BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Conversation >

Some bloke in a box

  
  

Page: 12(3)45

 
 
Fist Fun
12:49 / 19.09.03
It will be a real achievement if he does it. It is hardly a spectator sport but I think it is great.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
13:02 / 19.09.03
Oh hang on, that was a one off thing and I'm hardly going to support it but it's definitely not mob action when one man does it.
 
 
Smoothly
13:24 / 19.09.03
I suspect that Blaine is actually weaving a spell over his spectators - turning even the most mild mannered old hippies into rage-fuelled lunatics.
The show, it seems, is on the ground.
 
 
Bear
13:31 / 19.09.03
Says on the BBC website that the sacking was all a joke?

I don't Blaine is trying to offend anyone by not eating, all his stunts are meant to test human endurance, extreme cold, standing still for 48 hours and now depriving the body of food.

Of course there's also the possiblity that some of these incidents are part of the work, other things might be happening while these distractions are going.

I went down to see him at the weekend and the atmosphere was really good lots of little kids laughing and shouting at him and people sitting down having picnics. I never released you got so close to him.

Have "the gays" (as the Sun put it) gone down to throw their sausages at him yet?
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
13:47 / 19.09.03
Anna - True, but I would incline to believe that this sort of behaviour is made possible only by subscribing to the mob mentality that this weeks Boy-In-The-Stocks-On-The-Village-Green is David Blaine.

The fact that the monkey chose to put himself in those stocks is neither here nor there - it is the deranged, 'psychotic' mentality of crowds playing follow my leader with the moron in front (who's following the moron in front, whose following the moron in front, and so on, in a circle until you get back to the first guy) that leads to specific expressions of that madness by the individual.

I may be wrong - even if everyone was cooing and clapping and basically applauding David Blaine, this guy may just be a fruitloop who would've done that anyway...but I rewckon half the egg throwing brigade are just revelling in a new opportunity to conform and show how well they 'fit in'.
 
 
Saveloy
14:00 / 19.09.03
Money Shot:
"I may be wrong - even if everyone was cooing and clapping and basically applauding David Blaine, this guy may just be a fruitloop who would've done that anyway...but I rewckon half the egg throwing brigade are just revelling in a new opportunity to conform and show how well they 'fit in'."

Why do you choose to believe that, over the possibility that a lot of people want to throw eggs at Blaine and are making the most of the opportunity?
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
17:23 / 19.09.03
I don't, especially.

Though I admit, it is not really in my nature to assume anyone would want to throw eggs at anyone, really, so it's a conclusion I'd have to be lead to, rather than alight upon in a flash of brilliant clarity.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
17:30 / 19.09.03
Oh, and because most of the people who do want to chuck eggs at people are gutless, repressed shit-heads who would never dare actually do it, unless some other moron with more guts, or less sense, started doing it first.

Then they'd feel that they blend in neatly, and if any backlash comes of it, then they will at least have strength in numbers.

You know, sort of like this :

  
 
Saveloy
15:35 / 22.09.03
Ah yes, the infamous Nuremburg egg lobbing competitions. To think it all started so innocently.... Actually, I can't help thinking that that picture probably matches Blaine's original vision of how the stunt should have looked. Shame that the original German events weren't disrupted by a few people chucking eggs at the self-aggrandising pillock up on the podium, eh? Mind you, if the entire German nation wanted to rise as one against David Blaine and drop a really big egg on him from a Heinkel, then I'd be 100% behind the Nazi Menace, and you can quote me on that.

Re: "...the Brits like their celebrities humble" - I'm not sure about that. I think you can get away with being a right cocky bastard or a big show-off in Britain as long as you have a sense of humour, or at least appear to be enjoying yourself (eg the far-from-humble Robbie Williams, or the Gallagher brothers). The thing that really gets up Brit noses (and probably noses across the globe) is Taking Yourself Too Seriously, especially if combined with a total lack of humour, ie "being up yourself." That's where David Blaine has come a cropper. (See also Damon Albarn - has anyone ever seen that wanker smile?)
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
15:57 / 22.09.03
I think it's disgusting that David Blaine came to this country to perform a magic trick and the British public put him inside a box for 40 days without food just so they could gloat. It's sickening mob mentality, and I think it's time somebody tried to break him out.
 
 
Ganesh
15:59 / 22.09.03
Oh, and because most of the people who do want to chuck eggs at people are gutless, repressed shit-heads who would never dare actually do it, unless some other moron with more guts, or less sense, started doing it first.

