Disclaimer: I am aware that David Blaine has faced and is currently facing sexual assault allegations. I do not support people who do this, and in light of any new evidence, I may take down this post. I understand if you do not or cannot read this post in light of this information.
During my favorite creative writing class that I’ve ever participated in, my teacher had us do something called a “Passiontation,” which was basically a presentation about your biggest passion. Now, my passions tend to go in cycles or waves, and to be honest, my biggest passion is the written word (reading it and writing it). Well, I thought that doing a 
presentation on the written word would be boring since we were all there for a writing class. So I did my presentation on David Blaine, who I had recently become obsessed with at the time.
Now, I wouldn’t say I have a “passion” for David Blaine, or even magic or endurance stunts, but one thing has stuck with me ever since I first saw David Blaine perform on TV—he has literally proven that there is nothing we can’t do if we try. To quote Mary Poppins Returns, “Everything is possible. Even the impossible.”
For the last couple winters, every time I dreaded walking to class in sub-zero temperatures—sometimes telling myself I couldn’t do it—I just told myself that David Blaine stood in a block of ice for three days with way less clothes on than I was wearing. If he can do that, I can spend the ten minutes walking to class in the cold. And thus began what I like to call “David Blaine Perspective.”
The short explanation is this: whenever I feel like I can’t do something, or it will be too hard, or I will mess up, I put it in David Blaine Perspective. He spent 44 days in a glass box suspended over London, so I can deal with being hungry for a couple hours at work. David Blaine allowed a professional fighter to punch him in the stomach, so I can deal with banging my knee on the table and getting a painful bruise. It’s helpful to put things in perspective this way, especially when dealing with pretty pervasive anxiety. Anxiety causes everything to feel like a catastrophe, so I need to remind myself that that’s not true. (If anyone can beat down the Hydra monster, it’s David Blaine.)
Lately, my anxiety has been making me insecure about my social interactions and the
way I look. It has been making me doubt my abilities at every little moment. Then, at a staff meeting this past week, someone made a comment about how trying your hardest to solve a problem is all you can do. This made me think of David Blaine, and how, to learn all of those fancy card movements and sleights of hand, he had to start small and mess up a lot. But he’s still confident in his abilities. He still approaches every trick, whether it’s a three-card monte trick or jumping off a hundred-foot pillar after standing on it for 35 hours, with the mindset that he can do it, no matter what. He has prepared.
And if he messes up, he fixes it by doing something new.
For example, there is a trick in his What Is Magic? Netflix special during which he mishears someone. He thought the person’s card was an ace, but she actually said eight. So instead of freaking out and being hard on himself, he merely continued the trick and, lo and behold, her thumb rubbed off the middle of the card to reveal the number 8. If I could recover that quickly after a mistake, I wouldn’t worry so much about mistakes. Being spontaneous in the face of a mistake is not my strong suit, but I’m working on it.
David Blaine’s crazy and amazing magic/endurance also reminds me how much we as humans can endure. We are strong. Our bodies and minds are strong. We just have to have the fortitude and confidence and practice to make them do what we want. Of course, we don’t have control over everything in our bodies and minds, but the things that we do have control over are more plentiful than we think. As someone living with mental illness, it feels powerful to say that my mind is strong. Even if I don’t always think it is. Even if it sometimes works against me.
My mind is strong. And that means a lot to me.
David Blaine says he performs magic to bring out the childlike wonder in people—in everyone—but he also uses his magic to do tangible good in the world. In one of his Netflix specials, he turns one-dollar bills into hundred-dollar bills for a group of people in New Orleans who had suffered losses from Hurricane Katrina. Watching his specials is incredibly heartening, because he approaches so many different types of people and treats them all with the same respect and ability to experience awe.
When looking into his backstory, it’s easy to see why he does this. His mother, who passed away young, always encouraged him as a little kid. She never told him being a
magician was impossible or a bad career. She just cheered him on and gave him the confidence to continue learning. And even though a lot of his endurance stunts are probably borne out of the grief he has over losing his mother early, he has taken this confidence in other people to heart. Whether a celebrity, a person full of piercings, a person of color, a person experiencing homelessness, or any other random person on the street, he performs at his top game for them. He has confidence that everyone still has that childlike wonder lurking inside.
