Illusions of grandeur

‘David Blaine Live’ tour stops Saturday at the Tivoli

If you caught David Blaine’s appearance on “The Late, Late Show With James Corden” last week, you saw his latest mind-blowing stunt.

The illusionist first had Corden push a sewing needle through his right cheek, with a handful of audience guests onstage watching, to verify these were real needles he was working with. As if that didn’t have the audience squirming in their seats enough, Blaine next ate two sewing needles, then two more, then two more before pulling the one out of his cheek and chewing it, too. After each set of needles was swallowed, Blaine would open his mouth for Corden and cameras to see the needles were gone.

He next picked up a brandy snifter, bit into it, chewed up that bite and swallowed the glass. By now the audience was audibly moaning at the masochistic magic.

Blaine next unrolled a length of thread off a spool, put it in his mouth and chewed. Corden and his audience were left gasping in amazement when the magician reached into his mouth and pulled out the cotton strand threaded with all the needles he had consumed.

Blaine said that’s one of his new tricks, so perhaps it will be in his show Saturday night, June 2, when Blaine works his magic on the Tivoli Theatre audi- ence. After all, “David Blaine Live” is billed as an “interactive experience to shock and awe audiences.”

Fo r more than a decade, Bl a i n e has att racted t he attention of the world with high- profile physical endurance stunts.

After starting his career as a street magician who appeared to do the impossible with a deck of cards, he was soon following in the footsteps of Houdini — seeking out stunts that seem physically impossible and doing them.

Following are examples: › Buried Alive: Blaine’s first live stunt was a feat even Houdini was unable to do. Blaine was entombed in an underground plastic box beneath a 3- ton water tank for seven days with no food and little water. › Frozen in Time: Blaine encased himself in a large block of ice in Times Square. He was cut free with chainsaws after nearly 64 hours. ›

Vertigo: Blaine stood atop a 100-foot-tall pillar in Bryant Park for 36 hours without a safety net, then leaped into a stack of cardboard boxes on live television. › Above the Below: Blaine spent 44 days with no food inside a transparent box above the Thames River in

London. Th e New England Journal of Medicine published a paper that documented his fast, stating it resulted in the loss of 25 percent of his body weight. › Drowned Alive: Blaine spent one week submerged in a sphereshaped aquarium at Lincoln Center. ›

Electrified: Blaine’s last stunt put him on the receiving end of a million volts discharged at him continuously for 72 hours from seven Tesla coils.

An astounding program is certainly in the cards for Saturday night.

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AC ENTERTAINMENT CONTRIBUTED PHOTO David Blaine