Blaine makes record bid in bubble

New Delhi: Modern day magician David Blaine is living out his latest stunt - underwater.

Inside a big eight feet goldfish bowl right outside the Lincoln Center of Performing Arts in New York to be precise.

Blaine took the plunge with the idea of staying a week inside water-to top his earlier feats of encasing himself in a block of ice for 62 hours, standing on top of an 80-foot pole for 35 hours and burying himself in a plexiglass coffin for seven days without food or water.

Blaine is scheduled to stay in his aquarium until about 2130 hrs (Eastern time) on Monday, when he will be taken from the water, locked in chains and put back in the tank.

Then he will, on live television, be entangled in 150 pounds of chains. He will relinquish his oxygen mask and attempt to free himself while also holding his breath for nine minutes. He will try very hard not to die on live TV.

Fans have been encouraged to "visit, touch the sphere and offer words of support".

Blaine is hoping the New Yorkers are friendlier than the crowds who pelted eggs and golf balls at him when he was suspended in a glass box by the River Thames, in London.

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A spokesman for Blaine said, "Anytime he's done anything in New York, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. New Yorkers are cool about this thing."

Blaine takes no breaks from the tank. He fasted before this endurance test so that he would not have to worry about solid waste and what to do with it. A catheter takes care of anything else.

He's fed a liquid diet that is golden yellow and comes in a plastic pouch. In the late morning, one of his handlers climbed atop the sphere, opened the lid and dropped a packet of food inside.

Blaine settled down to the bottom and quietly began to squeeze the liquid into his feeding tube. One could almost hear the collective sigh of disappointment as the onlookers watched Blaine's activity level drop precipitously.

They realized they had the kind of bad timing akin to arriving at the National Zoo only to find Tai Shan taking a nap.

With Agency inputs