 feet below after jumping from the hanging gyroscope.
As a result of his success, Blaine led 100 children selected by The Salvation Army on a shopping spree at Target, after each child received a $500 gift certificate from the retailer. Blaine said the stunt was particularly important since The Salvation Army had provided him with clothing while he was growing up. "This challenge is close to my heart," Blaine said.
Guinness World Records
After failing to surpass the then-current record of unassisted static apnea in his previous attempt Drowned Alive, Blaine appeared on the April 30, 2008 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, announcing that he would attempt to break the Guinness World Record for oxygen assisted static apnea set by Peter Colat of Switzerland on February 10, 2008.
Before entering his eighteen-hundred gallon water tank, Blaine spent 23 minutes inhaling pure oxygen; up to 30 minutes of "oxygen hyperventilation" is allowed under guidelines.[48] His heart rate remained above one hundred beats per minute during much of the attempt, rising to one hundred and twenty-four bpm. in the fifteenth minute. A faster heart rate increases oxygen consumption leading to painful carbon dioxide buildup.In the final minute, his heart rate became erratic and he started rising from the bottom of the water-filled sphere;however, he kept his head submerged for a half minute longer than the previous record. Ultimately, Blaine held his breath for 17 minutes 4 1/2 seconds, surpassing Colat's previous mark of 16 minutes 32 seconds. This was Blaine's first Guinness record and it stood for almost four and a half months, until surpassed by Tom Sietas on September 19, 2008.
During the following interview, Blaine stated: "I really thought I was not going to make it,"claiming that he did so by staying in a meditative state which was helped by the studio lights reflecting off of the sphere. According to Blaine, besides the pressure of performing on television, the heart-rate monitor happened to be close enough to his ear so that he heard its beeping, and he had to keep his feet locked in holds at the bottom of the sphere — instead of just floating freely, as he did in the pool on Grand Cayman months earlier. Back then he said he was so relaxed he "wasn’t even there" during most of the breath-hold. But when he emerged from the sphere today, he told Oprah, "I was pretty much here the whole time."
Dive of Death
On September 18, 2008, Donald Trump and Blaine held a press conference at the Trump Tower in New York City to announce his latest feat, “The Upside Down Man.” Blaine was to hang upside down without a safety net for 60 hours above Central Park’s Wollman Rink, with a predicted end for 10:45 p.m. on September 24. Reportedly, Blaine risked blindness and other maladies in the stunt.[50] Trump has helped finance this and other Blaine events. Blaine hung over the Wollman Rink and interacted with fans by lowering himself upside down. At the press conference Blaine stated he had already gone without food for over a week and would continue to do so throughout the act. In order to drink fluid and restore circulation, he would pull himself up, all the while contending with muscle spasms and lack of sleep. Blaine began the stunt on Monday September 22, but was widely criticized when, only hours into the endurance challenge, he was seen by fans to be standing on a waiting crane platform, and not upside down, as expected.[51] He reportedly would come down once an hour to receive a medical check, stretch and relieve himself.[52]
When the "Dive of Death" took place, Blaine came down from the platform on a cable, and lightly touched the stage. He was then pulled back up into the air, and, in the words of the New York Daily News, "hung in the air like a sack of potatoes with a goofy grin on his face, occasionally kicking his legs as though he were running."[53] The plan had been for Blaine to be pulled up into the air by helium balloons and disappear into the atmosphere.[53] Blaine attributed the problem to changes in weather conditions that occurred after the stunt was delayed due to an address by President Bush.
Magic For Haiti
On Friday January 15, 2010 at 9 A.M. David Blaine performed "Magic For Haiti" in Time Square until Monday January 18, 2010 at 9 A.M. Performing magic for the course of 72 hours.
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