BY FELTON S. W. ATMAN
NEW YORK—Just yesterday, David Blaine started an event that would go down in the history when he began his attempt to tie his shoe and whistle for 37 hours, 15 minutes, and 23 seconds consecutively.
If he succeeded in his attempt to go for 37 hours, 15 minutes, and 23 seconds straight he would break the previous world record held by Hans Brinclhof, Austrian Bartender and Couch Potato Extraordinaire.
Brinclhof was there to witness the events and root against Blaine. “This is my title and I don’t need some snob of a magician stealing it from me,” retorted the feisty Brinclhof.
Blaine has been training the last three years for this event, and his body is in perfect shape to complete the tasks. He is reported to have a team of forty-nine experts working around the clock to keep him sustained and alive in this life-threatening task. Included in this team of experts is a team of fourteen doctors, all of which will be monitoring his vital organs and blood sugar concentrations.
“David initially wanted to whistle and tie his shoe with five pairs of handcuffs on,” reported his head doctor, Dr. Sevenstein. “But I told him there was no possible way his body could sustain such rigorous tasks, especially while he is doing something so ordinary at the same time.”
Blaine’s trainer, Hubert Appont, was very excited for the event. “We did many advanced exercises in shoe tying and whistling,” said the Frenchman Appont with his very French accent. “We also did many breath holding exercises as well, which remarkably, he was very good at.”
Blaine had a crowd of near fifteen thousand New Yorkers gathered to watch him attempt the possible. “It was great to see that he had all this support from the great community of New York City,” said a local townsperson, Drew Crafton. “It just shows why New York is such a great city. We all band together behind our magicians and watch them do something really simple like whistle, or tie their shoe.”
David Blaine also received round the clock coverage from ABC in their special, “Watch David Blaine Do Something Really, Really Easy.” ABC expected around thirty million people worldwide to be watching him in his great feat.
“I heard he was going to snap at the same time too,” said New York resident Tom Respuit. “But I guess that was just a rumor, because he never did that, although it would have been pretty cool.”
David Blaine had been tying his shoe for 36 hours and 40 minutes when his doctors started to notice something funny. “It appeared as if his cerebral blood flow was at an abnormal rate,” said Dr. Sevenstein. “It didn’t look as if he would make it the whole time. We finally had to tell him to quit at 37 hours on the dot and rush him to the nearest hospital. He was close, but no cigar.”
David Blaine was disappointed that he did not get the world record, but he realized his life would go on. “I did not want to let down the people of New York,” he said. “But that last whistle just took it all out of me.”
Blaine said his inspiration for this event came from Stan, a guy who worked at the local shoe store. He didn’t say why.
Although he was very sad about his performance and failure to beat Brinclhof, he was still able to do magic tricks to amuse the little children such as making people disappear and not come back.