*consults the Royal College of Psychiatrists' seminal 1974 guide, 'Oviprojection: Psychological Characteristics of Egg-Throwers'*

Mmm, yes and no. The research evidence suggests that egg-throwers' motivations subdivide according to perceived target - with those who ovihurl at inanimate objects scoring consistently lower on Sociopathy, Gutlessness, Repression and Shitheadedness than those choosing animate targets. Even if one discounts the intervening sheet of Perspex, it's difficult to categorise Blaine as 'animate'...
 
 
Tom Coates
16:11 / 22.09.03
The whole thing drives me insane. People talk about how impressive it is, but really it's only impressive because it's about the lengths a man will go to for attention. At the end of the day, it smacks of desperation and self-absorbtion not entertainment or art. "You should all be looking at me, why aren't you looking at me..." I think that the British slightly resent celebrities just as much as we like them - which is why they have to do the whole thing as a job of work or as slightly tongue-in-cheek ("I'm on the same side as you guys, really I am! I think it's all as ludicrous as you do"). As soon as there's any sense that they believe their own press, everyone - rightly in my opinion - thinks "what a wanker". Hence the wankerness of Robbie Williams' "I'm in pain" period... I would rather no one noticed his existence, but given that seems unlikely I'm quite content with him to be pelted and ridiculed...
 
 
Spatula Clarke
17:02 / 22.09.03
Probably more like fourth hand Jub.

His fourth? I didn't even realise he'd had one while he was up there.
 
 
w1rebaby
17:11 / 22.09.03
I must say that I did enjoy Ganesh's paper comparing Prescott, Blaine and Schwarzenegger as egg targets in Pie - The Journal Of Projected Foodstuffs.
 
 
Ganesh
17:22 / 22.09.03
Thankyou. I fear I alienated the Tomatiste wing, however, with my somewhat ovicentric slant...
 
 
_Boboss
07:56 / 23.09.03
everyone's ignoring the most important news sources for coverage of this event:

news of the world sunday 21st: steven berkoff and uri geller have formed a vigilante group to protect david from the baying scum !!YOU COULDN'T MAKE IT UP!!

richard [of judy] explaining brit antipathy: last week a man pushed a peanut from cornwall to downing street with his nose. no-one noticed. perhaps the great british unwashed is just a fuckload better at being interesting and eccentric than blaine and his bullshit attention seeking fatness bitch pr crew?

throwing eggs at a target forty feet up is actually much harder than doing nothing for a month.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
08:18 / 23.09.03
Yeah, to be honest, while I don't entirely go along with the egg-throwing (though as I've said before, much as I like Blaine, what the fuck did he expect?) I have to admit to being impressed at (some of) us Brits' throwing ability.

And we're shit at cricket why, exactly?
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
08:23 / 23.09.03
*Hehehehehehe*

'Ovicentric slant'

*Hehehehehehehehhehe*

To the Barbequotes, anon.

Apparently his PR team want to pull him out as they are 'shocked and appalled' at the reception he has received here in Blighty, and what it may be doing to his international 'image'.

OK, look, I never denied that he's an utterly self absorbed wanker of olympic hand-shuffling stamina. But oviprojection in response to his colossal ego seems an unnecessarily dramatic contribution to the entropy of the Universe.

A quiet moment in a nice park, perhaps?
 
 
Ganesh
10:21 / 23.09.03
A quiet moment in a box in a nice park, maybe?

Throwing food to indicate displeasure is a long-established British tradition (although I suspect it carried more meaning in previous centuries, when food was generally scarcer); I'm quite pleased to see it enjoying a grand revival.
 
 
Quantum
10:21 / 23.09.03
"According to the London Evening Standard, his sexual deprivation was sympathetically addressed by "two blondes" who bared their breasts"
Shurely "Sexual Depravation"?
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
11:53 / 23.09.03
Do you know if you can put suggestions through the holes they made in his box? Because I could think of some much better and more visually interesting feats of endurance for him to do next after they let him out. For instance, seeing how many times he can withstand being punched in the face by members of the public - that would certainly test the limits of human physical capability, and be much more fun to watch.

Or maybe a public crucifixion, complete with nails and crown of thorns. That would be a crowd pleaser. Come to think of it, it's probably only a matter of time before Blaine actually does this stunt. It seems to be where he's going with all of this endurance stuff, and would be the ultimate gratification for his messiah complex.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
12:02 / 23.09.03
Love how we get the same old crap vomited out every time this kind of situation develops. "The British hate people who take themselves too seriously... The British love to burst the Pomposity Balloon... Oh, the British despise anyone preening in public..."

Why, then the British are a bunch of narrow-minded cretins with a vicious, contrary mob-mindset. Why (the fuck) would anyone be proud of people turning up to rain abuse and foreign objects at the man?

To fuck with whether it's performance art, performance, entertainment, ego-wankery, whatever. To fuck with whether Blaine is a dude, a wanker, the Messiah, an egotistical publicity hound, whatever.

