AND NOT EVEN SUSAN OLIVER

AND NOT EVEN SUSAN OLIVER FOR COMPANY: According to The New York Times, beginning on September 5th, magician David Blaine will spend 44 days alone in a cage:

a Plexiglas box, 7 feet long by 7 feet tall by 3 feet wide, suspended over the Thames River in London. He will have just a set of clothes and a blanket, no food, and will receive only water via a feeding tube. He will have pens and paper to keep a journal (perhaps to be published later) and very little else to keep his mind occupied. His bodily functions will be handled with a small backpack containing diapers and a tube to urinate in.

The Times’ story ends with this bit, which seemed to describe the stunt in appropriately snarky fashion:

Less than three weeks before his highly publicized deprivation begins, Mr. Blaine sounded confident, if a little biblical.

“I believe it is completely possible to exist peacefully with absolutely nothing, as it was in the beginning and as it will be in the end,” he said. “It will be a public isolation that I will have to endure by adapting and surviving as an animal would. On instinct.”

And of course on television.