I feel lucky to have seen David Blaine perform live. He sewed his mouth shut and stuck an ice pick through his arm and performed amazing feats of mind reading and card tricks and tricks with puzzle pieces. And even though I usually hate uncertainty, I love not knowing the secrets behind his tricks and stunts. Sometimes, the truth is that it’s just real and he can ignore the pain of sticking something all the way through his hand. But it’s just as amazing as being able to trick someone else’s mind. In fact, it must be harder to trick your own mind than it is to trick others’.
Before this turns into a fanperson rant (if it hasn’t already), I just want to say that I know I won’t be able to do the things David Blaine does. Not because I’m incapable, but because it’s not my passion. It’s not what I’m putting my mind to. (Also, David Blaine has said before that he doesn’t fear death. Well, I do. That’s another problem for another day…)
Of all of the mind-boggling and insane things he has done, there is one particular stunt that has stuck with me. David Blaine has spent days underground, held his breath for 20 minutes, stood in an ice block until he had delusions, jumped off a 100-foot tall pillar after standing on it for a day and a half, and stood in place while tons of volts of electricity went through a metal suit he was wearing. All of these stunts have been visually stunning and difficult and beautiful and morbidly entertaining. But the one that stuck with me is the stunt he called “Above the Below.” He spent 44 days in a glass box suspended over the River Thames in London. People below him could watch and wave, but he was up there with nothing to eat and not a lot to drink. He had a journal. He had clothes. That’s it. If this stunt had gone on any longer than it had, David’s organs would have begun failing past the point of repair. He was sick. But afterward, he had so much enlightenment about people and connection and necessities. He parts ways with the crowd by saying, “I love you all,” and is then promptly sent to the hospital.
It’s hard for me to articulate why this was the stunt that has stuck with me for so long. I watched it years after it actually happened. And I’ve watched it several times since. And, to be honest, it is really hard watching someone starve themselves of food and interaction. Fasting for that long is not something anyone should be doing, even for enlightenment…
But during the special, there are clips of people dancing and hanging out on the streets below. And I think that’s what this stunt was really about. Observing humanity coming together when that’s all you can really do. As much as humanity can suck and being alive can be hard, this stunt reminds me that in weird and unfortunate circumstances, people tend to flock together and find joy. They hope for the best for other people. They cheer people on.
So what have we learned today? David Blaine is awesome. Our minds are strong. And humanity is beautiful. I love you all.
Dreadnought by April Daniels is an ownvoices superhero story about Danny, a trans girl, who witnesses the death of famous superhero Dreadnought and gets his powers passed onto her. This gives her the body she’s always wanted but outs her to her transphobic parents. This book dealt with a lot of deep themes all while being a very fun superhero origin story. Because I am a transmasculine person, I do not know much about the transfeminine experience, so this was definitely educational, but not in a boring way. It kind of reminded me of a very queer version of Sky High (the best superhero movie ever… That’s right, Marvel. Come at me!).
in the most red states in the U.S.
lot of respect for Tan France after learning about all of the businesses he has started and the depression he went through because of overworking himself. He’s a cool guy, and to top it off, he lives in Utah with his husband. These two nonfiction books, though different in tone and topic, both have common themes that meshed well together.
Dani and her Segunda fall in love instead of loving their husband. Their love blossoms slowly and unexpectedly in the face of this oppressive, sexist society. These women are brave in many different ways, and I can’t wait to see what happens in the sequel. The end left me hanging, and I want more!
swearing off relationships when her girlfriend dumped her for being ace. This book doesn’t shy away from the racial differences between the two, Alice being black and Takumi being Asian. Though this is a light, rom-com-esque novel, Kann does not ignore the difficulties of coming out as ace, especially when starting a new relationship. Nonetheless, it gave me all the fuzzy feelings I needed to get on with my month. Cute, adorable, dorky, and queer—this was the combination I desperately needed to get me out of my funk.