What you're all basically saying is that anti-social, nasty behaviour is justified if the guy being pelted with eggs and abused is a prick, or a hypocrite, or a tosspot of some description. Or at least if they and you perceive him to be one, naturally, because you've never met him, all your experiences of him are mediated by, well, the media and by seeing him on a few TV programmes, and you've no idea what he's actually like, and haven't really expended a great deal of energy on finding out.

So if that's your actual position (and talking about your unexamined positions, Jesus), then and why the fuck am I bothering? I'll only get called pompous or pretentious again by some twat.

Presumably the racial abuse he's been getting is totally justified too, right? The threats of violence when he comes out of the box? That kind of thing? Oh, come on, he's a wanker, he deserves it.

And as to the question of 'what exactly was he expecting'... possibly that isn't the point? Knowing someone's going to get abuse doesn't make the abuse any less sickening.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
12:18 / 23.09.03
Oh shut up Jack. Why shouldn't we throw eggs at the idiot's box? He's a boring magician with no showmanship skill. If he wants us to stop he can damn well get out of his box and finish his trashy stunt. If not then it will continue because people are showing that they aren't impressed with his rubbish. It's not about who he is, it's about what he's doing.

And yes obviously I approve of threats and racial abuse because that so leads on from throwing food at perspex.

Don't make reactionary assumptions or anything.
 
 
Ganesh
13:22 / 23.09.03
What you're all basically saying is that anti-social, nasty behaviour is justified if the guy being pelted with eggs and abused is a prick, or a hypocrite, or a tosspot of some description.

Not me; I'm "abusing" a perspex box. 'Oviprojection: Psychological Characteristics of Egg-Throwers' is with me on this one.

I take your point, though: would anyone be as comfortable throwing eggs if the perspex were black?
 
 
Tryphena Absent
13:44 / 23.09.03
Would like to point out that I'm not planning to throw eggs at anyone... just wouldn't shun you if you did.
 
 
Ganesh
13:50 / 23.09.03
Well, as projectiles go, we poofters tend more towards sausages. Eggs are a tad ovicentric.
 
 
Bear
14:19 / 23.09.03
He's a boring magician with no showmanship skill.

See this is the part I don't agree with I love his style he brought street magic off the street as it were and magic back onto TV and after reading about his life I don't think there's anything boring about the man, he loved magic all his life and now he's getting to do what he likes and get paid well for it...

If you don't like magic that's cool but I can't agree with him being a boring magician, better than mullets and girls in bikinis IMHO.
 
 
w1rebaby
14:27 / 23.09.03
His street magic was good and not boring. This stuff, however, is boring.

Actually, I think Jack is quite right. Eggs are, as we all know, a gateway projectile. Start with eggs and soon you will be moving up to bricks and before you know it, you'll be there under Blaine's box with a Stinger missile.

Some psychologists say bin Laden may have started off with throwing eggs at Pringles tubes.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
14:30 / 23.09.03
What you're all basically saying is that anti-social, nasty behaviour is justified if the guy being pelted with eggs and abused is a prick, or a hypocrite, or a tosspot of some description.

Yes, thanks for playing. Oh I'm sure some of the reasons for doing this don't pass the Jack the Bodiless Acceptible Reasons for Throwing Food at an American Test and some do, just as I'm sure some of the people doing the actual chucking are doing it for reasons that we are Good and Pure Starchildren probably wouldn't consider acceptable.

But why is acceptible for one bloke to stand in a box and not acceptible for another guy to throw something at the first one? Especially as he's got Uri Gellar using his telepathic powers to deflect the eggs and his girlfriend to throw eggs back. It's heckling innit? Only with sausages. God, next you'll be complaining about the Biotic Baking Brigade hitting people in the face with pies...
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
14:52 / 23.09.03
His street magic was good and not boring. This stuff, however, is boring.

I think that's the crux of it for me. The street magic stuff was good, mostly, except for stuff like when he 'materialised' a homeless guys cup of coffee into a cup of money. There was no sleight of hand or skills there, it just seemed to be blatant video editing to make one thing appear to dissolve into another. If an illusionist is willing to be that audacious in his street magic, then I'm certainly not convinced that the current endurace feat isn't completley rigged - which makes it even less interesting as a spectacle.

I watched some of the programme where he went into the box and you had some Radio 1 DJ scum interviewing all these people on Blaines payroll who swore there wasn't any cheating going on. They had one guy supposedly checking his bag to make sure he didn't have any food or supplements with him - but y'know, David Blaine, sleight of hand... it's not that pocketing stuff is his business or anything.

