Wednesday, November 22, 2006
David Blaine's gyroscope stunt
Stuntmeister David Blaine is starving himself in a gyroscope over Manhattan, all to benefit the Salvation Army.
Blaine will dangle near Times Square for almost three days before attempting to escape from some shackles.
"This is more difficult than anything I've ever done," Blaine said before he was loaded into the contraption, which was then hoisted up 50ft (15m).
The three spinning steel rings can flip Blaine in various directions up to eight times per minute.
The shackles will be added to Blaine on Thursday, giving him 16 hours to free himself.
The illusionist said his biggest concerns, besides not eating or drinking, were the freezing weather and dizziness.
After the stunt, Blaine will lead 100 underprivileged children chosen by The Salvation Army charity on a shopping spree. Blaine said the stunt was important to him since The Salvation Army had provided him with clothing when he was a child.
Regular readers know that I normally don't write about this sort of thing, but I happened to be walking down West 46th Street last night and stumbled across Blaine and his gyroscope. At the time I thought it was a commercial event and had no idea that the man was Blaine doing a three day marathon stunt. I did, however, manage to snap an exclusive TigerHawk photo of Blaine for the pre-holiday enjoyment of you, our readers:
1 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Nov 27, 02:10:00 PM:
It's a stunt all right. I've been on one of those things when I was 14 at Space Camp in Alabama. They call it the "multi-access trainer" and it's actually a hell of a lot of fun. You don't get dizzy on it because you're changing directions so much. I spent ten minutes on one and could walk a straight line immediately afterwards with no trouble.
Gah, I can't stand David Blaine. The only magician I know who doesn't do magic.
