Magic News

Mea Culpa

Not long ago, I wrote a very critical article about David Blaine titled, Blaine to World: Watch Me, Look at Me, Touch Me. The article was written with such a vitriolic and self-righteous tone that it got some notoriety outside of Inside Magic in part because I spread the message by submitting it to on-line magic publications.

One of our members correctly took me to task for my article attacking David Blaine and his self-promotion up to and including his announcement that he engaged in a romantic situation while still attached to hospital monitors
following his box stunt.

My brother in Magic was correct that bashing Mr. Blaine did not elevate the Art and was unnecessary.

I am sorry that I engaged in exactly what I so dislike. It isn’t ironic that I later wrote a column suggesting we need more brotherhood and less back-biting and bashing of our fellow magicians. In re-reading the David Blaine post, I think I violated what I thought I stood for and I am ashamed that I would do that.

I don’t mean to excuse my behavior in anyway but I think I followed my own inertia into writing the last Blaine piece. At the start of his 44 days in the box, I took exception to his claims that he was on par with Jesus Christ and that he was in some manner approximating the starvation others had endured either voluntarily but for a cause (in the case of Bobby Sands and the IRA prisoners) or involuntarily (the concentration camp victims).

But my discomfort with Mr. Blaine’s self-approximation isn’t something I needed to share and could have been kept to myself. It was also something that I should have worked on to determine why I felt the discomfort in the first place.

There are so many positive stories in our medium that I should have taken the higher road.

My self-righteous tone and comments were out of line. I have deleted the offending diatribe from Inside Magic.

I appreciate my brother magician addressing the issue with me in private and I should learn by his example.

Not long ago, I wrote a very critical article about David Blaine titled, Blaine to World: Watch Me, Look at Me, Touch Me. The article was written with such a vitriolic and self-righteous tone that it got some notoriety outside of Inside Magic in part because I spread the message by submitting it to on-line magic publications.

One of our members correctly took me to task for my article attacking David Blaine and his self-promotion up to and including his announcement that he engaged in a romantic situation while still attached to hospital monitors
following his box stunt.

My brother in Magic was correct that bashing Mr. Blaine did not elevate the Art and was unnecessary.

I am sorry that I engaged in exactly what I so dislike. It isn’t ironic that I later wrote a column suggesting we need more brotherhood and less back-biting and bashing of our fellow magicians. In re-reading the David Blaine post, I think I violated what I thought I stood for and I am ashamed that I would do that.

I don’t mean to excuse my behavior in anyway but I think I followed my own inertia into writing the last Blaine piece. At the start of his 44 days in the box, I took exception to his claims that he was on par with Jesus Christ and that he was in some manner approximating the starvation others had endured either voluntarily but for a cause (in the case of Bobby Sands and the IRA prisoners) or involuntarily (the concentration camp victims).

But my discomfort with Mr. Blaine’s self-approximation isn’t something I needed to share and could have been kept to myself. It was also something that I should have worked on to determine why I felt the discomfort in the first place.

There are so many positive stories in our medium that I should have taken the higher road.

My self-righteous tone and comments were out of line. I have deleted the offending diatribe from Inside Magic.

I appreciate my brother magician addressing the issue with me in private and I should learn by his example.

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