I remember I was in Michigan with a widow of a friend of mine and we were watching this show
and as soon as it was over I dialled your phone, and I told you I think that that was the greatest show I had ever seen on television
By the mid 1900s, magic had become synoymous with vaudeville. Alongside singers, dancers and circus acts,
close up magicicians would hit the theatre stages, performing the same routine nightly to ever dwindling crowds.
By the early 80s, magic had regained the fandom and fervour of previous centuries through the spectacle show.
With David Copperfields grandoise feats of illusion, such as vanishing the Statue of Liberty
Levitating over the Grand Canyon
and walking through the Great Wall of China, magic had once again become an industry unto itself.
However, there was still a void. Close up magic had been left behind, at least in popularity, due to its seeming lack of effort to catch up with the times.
Whilst the men and women - mostly men - doing the close up tricks were incredible technicians, and the most talented sleight of hand performers on the planet, their presentation resulted in lacklustre receptions
Names such as Ricky Jay
Jamy Ian Swiss
and Eric Mead could do anything they wanted with a deck of cards, yet still audience reactions were soft claps of the hands and light chuckles
his wasn't all their fault, despite their patter being filled with awkward pauses and false finishes, the setting for their tricks, namely late night talk shows
and back offices of long forgotten TV studios, resulted in safe, boring magic.
This culture of tradition that plagued close up magic for over thirty years would be ended in 1997, when a mysterious Brooklyn Native in his mid-twenties went out to street corners, sidewalks and and local hotspots
armed with nothing more than a deck of cards, a few quarters and a hand held camera. What David Blaine accomplished with his ABC Prime-Time special 'Street Magic'
was more than just stamping his name on the list of magicians, it was a moment in which magic became modern again.
How David Blaine got the special in the first place is contentious; he would have us believe he use to go up to local celebrities and do card tricks and then one day got a TV show.
In truth, he had agents who set up meetings with celebrities, and one day he got an audience with then chairman of ABC, Ted Harbert.
The special was a risk, not just because Blaine had no national fanfare or notoriety, but also because magic specials like this had never been done before.
Blaines original goal was to turn the camera around, and show the oftentimes visceral reactions of his spectators
It seems paradoxical that the man who formulated this idea would go on to arguably be the most famous magician on the planet some 25 years later.
There are two schools of thought in close ups magic. There are those like Penn & Teller who believe acting like what is happening is actually magic is dishonest and insulting.
Their performance and style is crafted with the intention of telling you before, during and after that what is happening is a trick, and the beauty is that despite being told this we still fall for it.
The second style are those like David Blaine, who want to impose the idea that what is happening is actually magical
With minimal patter, more natural settings, and simpler but more powerful illusions, David Blaine removed the flashy Las Vegas stages and
studio backrooms and returned magic to the place it had been practiced for hundreds of years prior.
He coined his style as 'The Urban Shaman'.
Brutal as it is, former Fox executive Stephen Chao said it best when he said, 'He's the only magician I've seen who wasn't a geek"
Gone were the over the top props, casino dealer dress sense and unnatural locations and in was the updated style of programming
Many believed it to be a turning point in magic. Bill Kalush and Penn Jillete have both stated on record that they believe it is the greatest magic special ever shown on TV
However, criticism was aimed at Blaine, mainly by fellow magicians who believed he had not yet paid his dues in the business, and that his tricks were simple to the point that anyone with a credit card could learn them
Even at the time the condemnation reeked of jealousy. And it is understandable, whilst Blaine was certainly more talented than some two-bit magician who relied on self working magic tricks
he certainly was not as talented as many other names in the business; names no one knew
But as Blaine pointed out in his 1997 interview with Charlie Rose, what matters is not the act, but the actor
"When Orson Welles did a magic trick, people believed, just because of his presentation"
Sure, he was performing the Raven and slightly revamped versions of Paul Harris concepts, but he did so in a way that made people believe he wasn't of this world.
Other performers who followed in a similar vein to Blaine are names such as Dynamo and Cris Angel. The key difference between them is the level of skill and authenticity.
As stated earlier, Blaine is by no stretch of the imagination and all time great card technician. But with the exception of a handful of notable tricks, such as his levitation in Street Magic,
everything he is doing is done without the assistance of camera angles, editing rooms and paid actors. When you see him regurgitate amphibians and spit kerosene from his stomach,
he is actually doing it. He spent decades learning from others the techniques needed to perform it, from sword swallowing to stomach muscle controls.
When we see him ask someone to name a card, then name a number and miraculously have the two things link up, it is because he learned from Juan Tamariz the art of the stack.
When we see him stand between ice blocks for 3 days, or live in a box water fasting for 44, he pushed his body to its physical limits in
an attempt to demonstrate how much can be achieved through will power and determination. His latest stunt, which will see him attempt to fly
using Helium baloons show the side of David Blaine that has become most notable, the side in which he turns performance artist.
But the side of him that allowed him the freedom to perform these stunts is to me the more interesting
Revolutionised is a term that gets thrown about far too often, too often for it to have true power
But David Blaine revolutionised close up magic on TV and on the streets. Since his special performing close up magic has become more socially acceptable
and is now a beloved form of entertainment, whilst Street Magic re-imagined a medium many had thought dead.
