BLAINE BLUR, STIR, WHIR
Posted: August 29th, 2001, 2:04 pm
I'm not sure how many people stayed in their seats for the duration of the Blaine Interview, but if 800 magicians saw, heard, and experienced most of it, it's likely there are now 800 different reactions, "takes," and impressions about Blaine and what took place. Much depends of course on one's predisposed bias about who they thought Blaine REALLY is, who he is trying to be, and what his place may be in the hyperreal, celebrity firmament.
Many now assume that Blaine is a drugged up, embarrassing, unintelligible jerk. Others think he is a "little engine that could-and-did," a god-in-black, baseball cap tilted down, and poster boy for the Consensual Hallucination of the Media Insane-atorium.
Others stand in line to get his scrawl on paper. It was a Photo-Op Bop. (How unlikely is it to see Herb Zarrow and Blaine, shoulder to shoulder, smiling to be digitized and immortalized for the family album?)
First, let me praise Max Maven. He was a literate, articulate, and masterful host--and by his own stringent standards, he was a mensch who, in this crazy, historic case, suppressed his remarkable talent for zinging pretense, blasting pomp, and exposing irony and brittle, lethal truths. Instead he wheedled revealing (sometimes titillating)information when it was necessary and permitted the passive-aggressive "theater" to play out. On the surface, the verbatim asking-and-answering was monotone and monochrome...forcing those who cared to listen carefully to ferret out real and imagined sub-texts. Yet there was an edgy quality because Blaine was liable to say ANYTHING in his Steven-Wright drawl. There was a jailhouse candor, punctuated by id-driven outbursts, sudden turns, unexpected yelps, grins-from-out-of-the-blue, well-placed expletives, and a lot of stream-of-consciousness drifting...
It should have been clear to those who paid attention and overlooked all the off-putting aspects that otherwise block attention to details, that Blaine is really another "kettle of fishiness." He is more than he seems and less than the spin-meisters contend. He is NOT about performing tricks on television in a Gen-X, post-modern, hip-hop, hip-and-hopped-up fashion. He is INSTEAD aiming to create another kind of extreme SIMULATION--one that can generate the kind of out-of-control spin that Houdini and Geller were able to generate. This is one of the aspects that astonish, irritate, and baffle most magicians. To them, Blaine is from another planet.
Those who find him truly repellent and talent-less were the same ones (in the audience in Vegas) that applauded when Blaine muttered that he might "die during his next stunt." Good riddance. Others winced when he talked about Eviel Kneviel (sp?) and Jesus in almost the same breath. Some scoffed when he talked about "taking a bullet in his chest" and others were incredulous that he was once a camp counselor at Tannen's Magic Camp. Go figure.
Although, Richard may disapprove of me saying so, a few things about Blaine are undeniable: He is a Publicity Dynamo. He stirs the air. He effronts, confronts, and contorts, and he impresses power brokers and high-level celebrities. He gets extensive, international press coverage. (He is even a character on "South Park.") He gets the kind of continuous, consistent "copy" that many super-star magicians only dream about...
So?
Many will ignore him.
Many will dismiss and diss him.
Butlike it or not, is our Houdini Manque.
[ August 29, 2001: Message edited by: Jon Racherbaumer ]
[ August 29, 2001: Message edited by: Jon Racherbaumer ]
Many now assume that Blaine is a drugged up, embarrassing, unintelligible jerk. Others think he is a "little engine that could-and-did," a god-in-black, baseball cap tilted down, and poster boy for the Consensual Hallucination of the Media Insane-atorium.
Others stand in line to get his scrawl on paper. It was a Photo-Op Bop. (How unlikely is it to see Herb Zarrow and Blaine, shoulder to shoulder, smiling to be digitized and immortalized for the family album?)
First, let me praise Max Maven. He was a literate, articulate, and masterful host--and by his own stringent standards, he was a mensch who, in this crazy, historic case, suppressed his remarkable talent for zinging pretense, blasting pomp, and exposing irony and brittle, lethal truths. Instead he wheedled revealing (sometimes titillating)information when it was necessary and permitted the passive-aggressive "theater" to play out. On the surface, the verbatim asking-and-answering was monotone and monochrome...forcing those who cared to listen carefully to ferret out real and imagined sub-texts. Yet there was an edgy quality because Blaine was liable to say ANYTHING in his Steven-Wright drawl. There was a jailhouse candor, punctuated by id-driven outbursts, sudden turns, unexpected yelps, grins-from-out-of-the-blue, well-placed expletives, and a lot of stream-of-consciousness drifting...
It should have been clear to those who paid attention and overlooked all the off-putting aspects that otherwise block attention to details, that Blaine is really another "kettle of fishiness." He is more than he seems and less than the spin-meisters contend. He is NOT about performing tricks on television in a Gen-X, post-modern, hip-hop, hip-and-hopped-up fashion. He is INSTEAD aiming to create another kind of extreme SIMULATION--one that can generate the kind of out-of-control spin that Houdini and Geller were able to generate. This is one of the aspects that astonish, irritate, and baffle most magicians. To them, Blaine is from another planet.
Those who find him truly repellent and talent-less were the same ones (in the audience in Vegas) that applauded when Blaine muttered that he might "die during his next stunt." Good riddance. Others winced when he talked about Eviel Kneviel (sp?) and Jesus in almost the same breath. Some scoffed when he talked about "taking a bullet in his chest" and others were incredulous that he was once a camp counselor at Tannen's Magic Camp. Go figure.
Although, Richard may disapprove of me saying so, a few things about Blaine are undeniable: He is a Publicity Dynamo. He stirs the air. He effronts, confronts, and contorts, and he impresses power brokers and high-level celebrities. He gets extensive, international press coverage. (He is even a character on "South Park.") He gets the kind of continuous, consistent "copy" that many super-star magicians only dream about...
So?
Many will ignore him.
Many will dismiss and diss him.
Butlike it or not, is our Houdini Manque.
[ August 29, 2001: Message edited by: Jon Racherbaumer ]
[ August 29, 2001: Message edited by: Jon Racherbaumer ]