Thursday, October 09
London (dpa) - The behaviour of U.S. magician David Blaine, locked in a perspex box suspended above the south bank of the River Thames for the past 33 days, is becoming "increasingly bizarre", the Guardian newspaper said Thursday.
It reported Blaine had spoken to members of the public in the early hours of Wednesday morning for what is believed to be the first time during his self-imposed starvation.
He told a group of musicians who had gathered under his box near Tower Bridge that his stunt had been inspired by his mother's death from ovarian cancer when he was 17.
"I watched my mother die a beautiful death as a kid. She was starving, but yet she managed to smile always, and find love through the worst of conditions. That's what I think that this is for me, it's my way of finding beauty in suffering," he said.
"Because I think that life is poetry. I think the spirit is much greater than the flesh will ever be and I think the spirit will last much longer than any flesh ever will," he added.
Blaine himself predicted his mind would start to go in five days, but the Guardian suggested this had already begun to happen.
He is reported to lose the few objects he has with him, to display obsessive behaviour such as continually running his fingers through his hair and at one stage to have thrown himself against the walls.
"It is all fairly predictable. His unconscious is trying to tell him to get out," John Potter, a psychologist specialising in captivity, said.
Potter predicted Blaine would begin to hallucinate and ramble.
Blaine entered his see-through prison on September 5 and plans to emerge on the evening of Sunday October 19 after surviving on water for 44 days.
His stunt draws a small crowd of curious onlookers, to whom he waves through the day, but interest by the media has begun to wane.
Previous stunts in New York have included perching on a pillar for 35 hours and being encased in ice for almost 62 hours.
Copyright 2003 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
________________________________
Changes to your subscription (unsubs, nomail, digest) can be made by going to http://sandboxmail.net/mailman/listinfo/sndbox_sandboxmail.net