It's just not a particularly interesting or exciting performance, and is being done with the kind of pompous solemnity that provokes the reaction he's been getting. Now if there was David Blaine in one box, and Uri Gellar in another box next to him, and they had to psyche each other out - that would be worth seeing.
 
 
adamswish
14:56 / 23.09.03
I think it's disgusting that David Blaine came to this country to perform a magic trick and the British public put him inside a box for 40 days without food just so they could gloat. It's sickening mob mentality, and I think it's time somebody tried to break him out.

Look it's just an idea the government had about how to deal with the asylum seekers we keep getting. If they can last the full stretch then they're welcome to stay. Plus it's brought an unexpected side effect. I hear English Cricket selectors are roaming the crowds with contracts.

But all joking aside maybe this is an old-fashioned magick trial. Can anyone think of a better method of ego-deletion then this.

And on a similar note how do people view the up-coming Derren Brown live Russian roulte (thing I've spelt that correctly) TV show coming up in the next few weeks?
 
 
Tryphena Absent
15:13 / 23.09.03
My brother got in to the last round of contestants for Derren Brown and then found out he had to make a video to get on the show. Naturally he couldn't be arsed.
 
 
Jub
15:17 / 23.09.03
Well, as projectiles go, we poofters tend more towards sausages. Eggs are a tad ovicentric.
I thought they had cancelled that Ganesh on the grounds that The Sun got hold of it and it snowballed all out of proportion. Apparently quite a few people still turned up though.

Am yes adamswish - I'm really looking forward to Derren Brown's thing. I think he's great. Bit smug, but hey - the stuff he can do, I'm not surprised.

What sums it up for me is, I saw him and Blaine do a similar trick. Writing down a word and then getting someone to say it, and hey presto they've got it already written down. I'm not really sure how they do this, but the difference was Blaine had written it on his stomach with ash and after the girl he was talking to had written this word on a piece of paper he burnt it and put it over his stomach, and upon lisfting his jumper, tad aaaar! Then he went all mystical and put a hand on her heart and was like "it's okay, it's okay" over and over agin, like he's a mystic (see the cult of David Blaine in South Park - spot on!!). When Derren did the trick, he wrote down a word on a piece of paper and put it on the table. He asked one guy at the table of 10 (?) to start a word association game which went all around the table. The last girl said her word, and when they picked up his paper it was the same one. Not only is his trick better, but he openly admits, it's all down to suggestion, hypnosis and body language.

C'mon Derren!!
 
 
w1rebaby
15:26 / 23.09.03
I'm a bit concerned, though, that quite soon throwing things at Blaine is going to be as passe as calling Jamie Oliver a cunt.

I'd like to establish that I was saying Blaine was a wanker before any of you lot.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
17:39 / 23.09.03
So, schoolyard sarcasm and "oh shut ups" aside (wonderful way you have of making your point, Anna), nobody out there thinks that abuse (throwing things, taunting, casual insults, etc, as being the kind of things you all find acceptable or amusing) is wrong regardless of the justification for it?

It's not about who he is, it's about what he's doing.

I think people on this thread have conclusively proved that it's also about him - or rather, like I said, their perceptions of him (and it is perception, since others have said they don't share their views). Don't take my word for it, re-read the thread.

While I don't want to get all anecdotal on you, since this isn't the Head Shop, I guess it's OK. I've had eggs thrown at me, and so have several of my friends, because of the way I dress. I used to have eggs thrown at me because of the school I went to. Also taunted, abused to my face, for both reasons, and throughout my life. They presumably thought they were justified in doing so as well. Or maybe they didn't, and felt awfully bad afterwards. Didn't stop them the next time, though.

So the fact that none of my friends would dare to walk through town on a Saturday night in case they got shouted at by groups of lads, got things thrown at them, that's OK too. Also the particular fear that my girlfriend has in walking past a building site on her way to work. All fine. I see. I'm stopping short of describing the other, harder abuse - the beatings, the stones thrown, the threats - because I understand that you'll just sneer and accuse me of escalating the definition of abuse for effect in my argument, rather like a Godwin-lite.

I'm trying very hard in this post not to come over as angry as I feel about this. I'm trying to be reasonable about something I don't think is very reasonable at all. Again, here's my point - I don't think any form of abuse is acceptable, especially not the kind which seems more acceptable the more people are engaging in it.

I don't intend to continue trying to debate this amongst a group of people who have no interest in engaging me on the argument. Amazing as it may seem, I have more important things to worry about than this. I'm unhappy about the fact that I've lost a certain amount of respect for certain people over the course of this thread, but hey, no one's perfect, least of all me. So if you'd rather not think too deeply about the subject, don't mind me. Go nuts.
 
  

Page: 12(3)45

 
  
Add Your Reply