Smile David, SmileInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

Mark Borkowski?s ?Stunt Watch? column in the Guardian Unlimited has featured consistently fine writing and analysis. Today is no exception. Mr. Borkowski points out that in the book Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women (by magician Ricky Jay), each of the performers were photographed smiling as they were hung, burned, dropped, dragged, chained, impaled or otherwise tortured in their act. So what? So, argues Mr. Borkowski:

?The smile primes us to expect excitement, it makes us open and receptive, and we can’t help but like and empathize with a person so patently cheerful. This is something we’re all going to enjoy together.

Not to get overly analytical about it, but the smile creates a relationship between audience and performer: we want the act to work, and even if it were to turn out a magnificent con, who cares? We’re mates, and we certainly had a good laugh.?

Mr. Blaine, on the other hand, does not smile. He does not share with the observer the sense of connection that those performers of the early days thought essential. As a consequence, Mr. Borkowski suggests, the news media write what they can. On day one, it is, ?Man Sits In Box And It’s Amazing!? and now a week into the stunt they write ?Man Who Sits In Box Is Really Arrogant and Boring and No One Likes Him.?

Check out his column for some insightful analysis. You might agree or disagree but there does seem to be something to the smile making a bridge to the audience and encouraging their participation in the event. Houdini, before he jumped into a river, hung upside down or entered into the Chinese Water Torture Cell, would share a smile with his audience ? to ensure that they…

Sky News has a short piece on Mr. Blaine?s obsession with food and his fantasizing about eating, interrupted only by a flashing experience from two sisters. Said one of the sisters, Charlie, “He raised his hand when I did it. I think that’s all he can raise at the moment.” I?m not sure what she meant by that but we?ll let it pass.

The BBC reported that just 22 minutes ago (this is being written at 6:26 am Eastern Time) a man was arrested for climbing a scaffolding and attempting to cut the cables to the box. He is currently in police custody and there was no damage to the cables.

Which causes you to wonder ? or at least me to wonder ? are the spectators being encouraged to try to outdo each other in showing their dislike or disdain for Mr. Blaine and the stunt?

The audience reaction to a man sitting alone in a glass box is becoming more significant or certainly more interesting than the stunt itself. With the latest effort to cut the cables to the box, there seems to be an escalation of spectators? own attempts to make the news.

Now I am concerned for Mr. Blaine?s safety not from starvation but from those that would outdo other spectators and make the latest news.

Let?s hope there is some return to common sense and civility even if there is no connection between Mr. Blaine and the crowd.