Keeping the Magic Alive

On David Blaine and Relevance

I just returned from a Spring Break road trip with my family and friends that took us through Joshua Tree, Williams (Arizona), the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and back.

I thought a bit about you on those long drives, and what might be important to you. Thanks to you, I am happy to return to Monologue when I can, and when I have something worth saying. I appreciate you granting me the space to write and think out loud. Not a lot of license to do that these days…

Perhaps you want me to give brand-building advice. I have a sizable audience from the last crypto and NFT cycle, so maybe you are looking for financial tips or ways to make money. I mouth off about social issues, food, culture, philosophy, and technology, so you could have found your way to me through any of these ingresses.

In the first chapter of my career, it was easy. I wanted to talk about streetwear and that’s what my customer wanted from me. This was the ideal exchange. Optimal compatibility. Business-wise, it resulted in the most successful outcome.

But over the decades, I’ve sprouted my tentacles into all sorts of niche pockets, from art and travel to literature and filmmaking. Streetwear gave me The Hundreds and The Hundreds opened up the world to me.

However, I’m also aware that my core patron might not be by my side on many of these adventures. They may be sitting the generative AI exploration out, patiently tolerating my essays on dog adoption, or they may have stepped off my tour bus a long time ago. They came for the New Era fitted baseball caps and collaboration hoodies. But maybe they aren’t sticking around for my coverage of emerging artists and surf reports.

On our last night in Vegas, we got tickets to a David Blaine show at the Wynn. It was a birthday gift to myself, but my second son also likes magic as much as I do. One of our bonding activities is watching YouTube magicians like Shin Lim and SeanDoesMagic together.

Speaking of children, most of the young kids in the crowd were unfamiliar with David Blaine. They weren’t around in the 2000s when Blaine was the International Man of Mystery, cavorting with Leo’s Pussy Posse and dating supermodels, breaking world records, and baffling the media with his stunts like an unmasked Banksy. At some point in the last 10-15 years, David Blaine fell out of the limelight. This week, when I mentioned that I was going to a David Blaine magic show, friends smiled, “Wow! He’s still around?”

I could probably research as to why his magic tricks and illusionist acts aren’t selling out arenas at this point in his career (we watched him in a 1,400-person capacity theater that felt akin to a cruise ship show). But I do know that much of his shtick was unchanged since his TV specials from over a decade ago. David Blaine is greyer now, he spoke a lot about being a dad, and he poked fun at himself for gaining so much weight that he can’t hold his breath underwater like he used to.

I was a diehard David Blaine fan in the 1990s when his “Street Magic” shows aired on primetime television. Like sports games and “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” David Blaine specials were televised spectacles that were safe for the entire family to watch. He walked the streets of New York City, wowing everyday passersby with card tricks that were inexplicable, yet tangible. As intriguing as his magic was, David Blaine was most entertaining for his spectral affect and comedic timing (Some of the early 2000s meme videos were of a David Blaine impersonating comedian who mimicked his deadpan stare over mundane illusions).

And yet, I do remember the moment David Blaine lost me, one of his first-generation followers. It was when he started doing all the zany, body-hacking stuff: going without food for 44 days, standing on a pole for 35 hours, converting his stomach into an aquarium and throwing up live frogs. As impressive as these feats were, stunts like sewing his mouth shut weren’t magic. They were extreme physical challenges that tested the limits of the human body. Like ultra marathoners, Huberman subscribers, or those Russian TikTok kids who climb up antennas.

I had come for the magic. But I wasn’t staying for the catch-a-bullet-in-the-mouth stunt. The appeal with David Blaine’s original tricks was that they were not just accessible, but feasible. If you return to that first TV special, many of the card tricks are easy to figure out upon multiple viewings: showing the second card instead of the top card, or sleight of hand where he grabs someone’s wrist while simultaneously unclasping their watch.

The type of enthusiast who is entertained by this genre of attainable magic may be turned off when the magician jabs an ice pick into his bicep or vomits gallons of water. This is the same reason why, in the 1980s, David Copperfield’s biggest magic trick of disappearing an airplane fell on deaf ears. It was spectacular, but it was beyond the bounds of possibility. In fact, the David Blaine show we watched in Vegas is called “Impossible.”

I get the same feeling when I watch big wave surfers tackling Nazare’s 100-foot wave or skaters launching their bodies down 25 stairs. As inspiring as these tricks are, they exceed the aspirational. They lose touch with reality, and therefore, the fan. In my opinion, magic is one of those realms where there’s a vulnerable cleft to stick your conjecture into and say, “Hey, wait a minute...” Even if you haven’t the faintest clue. The real illusion is deceiving yourself into believing that you might have outsmarted the master. That’s the dance, back and forth, that keeps kids coming back for more magic. “How did he do that? I’m gonna find out.”

Meanwhile, if you pump your lungs with an oxygen machine and hold your breath for 20 minutes, surrounded by a team of emergency personnel, children are gonna lose interest fast…