The Dive of Over-Anticipation

On Wednesday, David Blaine attempted his latest stunt(s). For those of you who don’t know who David Blaine is, shame on you. Just kidding. David Blaine is a magician and “endurance artist” according to Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge. He does some crazy street magic that is really cool to watch. His endurance endeavors have included: being buried beneath a 3.5 ton tank of water in a clear tomb-like box for seven days, being sealed inside a room of ice blocks for 63 hours, standing on a 90 foot pillar in NYC for 35 hours, etc. So, while Ryan was doing homework on Wednesday, I was standing in front of the TV (that’s right, no remote) flipping channels (literally…our TV has a turn dial…it’s from the 80s…and is awesome) and saw David Blaine doing some street magic. After watching for a few moments, I learned that it wasn’t just a street magic special, he was doing his latest stunt(s) “live.” Because I didn’t see the beginning of the show, I didn’t know what the stunt(s) was(were), so I had to piece the information together. It turned out that he a) was hanging upside down for 60 hours, b) “caught” a bullet in his mouth, and c) preformed a “Dive of Death,” which the special was named after. I thought that they were supposed to all tie together for one big stunt, but it turned out they were three unrelated stunts. He pulled off both the hanging upside down (why you would ever do that is beyond me) and “catching” a bullet in his mouth (he had a shot glass-like thing in his mouth with the opening faced outwards and some guy shot a rifle into the shot glass that was in David’s mouth and the bullet ricocheted out). The whole time (the program was two hours, but I only caught an hour and a half) I was trying to figure out what the “Dive of Death” was. Because of the huge build-up, I decided to wait around until the “Dive of Death.” I was curious. I was getting anxious because the little countdown clock in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen was getting closer to 00:00. Then the time came. This is what went down, besides my expectations and respect for this “amazing” magician and endurance artist: He got turned right-side up after chillin’ for 60 hours like a bat in a cave. He then was taken up to the top of the scaffolding that was holding him up previously. He was standing four stories up on this scaffolding. Then he jumped…but was attached to a cable. He lightly descended, barely touched his feet to the ground, and slowly bobbed around for a while with this goofy look on his face. Then the spotlights started flashing, like a strobe light. Then it went dark. Then he was gone. Then the commentator said, “He’s disappeared into thin air.” Then the credits began rolling and the 10:00pm news came on. My reaction was, “What?!?! Huh?!?! What just happened?!?! Was that it?!?! I’m confused?!?!” I was dumbstruck and speechless. I couldn’t believe I wasted 90 minutes of my life on that. It was ridiculous. Apparently, that wasn’t the way the stunt was supposed to pan-out. But it sounds to me like the actual stunt wasn’t much better than what actually transpired. This is from the Associated Press: “‘I had dreamed up the most amazing ending for a stunt ever,’ he said. Blaine said his grand finale of diving from a platform 44 feet to the ground while attached to a harness didn't go according to plan. He was supposed to jump and, at 10 feet, be swept away by a bunch of helium-filled balloons.” I guess all I can say is, "I want my 90 minutes of life back, David!"