"David Blaine is incredible, and through his next trick he is trying to remind the world of what all the spiritual sages in India 2000 years ago were achieving. And I think that is something very special to find in human beings these days. So, why is everybody freaking out?"

— posting on a message board



"The treatment David Blaine is getting as he tries to make $5 million out of insulting the world's starving (and Channel 4 viewers) makes me proud to be British . . . we are different. As the song should have gone: "We say tomato, you say a piece of pinko-veggie crap you throw off your triple Humungus-burger."

— editorial in a British ezine



"I wonder how much longer till my mind goes away."

— David Blaine from inside his cage, Day 9

***

Magician David Blaine's latest stunt (44 days in London without food while being suspended dozens of feet in the air in a Plexiglas box the size of a shower stall) begs many questions, chief among them whether he will be able to survive the ordeal. But as fascinating as his secrets to survival are — Is there glucose in the water? Nutrients in his diapers? — there are more interesting questions to be asked, like, why are the British freaking out about it, and why do the British need a starving American in a glass cage to give them a sense of national pride?

There is no doubt the British have gone completely bananas over Blaine. Since he entered his cage on Sept. 5, mobs of people have gathered around his cage and thrown eggs at him, beat drums all night to keep him awake, hit golf balls, exposed their butts and breasts, pointed lasers, attempted sabotage, and grappled violently with security guards. A magazine even hired a helicopter to fly over Blaine's cage (which hangs from a crane along the banks of the Thames River) in order to taunt Blaine by dangling a hamburger above his head.

There are two reasons why Blaine's glass box diet is arousing so much ridicule, disgust, and outrage from the British. The first is that his self-imposed starvation is a mockery of those around the world existing in a state of hunger. As one Brit said, "A fool chooses to starve himself, and we all watch . . . one billion people have no choice, and we ignore them." In the same vein, his feat trivializes the sacrifice of those who have used the hunger strike as a form of protest over the years. Blaine may claim that "it will be triumphant for a human being to survive this," and some supporters may believe he is paying homage to Ghandi and the spiritual sages of India, but not everybody sees it that way. In the words of one man who fasted for 53 days in 1980 as part of a prison hunger strike, all Blaine is doing is "diminishing and cheapening the act and bringing it into the realms of voyeuristic showmanship."

The second reason is the sheer pointlessness of the stunt. The feat was inspired by a gift he received of a butterfly encased in clear plastic. "I thought it would be amazing to see a human being framed in a glass case," he said in an interview. How profound. I wonder if the butterfly looked hungry. I wonder what inspired his earlier tricks, like the one where he was frozen in ice. A mosquito in a frozen mud puddle? What about the one where he stood on a 100-foot tower for a few days? Did he watch The Karate Kid, when the kid is balancing like a crane on the dock piling?

As pointless as they were, at least his earlier exhibitions had some fascinating aspects. Being frozen in ice is a pretty cool idea, reminiscent of Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back. And when he stood on the tower for a few days in Bryant Park, there was always the thrilling possibility that a stiff breeze would knock him off and send him plummeting to the ground. There is no thrill in this stunt, however. One British man compared the experience of watching Blaine slowly waste away "akin to watching paint dry." In fact, the only thrill originates from the bizarre antics of the British protesters. When questioned as to why she took off her pants and waved her bare ass at Blaine, a 34-year-old British woman explained it resulted from her inability to grasp the stupidity of Blaine's spectacle : "It was a spur of the moment thing, me taking my trousers down. It's absolutely ridiculous to have this man dangling down in a box like this."

Of course, it could be argued that it's absolutely ridiculous for a grown woman to take off her pants in public. Or for the entire city of London to get so worked up that they are banging drums all night and wasting perfectly good food (not very responsible for people so concerned about the hungry and starving around the world).

But the British don't see it this way. On the contrary, they think their brutish behavior is commendable. "I love it," writes Andrew Neil, former reporter for The Sunday Times, "a pointless U.S. stunt being treated as it deserves by cynical, hard-to-impress Brits." The general opinion of the British media is that Americans are a bunch of saps and sycophants, content to worship any celebrity and any public display, while the British are a little more selective in giving their affections. The Brits are keeping it real. They call a spade a spade. They know the difference between a "huckster and a hero." And this nationally held character trait — what one British columnist Catherine Bennet called "collective good sense" — is being well illustrated by their joint derision of Blaine. The symphony of food, nudity, and insults beneath Blaine's glass cage should come as a "reassuring, even an inspiring, sight."

Any skepticism by the American press that bare-bottomed women throwing fish n' chips is not a reassuring sight is treated as further proof of the supremacy of British intellect. The New York Times called the British "hard-to-please" and quoted Blaine's girlfriend as saying she fount it "quite bizarre" that Londoners feel the need to throw food and insults at him. In response to this, one British paper sneered, "Blaine and his team, who seem largely devoid of irony, still do not quite get it — Briton does not like him . . . and, it would appear, American journalists don't get it either."

Well, I get it. I get that the British don't dig David and thinks his stunt is pathetic. But what I don't get is why the British don't see how incredibly pathetic their behavior is. They think Blaine's attempt to survive for 44 days without food is moronic? What about their Animal House antics? With their breast flapping, hamburger helicopters, and golf balls, the British are making Blaine, who is sitting stoically and unruffled in his cage, look by far to be the more civilized of the two parties.

As the days go on, Blaine has said that he's starting to go a little crazy. The British seem to be following his lead, because every day their actions become more and more desperate. What started off as a food fight during the first few days turned into full-fledged violence the other day, when a man fought with a security guard who tried to prevent him from throwing a lemon. Pictures show the man in a headlock, bleeding profusely from his head. Does this smack of Bennet's "collective good sense"? In the same article, Bennet argues that the mass derision is bringing British citizens of all classes and ethnicities together, giving them a much-needed dose of national fervor. What's more, she thinks it would be great for Britain nationalism if Blaine would stay in his box forever: "If Blaine could be induced to stay, for all time, in his silly box, there could be many worse ways of acquiring British nationality [than] by composing some appropriate insult in the English tongue, then throwing an egg at him." As the days go by, we're beginning to see the truth in her words. Let's just hope the golf balls don't turn into bullets.

David Blaine calls himself a magician. While I fail to see what is so magical about starving himself in a glass box — or any of his other tricks, for that matter — there is no doubt that he has succeeded in casting a spell on the British. When I look at Blaine, all I see is a strange, pathetic, bearded man in a glass box. When the British look at him, they see something else: the illusion of a glorious country and a superior culture that possesses, among other things, a remarkable sense of humor.

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