How Magical!

Am I the only person not amazed at David Blaine's brand of "magic"? I think this newest "trick," the Dive of Death, is the straw that breaks the camel's back and gets people to realize this guy is a complete joke.

Basically, the premise of the trick is that, after occasionally hanging upside down for 60 hours ("Wow! How dey do dat?"), he jumps off a scaffolding to the ground below. What amazing things will happen?

Alright, for one, this isn't a trick. If I step off a curb in front of a bus, and it somehow doesn't hit me, that's not a magic trick. Same deal here: Jumping off a scaffolding and not dying is not a magic trick.

It's also not very magical when, seconds before hitting the ground, Blaine's descent is stopped by a decelerator, a pretty common stunt device. I would have been impressed if Blaine had taken this jump and landed on his feet, apparently unaided, and then walked off the stage with no "strings" attached. But...no. Blaine just pulled off the world's most overglorified bungee jump.

And the fact that he only jumped from 44 feet up is embarrassing. It's quite possible to survive a freefall like that without dying. Yet Blaine felt he needed some safety equipment...to fall 44 feet. The late stuntman Dar Robinson twice jumped off the CN Tower, the second tallest structure on the planet, with the use of a decelerator. Robinson's jump was 1200 feet; Blaine's jump was 44. I think you can see who the bitch is.

And then, after the trick is over, Blaine "magically floats away." Wow: An off-camera crane lifts him out of view while John Saunders sells it to the audience. "How in the world did he escape into the atmosphere?" Fucking amazing. David Copperfield did the same thing when he made the Statue of Liberty disappear by making everyone look in the wrong direction. That was impressive; this was not.

Hopefully, people will see what a sham Blaine is and will run away screaming when he approaches them on the street and says, "Hey, you wanna see something."

Best that could happen to him, really.