The magician and endurance artist recently set a world record by holding his breath for more than 17 minutes.


Which of your feats has been your favorite?
London [where Blaine lived in a clear box suspended over the Thames without food for 44 days]. There was a heightened sense of everything. Every time you taste water, it's so sweet — at least for the first 28 days, until you shift to digesting your organ walls, and then it begins to taste like sulfur and becomes horrific. I got liver and kidney failure from that one.


How do you train your body to do these things?
I train intensively. I think anybody can do any of these if they train. I don't recommend it. That's what's interesting to me — how adaptable the human organism is.


How do you hope people will view your work when you're through?
I hope people remember me as a guy who brought magic to the people [and] pushed the boundaries of wonder.


Your next performance will involve sleep deprivation, right?
That is the next one, in September. I want to use Central Park. I'm going to go 11.57 days without sleep, which is 1 million seconds, or 16,666 minutes. Everyone can help keep me awake. I won't use stimulants. I think that defeats the whole purpose.