David Blaine to cross Hudson River strapped to helium balloons

My first question is, why?
My next question is, no, really, why?

Magician David Blaine is set to perform the sequel to Up that no one asked for. On August 31st he plans to leave New Jersey soil by hanging onto a bunch of helium balloons and crossing the Hudson River to land in New York. Very reminiscent of the Ed Asner animated movie Up where the old man’s entire home drifts away attached to helium balloons. The stunt will be shown live on YouTube.

The 47 year old ‘street magician’ as he has been called was born in Brooklyn but has lots of Jersey ties. In his teens he lived in Little Falls and was a student at Passaic Valley Regional High School. He also did a brief magic residency at Liberty Science Center in Jersey City.

But balloons? To float across a river?

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Much of what Blaine has done at some point ceased to be traditional magic and morphed more into personal endurance stunts. (Unless he’s somehow not really doing them and it’s all an illusion thus we’re the idiots)

According to ABC News he’s done all of the following:

1999 - Buried himself in a box for seven days consuming only tiny amounts of water.

2000 - Stood in Times Square inside a block of ice for 63 hours. It was supposed to be 72 hours. I’m still impressed.

2002 - Bryant Park, New York City, stood with no harness on top a 100 foot tall pillar only 22 inches wide for 35 straight hours. Instead of climbing down he jumped into cardboard boxes strategically piled 12 feet high and suffered a concussion.

2003 - In London he hung suspended inside a plexiglass case for 44 days with no food and only drank less than 5 liters of water a day. He was constantly taunted by onlookers, one tempting him with a hamburger hung off a remote control chopper. When he was done he was rushed to a hospital having lost 25% of his original body weight.

The list goes on. But I end where I started.

Why?

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski. Any opinions expressed are Jeff Deminski's own.