What about Lee Asher bashing Oz? What does that have to do with anything?

Oz used Lee Asher moves in a couple of his Instant Downloads, and Penguin used to sell Asher's Five Card Stud without Asher's permission, as one of the dealer's that sold 5 Card Stud sold to Penguin, and Asher was unaware of that at the time.

Asher has the right to bash Oz and Penguin. But stilll, don't know what that has to do with David Blaine....

-Tony

i am sorry that my topic on brad vs. blainecaused all this argument

It was more so Blaine vs. Oz, than the one involving Brad.

Cheers,

Tony

Unfortunately one can be a professional and still lack class. Many have not matured enough yet, and still have a lot of growing in life to do. As far as the Blaine sucks dispute, I already beat this dead horse a 100 times at least in all sections of these forums...

both of the topics stated it

dont mistake notoriety for fame.

If Lee Asher has some sort of copyright dispute with Oz, then I haven't heard about it, maybe Lee is sort of immature himself, but who really cares, it's beside the point. The point is that REAL magicians don't tell other people not to enjoy the magicians that they enjoy. You can say the same for musicians, chefs, comedians, mimes, etc. It's entertainment folks. People watch it because it's supposed to be fun.

Maybe these so-called professionals should consider that the presentation that they think is so awful has outperformed their tired old schtick by a factor of about a million. I wouldn't say that he has no presentation, I would say that he has a BRILLIANT PRESENTATION which other magicians can study and learn from. As far as slight of hand art goes, Blaine is OK but certainly not the top of his field. As far as presentation--I absolutely love him, and won't miss his new special for all the world.

I could get into deep details of why I think his presentation is so brilliant but its beyond the scope of this post and this thread. Maybe another time.

I simply wish the following for Blaine:

Concentrate on doing magic, not endurance stunts. I can understand the Buried Alive stunt since that feat has been around for centuries in Eastern magic (Indian fakirs would bury themselves alive and come out days later). The Frozen in Time and Vertigo stunts were enjoyable for one reason and one reason only: the various scenes of him doing magic on the streets of various locations throughout our great nation (USA) and exotic locations. Then, we forward the clock to his Above the Below in London. This special (my best friend lives over there) taped had almost no magic whatsoever. There was only one card effect in this special (Card to Mouth routine inspired and invented by Max Malini) and one clip of Blaine doing a mentalism effect of predicting the amount of change in a woman's pocket. The rest of the special consisted of Blaine getting punched in the abs by an English gentleman and preparing to enter the box. The other special showed Blaine's tortous days in the box as he slowly disappeared before our eyes. Not to magical if you ask me.

Tony, interesting post. I think this is a different angle to a subject that been debated to death....

if a magician were to use 100% gimmicks and get away with it that doesn't make him a magician, it makes him a good actor

Copperfield is not a magician???

and TonyJones, how much (%) of that does the fake stuff fall in? like his fake A$$ levitation!

On the street, he performed the Balducci levitation to the spectators. You see their actual reactions to it. It is only on video that he uses a levitation involving cables. This is because the internet has exposed the Balducci levitation, and seeing him perform it on national television would almost certainly cause people to research it, and figure it out. However, when we see him cleanly lift a foot off the ground, the majority of these skeptics may think that he is actually levitating, and will cease with their theories.

So about the percentages, since he performed the Balducci levitations to these people, I included this in the impromptu category.

-Tony

I see Blaine as more of a stunt man-. A good stunt man.
His style magic is a bit too out there 4 me. ..
haz

Very well said Tony, I have been standing up for this since the day I've been familiar with Blaine, I think I also posted the same opinion twice in these boards, just not with an essay length LOL.
Exodus if David Blaine "has no presentation" then how come did he accomplish to entertain all these people watching his specials? A performance can hardly be entertaining to watch if it isn't... good. And that is presentation, every single magician on this planet should have his own style of presentation, Michael Ammar, Michael Close, Paul Green, Paul Harris etc etc have their own style of presentation, that is what makes magicians special, why do we have favourite magicians? Why do some of us prefer Paul Harris than Lee Asher, because we like his style best. And David Blaine *has* his own and *unique* style, like it or not that is his style and if people were entertained then what the heck is wrong with his presentation apart from being a bit amusing quite some times?
Bigdaddycocoa I fully agree with you, I did enjoy David Blaine a lot more when he was doing magic, screw his stunts!
j

Did everyone know that the Balducci lev still floors alot of laypeople? I'm not overly pro or con Blaine, but if it wasn't for his first special, my magic shop buddy would't have shown me the Balducci and helped to kick-start my very profitable private party run in NYC.

So, uhh....Thanks Blaine!