two unrelated things
Aug. 29th, 2003 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
enthusiastickFaith really needs to stop cliffhanger-ing me, particularly when she's claimed that Episode 5 is the end of the series. Its enough to make me break down and get a subscription to Modern Tales just to read her new series.
(Excerpted from the James Randi Educational Foundation online newsletter, August 29, 2003.)
Reader John Walker, UK, reports to us on a TV program there titled, "On Holiday With The Gellers"….
Disguised as a travel program, complete with ridiculous plinky-plonky tune, syrup-voiced narrator, and on-screen information about the prices of hotels stayed at, cruises taken, and activities embarked upon, a camera followed Geller, his wife, Shippi, and his daughter and her boyfriend, on holiday to Croatia.
It was constantly brilliant, edited against his usual desires, as Geller rushed around attempting to show off to anyone unlucky enough to be in a room with him. His need to bend spoons for people, even people who appeared not to want him to, was intensely strange. And his desire to boast to complete strangers was even embarrassing to his family. His daughter was an excellent foil to Shippi and his wife's tolerance, as she often got fed up of her father, criticizing him, and pointing out when he was talking rubbish.
A few highlights: While on a boat, Geller insisted that the captain be shown something. He hunted around the boat, the camera running after him, as he tried every corridor and door to find the bridge. When he got there the captain thought he was David Copperfield, but despite this, he dragged him onto the deck while they uncovered a manual compass for him. It was "the biggest compass I have ever tried to move" — completely standard size for a small cruise ship — and it oh-so-mysteriously moved when he willed it to with all his energy, mind-rays... oh, and when he put his mouth almost on top of it.
He saw a dog, and after making some extremely odd cooing noises, announced "I always know. This dog is nine years old. Nine. Seven and a half to nine." Asking random people if the dog was theirs, in English to some locals' confusion, he finally found the girl to whom it belonged. "Your dog, is it eight?" "No, he's two," was the incredulous response, leaving Uri looking flustered and upset. Not one of the three different ages he was certain it was, were right.
When asked by the filmmaker about the significance of the number 11, after he had insisted that they sit at table 11 in the restaurant, he explained that he went through a time when he constantly felt a need to look at digital clocks, and they would always say "11.11". Then the number sprang up everywhere (like they do). He said, "Which room am I in here? 208? 209?" He was told 208. "There you go! You see! 2, 0, 8, makes 10. Drop the zero, and you have 11!!" His daughter looked to the camera and said, "Well, that made absolutely no sense." When he asked what she meant, she pointed out that 2 + 8 equals 10, not 11, and that dropping the zero was nonsense. He began spluttering, and she added, "It's a good job it's the last day."
But best of all, by far, was his attempt to make the bell in a town clock chime. He sat by the bell, put his hands to his temple, and CONCENTRATED. And the bell suddenly went, BONG, BONG, BONG, BONG. Geller ran down the steps and immediately phoned someone (I couldn't hear who) to tell them. The other person's words were subtitled on the screen. "Yes, but it probably does that every hour... If it happened five minutes ago, it would be because it was four o'clock."
His face crumpled. It was just so funny. The filmmaker had suggested he try it, and I can only assume that he must have noticed the time. Geller then began talking about an extra thump after the four chimes, and that this could have been him. But then even he couldn't maintain that, admitting it probably wasn't.
The strange thing about all these tricks was that he really didn't seem to be doing it for the camera. He seemed to need to do it for the complete strangers he approached. He couldn't stop being Uri Geller, at any point. He infuriated his family by insisting on running after every meal, and by stretching in a ball on the floor in airports, staircases, and hotel lobbies. He made the most enormous fuss about being a vegetarian, talking as if he had a unique dietary requirement, celebrating bowls of cabbage with the fervor of someone you just know gets a Burger King drive-thru every time he's on his own.
It was a masterful program, carefully disguised as a holiday show, and not explained at any point. That Geller fell for it, surprises me, as he's usually quite canny about these things, but this time he fell hook, line and sinker. I've never seen a program on Geller that showed his misses — apart from live tv, of course, where they are usually hidden away. No such hiding took place here. There were his usual party tricks, like a seed growing in his hand (one seed, out of a few hundred, that was at the bottom, hidden) to two young girls, numerous bent spoons, and a very poorly-bent key.
