[imagesource: Art Streiber]

The older I get, the more I wish I knew how magicians pull off their sleight of hand tricks.

The magician’s code prevents them from sharing that sort of thing with the general public, and to be fair it would be pretty bad for business if everyone understood what was actually happening.

David Blaine is up there with the world’s most famous magicians, having famously taken his skills to the streets in the mid-1990s and early 2000s.

He remains very, very good at what he does and he showed off his skills recently during an appearance on In Depth with Graham Bensinger, a show featuring extended interviews and exclusive access to some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment.

In a video from the interview, Blaine shocked Graham, Graham’s girlfriend, and the In Depth crew with an array of card tricks performed at his house in New York City.

The final minute or so features the magician showing us how to do a simple card trick:

Aside from the card tricks, Blaine also spoke frankly about how his unique brand of performance art has taken its toll over the years.

Here’s CBR:

[He] addressed the long-term effects of his countless close encounters with death. “I think metabolism took a hit,” Blaine said. “Probably from all the breath-holding, they say short-term memory loss but short-term memory rebuilds itself, apparently. And then I would guess the unknowns from eating glass, kerosene, these things. There’s a lot of residual effects I don’t know about yet.”

One of Blaine’s most infamous stunts involved eating glass.

As you can imagine, that was not great for his general health:

The stunt destroyed the enamel on his teeth, leaving his nerves almost exposed. The interview showed a clip of Blaine at the dentist and a close-up of his decaying teeth, but the damage the glass caused didn’t stop there. “There’s a chemical in the glass,” Blaine said. “So the chemical that they use to make glass is also going into your body so, not the best idea.”

When Blaine performed his 2003 special, Above the Below, he spent 44 days suspended 10 metres off the ground in a Plexiglass box in London.

The only thing he consumed was water and during his stay, he lost 27 kilograms and suffered a 33% reduction in his bone mass.

I’d probably stick with the card tricks, pal.

[source:cbr]