Knepper and Knievel's Buddy

So David Blaine's latest special aired this past week. And
what happened? He survived seven days in the tank. Barely.
He had to be rescued while doing his stunt finale. Now,
don't misunderstand, I truly do respect this guy as a
performer. He changed the way magic specials are done,
whether that's good or bad. And he's certainly captured the
fancy of quite a few fans. There is no doubt he has talent
and, for all his faults, I do enjoy watching him work.

But, honestly, I don't know what drives this man. I'm
toying with stupidity as the answer. Let's think about it .
. . in the tank for seven days. . . escaping from chains
while underwater . . . holding one's breath for a record
time . . . any one of these is an impressive, showstopping
feat . . . and he wants to do all three simultaneously? I
may not be a scientist, biologist, or doctor, but even I
know that seven days in a tank of water is physically
exhaustive experience, which means one would barely have
enough strength to attempt the other two feats. Now, if he
did accomplish all three, I would certainly have been
impressed, but he didn't and I didn't expect him to do so.
And despite Blaine's ratings being better than his last
special, more people cared about watching the 7th Heaven
series finale. In fact, it ranked fourth out of the Big
Four networks. Which kind of puts everything in
perspective, doesn't it? (I thought the meeting of Blaine
and Evil Kneivel was priceless. They certainly made a
pair.)

And what happened to all those great mentalism products that
supposedly were to come out of the special? My source at my
distributor evidently was misiniformed. The only effect
that may be applicable to mentalism is Phone-onemon. That's
the one in which a freely named playing card ends up on the
caller ID of the participant's cell phone. Evidently, it
doesn't have to be a playing card, so I'll be checking that
out and reporting back to you on it as soon as I get it.

Now, if I can just mentally think this cold away . . .

I've just posted reviews of Kenton Knepper's two latest publications.

Until next time. -- Jheff

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