is SAD. I read the first little chunk of it while at Denver Pride with my aunt, but it took me what felt like forever to read. I wasn’t the biggest fan of this book even though I’ve heard it praised a lot. It is a retelling of The Iliad, so, of course, there was a lot of death and kings and politics and war. There was also a lot of sex and a problematic, codependent relationship. This book is told through the perspective of Patroclus, Achilles’s lover/companion/friend, and though their love seems very deep and real, Achilles is kind of a conceited asshole. There were parts I liked and parts I really didn’t like, but the ending was super amazing. I won’t spoil anything (though, it’s The Iliad, so…), but the ending is what really tugged on my heartstrings and made me care. The entire length of the book before it did not make me care for these characters as much as the heart-wrenching end did.
this book. Monty has an abusive father and deals with the trauma by drinking, having lots of sex, and cracking jokes. Even though Monty was the main character, Percy and Felicity were the ones I was most interested in. Percy has the biggest heart and deals with his epilepsy alone for a long time just to make other people’s lives easier. He puts up with Monty’s bullshit and is still able to find a big place in his heart for Monty. Felicity is a badass, learned woman who is teaching herself about the medical field all on her own. You can see why I would love these two. This is actually why I will probably read the sequel, because it focuses on Felicity. There were a lot of good aspects to this book—alchemy, European politics, Venice, a sinking island, reasonable pirates/privateers, redemption arcs, discussions of race, and dark humor—but they didn’t mix into an amazing book. I had fun reading it, for sure, but it was a too cliché and I disliked Monty a bit too much for me to call this an amazing book.
I don’t have too much to discuss here except that I love the way Lemony Snicket inserts big words into the novel and explains what they mean without being condescending. This must be why I like using big words… damn you, Lemony! You made my vocabulary expand! Now people make fun of me for using the word dowager!
proceeds to a literacy charity, which is so awesome! Drinking bubble tea and browsing a bookstore with my sister was one of the best parts of my weekend. There were books signed by John Green and a whole display of Kurt Vonnegut books—Indy really loves to lean into the fact that these two are from here. But I think the best part of this bookstore, besides the fact that they support literacy, is that I didn’t feel pressured to buy anything. I bought something (a random P.G. Wodehouse book) because I genuinely wanted to support the store and their cause.
she will always be my favorite person in the world. She and Twenty One Pilots reminded me why it is important to keep on fighting—fighting my mental illnesses, fighting my loneliness, fighting my fear, fighting my negative thoughts. Life is worth living, even if only for the good books I have yet to read and future visits with my favorite person.
had (and still have) coming up to visit family didn’t excite me. Basically, the Hydra monster grew a new giant head called depression—one I thought I had cut off in high school.
shouldn’t have let myself get so low, I should have been optimistic about the future. But it’s hard to do that when everything seems to suck.
Pride!
all in.
If you can’t already tell by those daunting lists up there, I was suuuuuper bored in May. The semester ended, I wasn’t having much luck finding a job, and all of my friends had moved back home for the summer while I stayed in Nebraska. The bad part about this boredom was that my anxiety and loneliness skyrocketed. The good part: I had lots and lots and lots of reading time.
sweeping matriarchal world, people riding phoenixes—so I’m not sure why it took me so long to pick up. It wasn’t the best book ever, but it’s not a book I regret finishing. In fact, I’m mad at the book, because even though it was mediocre, I want to know what happens in the next installment. Will my curiosity be enough for me to pick up another book in the series? I’m not sure. We will have to wait and see. Maybe someone will post an amazing summary online so I can keep up with the characters without the mediocre writing. The author had a tendency to info-dump, then have some scenes, then info-dump, then have some scenes. This made it harder for me to remember things about the history and geography of the world, so I needed to refer to the Index quite often, which disrupted the reading process.
foray into graphic novels last month, I found this one at my favorite used bookstore for pretty cheap and picked it up. This was another mediocre read. It was cute, but it was predictable. I also found it hard to tell what age group this book was meant for. The art style was childish and cute, but the storyline involved double homicide and an evil ghost. Maybe I would’ve enjoyed this book better if I’d read it at a younger age.