(Excerpted from the James Randi Educational Foundation online newsletter, August 29, 2003.)
Reader John Walker, UK, reports to us on a TV program there titled, "On Holiday With The Gellers"….
Disguised as a travel program, complete with ridiculous plinky-plonky tune, syrup-voiced narrator, and on-screen information about the prices of hotels stayed at, cruises taken, and activities embarked upon, a camera followed Geller, his wife, Shippi, and his daughter and her boyfriend, on holiday to Croatia.
It was constantly brilliant, edited against his usual desires, as Geller rushed around attempting to show off to anyone unlucky enough to be in a room with him. His need to bend spoons for people, even people who appeared not to want him to, was intensely strange. And his desire to boast to complete strangers was even embarrassing to his family. His daughter was an excellent foil to Shippi and his wife's tolerance, as she often got fed up of her father, criticizing him, and pointing out when he was talking rubbish.
A few highlights: While on a boat, Geller insisted that the captain be shown something. He hunted around the boat, the camera running after him, as he tried every corridor and door to find the bridge. When he got there the captain thought he was David Copperfield, but despite this, he dragged him onto the deck while they uncovered a manual compass for him. It was "the biggest compass I have ever tried to move" — completely standard size for a small cruise ship — and it oh-so-mysteriously moved when he willed it to with all his energy, mind-rays... oh, and when he put his mouth almost on top of it.
He saw a dog, and after making some extremely odd cooing noises, announced "I always know. This dog is nine years old. Nine. Seven and a half to nine." Asking random people if the dog was theirs, in English to some locals' confusion, he finally found the girl to whom it belonged. "Your dog, is it eight?" "No, he's two," was the incredulous response, leaving Uri looking flustered and upset. Not one of the three different ages he was certain it was, were right.
When asked by the filmmaker about the significance of the number 11, after he had insisted that they sit at table 11 in the restaurant, he explained that he went through a time when he constantly felt a need to look at digital clocks, and they would always say "11.11". Then the number sprang up everywhere (like they do). He said, "Which room am I in here? 208? 209?" He was told 208. "There you go! You see! 2, 0, 8, makes 10. Drop the zero, and you have 11!!" His daughter looked to the camera and said, "Well, that made absolutely no sense." When he asked what she meant, she pointed out that 2 + 8 equals 10, not 11, and that dropping the zero was nonsense. He began spluttering, and she added, "It's a good job it's the last day."
But best of all, by far, was his attempt to make the bell in a town clock chime. He sat by the bell, put his hands to his temple, and CONCENTRATED. And the bell suddenly went, BONG, BONG, BONG, BONG. Geller ran down the steps and immediately phoned someone (I couldn't hear who) to tell them. The other person's words were subtitled on the screen. "Yes, but it probably does that every hour... If it happened five minutes ago, it would be because it was four o'clock."
His face crumpled. It was just so funny. The filmmaker had suggested he try it, and I can only assume that he must have noticed the time. Geller then began talking about an extra thump after the four chimes, and that this could have been him. But then even he couldn't maintain that, admitting it probably wasn't.
The strange thing about all these tricks was that he really didn't seem to be doing it for the camera. He seemed to need to do it for the complete strangers he approached. He couldn't stop being Uri Geller, at any point. He infuriated his family by insisting on running after every meal, and by stretching in a ball on the floor in airports, staircases, and hotel lobbies. He made the most enormous fuss about being a vegetarian, talking as if he had a unique dietary requirement, celebrating bowls of cabbage with the fervor of someone you just know gets a Burger King drive-thru every time he's on his own.
It was a masterful program, carefully disguised as a holiday show, and not explained at any point. That Geller fell for it, surprises me, as he's usually quite canny about these things, but this time he fell hook, line and sinker. I've never seen a program on Geller that showed his misses — apart from live tv, of course, where they are usually hidden away. No such hiding took place here. There were his usual party tricks, like a seed growing in his hand (one seed, out of a few hundred, that was at the bottom, hidden) to two young girls, numerous bent spoons, and a very poorly-bent key.
