The Greatest Illusion of All Time

Arguably one of today's most talented illusionists, David Blaine can be seen on TV and all over YouTube performing incredible bits of street magic that always generate confusion and wonderment with onlookers. His tricks are very unique and complex, and he pulls them off with a deadpan effortlessness that gives him an increased air of mysticism (and sometimes creepiness).

Tonight, ABC had a two-hour special on Blaine's career that ended with a never before seen stunt/illusion called the "Dive of Death". For the one hour and 55 minutes leading up to the final performance, they showed the typical stock footage clips of him walking up to people on the street and performing for them, intermingled with childhood photos and him doing a voice-over of how he became interested in magic. While most of the tricks were interesting, two hours of this got old pretty quickly.

Finally, the time for the last stunt had arrived and Heidi and I sat on the edge of our seats to watch the illusion we had been waiting two hours to see. The host had been promo-ing the final trick before every commercial break saying that, while no one but David knew what the "Dive of Death" was going to be, it was sure to be incredible. Our time investment in the program was proof enough that we were looking forward to seeing it.

And then it happened -- we witnessed the greatest illusion of all time.

The true illusion was not the "Dive of Death" as the network would have you believe. No, the true illusion was the promise that if we sat through the entire program, we would see something remarkable. That's right, we sat in our living room for 120 minutes to see Blaine's lamest stunt of all time. I can't even explain with words how benign it was.

As the final credits rolled, Heidi and I sat in a completely different form of wonderment than we expected, and both of us wondered how in the world we allowed ourselves to be unwitting participants in the greatest illusion of all time.