Rumor has it that David Blaine is training for his new endurance stunt.
He will attempt to break the world record for staying awake. David Blaine neither confirmed nor denied this coming feat.

David Blaine says, “I’m dropping 30 pounds,” he told me. “I do two hours every day on the treadmill. I’m on a raw diet that includes brown rice. No red meat. No animal products besides cooked fish.”

“It’s been tried before. In 1959, Peter Tripp stayed awake eight days, but it resulted in permanent brain damage. In 1964, 17-year-old Randy Gardner did it for a high school science project. He lasted 11½ days but recovered fully. No damage. A guy in London tried but fell short. Another did 19 days but slept two hours each night, so that doesn’t count. Also he was seated in a rocking chair. If I do this thing, which you claim I’m doing, I’ll do it on my feet. Standing up.”

“After 36 hours of sleep deprivation it’s like being drunk, 72 hours and paranoia sets in, Day Four the mind goes into hallucinations and you’re dreaming while awake. The problem is there’s no way to know how to offset brain damage or to train for this because there isn’t sufficient research. I believe the first guy’s mistake was not being in great physical condition. Also he used stimulants to keep awake, which I assume did him in.”

This episode revolves around an alter ego of Criss Angel, the Traveling Salesman. In this disguise, Criss goes from door-to-door and town-to-town amazing people with his bottomless suitcase, in which he keeps unlikely items such as a ladder, a bowling ball and a hat rack. Last year, in downtown Las Vegas, in front of hundreds of onlookers, Criss surrounded a girl with temporary walls; when the walls came down, she was gone. This year, Criss will attempt the same unbelievable vanish, but this time without walls or barriers of any kind. Then Criss reveals to his mother that he’s going to attempt to vanish before a raging Mexican bull charges him.

Davidblaine.com got some updates a new intro better navigation and a few other things. I like the way the intro was done.

Check it out.

I received an email yesterday asking me how David Blaine does the Fly Ressurection. I thought everyone knew how this was done but for those who don’t I wrote up a short explanation.

Fly Ressurection Illusion 

Effect: Pick a spectator and ask them to come with you to a nearby spot where you find a dead fly. You put it in his or your palm and appear to be concentrating hard and the fly will slowly come back to life and fly away.

Preparation:  Freeze the fly, putting the fly in a temporary coma.

Method: You need to catch a fly and freeze it. I suggest you get some Dry Ice and put it in a small portable cooler to bring with you on the streets.

When your ready to perform the Fly Ressurection illusion, take the fly out of the dry ice and place him somewhere in the shade. It’s important that the fly is in the shade to precent the fly from defrosting too quickly.

The heat of your hand will revive the fly.

Effect:

The performer asks the spectator to pick a card without him seeing the face and replace it in the pack. The pack is then shuffled and the performer is apparently unsuccesful in locating the card.

After a few attempts, the cards are thrown against a window in a fit of rage, on looking at the window, the chosen card is seen to be sticking to it, even more suprising is the fact that the card is on the inside of the window.

Preparation:

You will need two identical packs of cards and a willing helper.

Method:

This trick should be performed in an area with a large window nearby and with the spectator facing away from the window.

The spectator is asked to choose a card from a pack, memorise it and without showing you, replace the card in the pack.

The pack is then shuffled and a couple of attempts at “is this your card” tried followed by a look of disbelief when the spectator tells you that it is not their card ( this is al part of the act as you don’t even know the card).

After a few attempts you fake an angry outburt and making sure the cards are squard up, throw the pack broadside at the window, where they will hit the window and fal to the ground except the chosen card which is sticking to the window.

Your helper was already positioned behind the window and spectator and had an identical pack of cards. He was able to see the chosen card and took the duplicate from his pack.

A small peice of looped sticky tape ormagicians wax was attached to the duplicate card and it was stuck to the inisde of the window.

The helper should then have walked away from the window. This trick creates a real suprise but it is important to pick up the fallen cards quickly and to pocket the original chosen card.

Effect:

The performer turns a cup of coffee into a cup of coins.

Preparation:

Get a coffee machine dispensed cup and Remove the bottom of the cup with an X-acto Knife and place it back, stack the cup three quarters full with odd coins.

Pack the coins in and make it tight and then pour in a little coffee. Enough to cover the coins completly. Cofee works best because it’s so dark.

Method:

Grip the cup from the bottom and push up the bottom, and shake the cup. As the coins “unsettle” the coffe will spill between the cracks and the coins appear.

