Levitate me later or Get out of my stations

Last night I'm on the couch in front of the idiot box (as Grandma Jo calls it) aimlessly flipping around, channel to channel. The Cubs had already won and I was feeling pretty alright about the spag I had just consumed. Simple pleasures, simple pleasures. Note: a night on the couch is semi-rare for me lately as I've been quite busy tweaking my live set and it's taking up lots of my time. Story for another time. Anywho, I took the night off of recording/computing; the day job has been a bear and I needed some brainless time. So I just lounged for a few hours and let television land take me away.

I was searching for something, anything. And then, there it was. It was stupid, but I couldn't stop watching. Yes, I watched 'Mindfreak' last night. Basically, if you don't know what it is, it's this kat named Criss Angel and he's an illusionist. His show is really similar to what David Blaine was doing a few years ago except Angel's stunts/illusions/magic/whatever are of a grander scale. Compared to Blaine this guy has more of a personality. But I like Blaine's weird, staring at you all awkward and not saying much shtick better. Angel is more produced. Yeah that's a good word for him: produced.

So, he does some pretty impressive card tricks, yeah yeah yeah and then the fucker levitates about 20x higher than Blaine did in his street magic shows. It looks really good and I guess professional. There was obviously a lot of time and effort used in making the illusion work outdoors in a seemingly random environment. But, come on, magic shows on television put me immediately into the role of skeptic for the simple reason that we can't see everything that's going on because your point of view is always what the camera and editors have provided for you. If you were there in person you could walk around him and take all angles into consideration. This is the reason it's either 1. on television or 2. live, but on a stage where you are strategically positioned.

Anyways, I was curious as to how these guys make the levitation trick look so real. After a little research I found two of the techniques that illusionists are currently using: The Balducci Levitation and the King's Rising, which is shown here and explained here.

From what I read neither of these are what Mr. Angel is using. He gets a few feet off the ground while these only get you a few inches. I read the illusion's price tag is around $3000, but I couldn't find any information on it. I'm guessing that these more high profile illusionists are pretty tight-knit and don't want this one spoiled in the public realm just yet.

First one to levitate on stage or off at the Empty Bottle tonight wins my affection, forever.