There is a booktuber that I watch named Kat (
it came out. The cover is beautiful, the story is heartwarming, and I think that Ben (the main character) really does deserve the best. Ben comes out as enby to his parents and gets kicked out, so he lives with his estranged sister and goes to a new school, where he meets Nathan, a new friend and love interest. My heart was so happy while reading this book. I loved the reality of the story, even if it was extremely sad and triggering at times. Ben deals with abusive/manipulative parents and panic attacks, which can be difficult to read about, but it was such an important story that offered a hopeful, but not too perfect, ending.
motherly drag queen and the complicated story of Gordon, who is questioning his gender. It was refreshing to see a potentially trans character who isn’t all sunshine and roses—he has anger issues because of his home life, which became a mask to hide questions about his identity. Gordon deserved more time in the spotlight. I also thought it was great that Nima was mixed race and queer, because a many queer books end up being whitewashed. The book was enjoyable, but not a masterpiece.
grade graphic novel about a prince who hires a budding seamstress/designer to sew his dresses as he moonlights as “Lady Crystallia” in Paris. This is such a heartwarming and precious story—another queer story with a hopeful ending. Not to mention the art style: colorful and soft, just like the characters.
Jagger duet of “Dancing in the Street,” though, which is a complete gem.)
In the effort to see the positives of these situations, I started a gratitude journal. I’m not super good at it, and I forget to write stuff most days, but on the days that I pause and remember the good, I feel so much calmer. It shows me that I can face uncertainty and anxiety without negating any of the good times.
interesting, but because it was only one limited perspective, I didn’t learn a ton except for this guy’s one story, which could have been better written.
who know nothing about his past—and is living normally until the son of the people who died in the Emily Dickinson house fire shows up again. More literary figures’ houses are getting burned down—a clear attempt to get Sam back in jail.
roaring success. For the past few months, every time I walked into a Half Price Books, I would see this amazing cover and the title Punk Rock Jesus, reminding me immediately of Green Day’s Jesus of Suburbia character. This month, I finally picked up the book, knowing nothing about it except that it was a graphic novel involving sci fi, punk rock, and Christianity. I mean, that’s enough to hook anyone, right? I’ve been wanting to find a graphic novel to delve into, as it is a type of book I don’t really reach for, and this seemed like a good fit. I was a bit nervous about buying the book, because it was fairly expensive for something at a used bookstore (because it was a “deluxe edition” and unopened), but I went with my gut and brought it home. This is the last book I finished in April, and it is my favorite of the month.
I started out the month with King of Scars, which took some preparation. This book takes place after the events of the Six of Crows duology and the Grisha trilogy, both also by Leigh Bardugo, but I read the Grisha trilogy a while ago and have no intention of re-reading them. So I had to find online summaries of the books in order to remember what led to the plot of this novel. The result of this was that I found myself enjoying the parts narrated by the character from Six of Crows more than the other two-thirds narrated by characters from the trilogy. This did not really take away too much from my reading experience, at least not as much as THE ENDING. The ending is one of those where it seems like some things are tied up and others aren’t, so there could possibly be a sequel but there doesn’t need to be one. Have I committed myself to another book? Or is this it? Will I be left with questions? I normally like open-ended endings, but only if I know it’s the end of what I’m reading.
Library” and I knew this was the edition I wanted. Plus, it was only four bucks… Anyway, who says your books have to match? (I also got my first Blink-182 album there—I’m a real emo now.)
Honestly, they are new favorites.
photography assignment, I found a tiny used bookstore called Badger’s Bookshop to take pictures at. But, to nobody’s surprise, I also ended up browsing and buying a few books.
though I certainly don’t need any more books, I can’t wait to go back and bring my friends there. Plus, I got some unique pictures for my assignment. It was a win-win-win—cool bookstore, fellow book-lovers, and I finished an assignment.
me away, but I don’t want that fear to rule my life, especially when I want to hang out with someone cool and fun. So, yes, it was awkward at times. Yes, I didn’t know how to react in a lot of situations. And yes, I spent a lot of time overthinking what I was doing, how I was sitting, and what I was saying. But I went. I visited. I participated. I laughed and sang and loved and talked about my feelings and enjoyed my friends. I did all of this even though I was insecure about certain parts of myself.
plus crying are a bad idea.
Wild Beauty is about a family with generations of women who look after these gardens because they have magical flower powers. If they fall in love with someone, their true love always disappears, until one day all five of the youngest generation fall in love with the same girl and a boy springs up from the garden with no memories. This book is one that I carried everywhere just to show people the lovely cover—it’s SO PRETTY.
maybe?)