Effect:

David Blaine used this magic trick where he pushed a cigarette through a quarter.

Method:

This trick uses a gimmicked coin where the middle temporarily opens to let the cigarette through and later closes so the hole is virtually invisible to the spectator.

The coin is available through good magic suppliers.

David blaine will attempt to escape from shackles while dangling four stories above Times Square in time for the Target 2-Day Sale. If David Blaine accomplishes the escape in time 100 deserving children will be able to go on a shopping spree with David Blaine inside Target.

Below is the Press Release.

This Thanksgiving, Target is presenting David Blaine — the
world’s greatest endurance artist and magician — with one of his biggest challenges yet.  As part of his challenge, he will attempt to escape from shackles while dangling four stories above Times Square in time for the Target 2-Day Sale.Target and David Blaine are joining together to present this event to benefit The Salvation Army and kick-off a dazzling holiday shopping season.  If David Blaine successfully completes this feat, 100 deserving children will have a surprising and unforgettable start to the Christmas season.

Target and David Blaine will reveal the closely guarded details of Blaine’s new challenge at this not-to-be-missed press conference.

David Blaine and John Remington, VP of Events Marketing and Communications for Target will meet the press on Friday, November 17 to take the wraps off of Blaine’s new challenge.

Source: Target

May 2, 2006 — Magician David Blaine has been buried alive for seven days, frozen for 61 hours, perched 90 feet up on a pole for 35 hours, and suspended for 44 days.Now, he has been submerged in a human aquarium and plans to stay there for a week.

“My system is completely empty,” he said before being submerged. “So that way in the sphere I don’t have to use the bathroom. I have a catheter in case I have to do No. 1, but I don’t intend on doing anything else.”

To prepare for his weeklong stay in 2,000 gallons of 96-degree saltwater, Blaine underwent grueling training with the Navy SEALs and oxygen deprivation while diving with stingrays.

“What was amazing about the Navy SEALs — a lot of their training, although it is physical, is more about the mental and spiritual part,” said Blaine, 33. “They talk about overriding the pain in your body by finding something to take you away from it.” strong.

Defying Death

If he survives his seven-day endurance test, Blaine will handcuff himself to 150 pounds of chain and then remove his breathing apparatus. He hopes to break the world record of almost nine minutes without breathing. The stunt will be broadcast on ABC on May 8.

“I’ll have to escape from all these chains, and if not I will drown and the world will see something pretty insane,” he said.

Blaine said he had lost 50 pounds while practicing holding his breath.

“I would wake up and hold my breath for 48 minutes out of the course of every hour,” he said. “I’d breathe for a minute, hold my breath for five minutes immediately after, and then right after that, breathe a minute, hold for six minutes and keep going for all the way up to an hour. In that process, your CO2 levels become so high, your body has to work like a marathon runner to get rid of it.”

The final escape will be the difficult part, and Blaine has been relaxing in his fish tank, which sits outside Lincoln Center in Manhattan, N.Y., where pedestrians can view him. Blaine, who is 6-foot-1, appears about 33 percent larger because of the way the spherical tank refracts the light.

“So far, not bad,” Blaine said, about 20 hours into the stunt. “The only difficulty I have been having is that my hands are already mangled and my feet are pretty bad. It feels like pins and needles, and the flesh is starting to get little perforations. By the end of the week, your skin becomes kind of like paper. It becomes really fragile and delicate.”

To soothe his hands, Blaine has put on some gloves with petroleum jellylike cream inside them.

Blaine, who is subsisting on a tube-fed liquid diet of Gatorade, Pedialyte and water, said he also had difficulty sleeping because of the water pressure, which makes his head throb.

Despite all the risks and hardships, Blaine said he was enjoying his stay.

“This one is the most fun of all of them,” he said. “I almost feel guilty doing it. It feels so good to be in here.”.

Source: ABCNews.go.com

David Blaine: Fearless DVD contains only a best of “Street Magic”, Magic Man” and “Frozen in Time”.

It also contains all the unseen/bonus footage of the above 2 DVDs (minus the DVD production footage and commentary). And has a few newspaper articles. Within this video, Blaine performs a card effect through the television screen, and interactive menus enable the spectator to choose scenes just by thinking about them. Other special features include a ‘Behind the Scenes’ look for his Vertigo stunt and newspaper clippings for other endurance tests.

The disc is jam packed with hidden features as well to keep hardcore fans entertained.