talkmagic.co.uk

Actually quite infuriated reading this piece. Whoever wrote it seems to think that because magic isn't real, they need to expose the deception and conjuring techniques underlying the performances of magicians. The main crux seems to be 'yeah whatever you see Blaine doing you can learn off a youtube video in 10 mins'. Yes, performed by some kid who is absolute b*****ks normally. The person says:

But from my vantage point directly behind Blaine, I could easily see his double lifts, his pinky breaks and Hindu shuffles (all basic card trick maneuvers). You could learn the same tricks in 10 minutes from any of the magician's "tutorials" taught by budding magicians who've studied the moves of Blaine and Angel and figured out how to teach them to beginners via YouTube

Quite unbelievable. I'd like to see the writer perform card sleights as well as David Blaine. He's a really respected performer of mine and I don't like to see him denigrated by some writer who doesn't know anything about magic. And it also suggests that Criss Angel is a 'better' magician! Incredible.

Rant over. Read the article here: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/mixmast ... blaine.php

From that quote you posted it seems like the writer is the type of person who can't just sit there and just be entertained. A heckler. I'm not a big Blaine fan, but that's mainly due to his lack of carisma, still after seeing him in interviews and on things like his TED lecutre, I do have respect for him.

Well maybe Mr Blaine's lawyers will get wind of this and see to it the writer doesn't write things like this again.

The writer seems to have gone there determined to not like anything, but to suggest/reveal methods is hardly the point of a show review.

I have seen a load of close-up workers doing double lifts, and it looks like two cards come up instead of one. If Blaine was caught, he was caught. Its a shame that more close-up workers don't look at their work a bit more honestly. Double lifts are often done badly, but performers get away with them because spectators are too polite to pull them up.

Yes you're right to an extent, but on live recordings of Blaine performing magic for Haiti on youtube his DL is perfect. I think it's more likely that this writer watched Blaine then probably watched a tutorial of his stuff on youtube. I don't believe that someone who seemingly hates magic and doesn't want to be entertained by it would already know about double lifts, hindu shuffles, etc.

Strictly speaking, a hindu shuffle is just a shuffle. Yes it can be used as a control, but ANY shuffle can be controlled. If he thinks he's 'caught out' Blaine using a hindu shuffle, like it was some secret move he clearly knows sod all and is just trying to sound clever like a hollywood script writer attempting to write a movie about computer hackers using words from the back of a book on javascript.

-Stacy

It certainly doesn't sound terribly objective, maybe Blaine stole his girlfriend or something?? It's really infuriating, both the content and the fact that somebody like that has a job in reviewing.

As for the writer apparently catching him out, in the quote by cc it says that the writer was watching from directly behind him. So he wasn't actually being performed to by Blaine. A lot of magic, card magic in paticular is angle sensetive and so I think this writer is just being a bit if a spoiler and thinking he's gone and caught him out when in fact he was just not part of the audiance to begin with. Again, I'm assuming that this guy is one of those that we've probably all come across who is diffcult for the sake of being difficult.

I got an absolutely horrible review once in my local paper, that had me almost embarrassed to go out and meet people who might have read it. My act was torn apart by the reviewer.

However I had to admit that he had a point, and I improved drastically after that. I made sure to be at my best and to constantly strive for improvement. Because, hard though it was to admit, the review was honest. I kept it for years.

Funnily enough the reviewer was a good friend of mine, and a fellow entertainer. He told me that he respected me too much to massage my ego. And I am grateful for that.