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An Angel in New OrleansThursday, August 21 2008 |
In this episode of Mindfreak, Criss heads to New Orleans to test his art against voodoo. Criss picks up a hitchhiker, turns a coffee cup into a cornucopia, and displaces a ring into a salt shaker, all before re-creating an illusion from his first season.
With all the voodoo and occult influences, New Orleans is the perfect setting for a new episode of Criss Angel: Mindfreak. “The folks of New Orleans are Magicians in their own right…because they’re still rebuilding, they’re still empowered,” Criss says. It seems the ideal place for Criss to re-perform a demonstration from his first season of Mindfreak. Are you ready?
On his way to the home of jazz, Criss pulls over to pick up a beautiful hitchhiker. “Who’s setting me up,” he asks, “Seriously.” “I need a ride,” She tells him. “Like you can’t get a ride,” Criss scoffs, “I don’t buy this…Let me just play along, Where do you have to go?” “New Orleans,” she says. “That’s where I’m going,” Criss says as he gives her a hug, walks in front of her, and snaps his fingers. The camera pans around to the waiting limo to see the girl’s face popping out of the back window. “Hey Criss, I thought you said you would take me.” “Ok, lets go,” Criss grins. It’s good to be the Mindfreak.
At a famous voodoo shop, Criss checks out the paraphernalia, the weather changes, and he decides it's time for a demonstration. As the stream of never-ending beauties continues, Criss asks a lovely patron, “What if I told you that I could get inside your head?” The girl seems incredulous. “Do you know what I do?” “No,” she tells him. “That’s good,” Criss replies, “because after I get done with you you’ll never forget... What I want you to do, once my back has been turned you’re going to select any book, select any page, look at a word, get that word in your head, and then close the book and place it back on the shelf.” That done, Criss takes an eyeliner pencil from a bystander, takes the girl by the arm, and looks into her eyes. “I want you to completely relax yourself, the only thing you’re thinking of is that word. Don’t look at your arm, just look into my eyes, see nobody else, nothing else matters, allow yourself to send me that word…send me that word.” Criss begins writing on the girl’s arm with the eyeliner pencil as they stare each other down. “What was the word that you sent me?” “Fiction,” she tells him. “Look at your arm,” Criss says. The camera pans down to her arm to reveal the word “fiction” scrawled on the girl’s forearm. “I got the chills,” the girl said afterwards, “that’s crazy, definitely something I will never forget.” We won’t either.
Later on, Criss is trying to get some grub when he’s accosted by some loyals. “If you’re here you have to do something awesome, you can’t just come to New Orleans without doing anything,” one woman tells him. The crowd agrees with applause as Criss goes around the room and gathers some jewelry. “I want you to select any one of the pieces of jewelry,” Criss tells yet another gorgeous female at the table. “Pick one.” The girl hands him a ring. “I have no idea where I’m going to go with this,” Criss smiles, “I’m just going to take it, and you’re going to see the effect of this happen.” Criss takes the ring in his hand, holds it in his fist, and as his hands begin to shake, items on the table in front of him begin to move on their own accord. The straws slide across the table, a napkin moves, and the salt shaker falls over. “Look inside here,” Criss says, opening his now empty hand. He unscrews the salt shaker and starts pouring out salt when the ring plops out into his hand. “What, are you kidding me?” said the owner of the ring. “Wow, that was good.” “Is that your ring?” Criss asks. “Yes,” the girl says, amazed. “Criss angel is the $#&t!”
At a different restaurant, Criss decides to perform yet another demonstration for his fans from New Orleans. “My grandmother used to always ask me, ‘Criss, do something, do something,’ and I actually have the knit ball that she gave me, check it out.” Taking a coffee mug from the table, Criss takes the knit ball, puts it into the cup, and shakes it around. “I said, ‘Watch grandma, I’m going to take the ball out’ nothing funny, ok?” Criss takes the ball out of the cup, lays it upside down on the table, and sticks the little red ball in his right front pocket. “Grandma, I said, what would you think if I could make the ball go from my pocket into the cup just like that?” “No way,” Criss’ table-mate says. “But grandma, I deal with the impossible and make it possible, I lifted up the cup and there it was.” Criss lifts the coffee mug to reveal the red ball underneath. “Now, if I take the ball again, and put it back into my pocket,” Criss said putting the ball back and leaving the cup upside down on the table. “I said to my grandma, I said, ‘Do you think I can make it go back into the cup?’ she said, ‘yes, I just saw you do it three times.’ I said ‘But what if I could transform it into something else?’ What do you think she said?” “Impossible.” “Impossible?” Criss asks, “Anything is possible, check it out.” Criss lifts the cup a second time to reveal a small green apple.
“It’s a real piece of fruit right? ‘That’s great,’ my grandma said, but you’re using a coffee cup, can you make some coffee appear? And I said well what’s coffee made of?” “Coffee beans,” another table mate says. “That’s right, coffee beans, watch.” Criss slowly lifts the coffee cup for a third time revealing a pile of coffee beans spilling out onto the table. “All right, the thing is,” Criss says, “I’m just going to take one coffee bean, you can actually hear it hit the bottom.” Criss holds the cup up high and you can hear the porcelain tinkle as he drops the hard bean into the cup. “I’m just going to cover it up,” Criss puts his hand over the top of the cup. “Now my grandma was bugging out, I said, ‘grandma, touch the coffee cup,’ go ahead, touch it.” Criss’ friends touch the cup. “I’m going to start brewing it right now,” Criss says. “Oh wow, it’s really getting warm,” a cup-toucher says. A moment later Criss is pouring coffee from the cup in his hand into another on the table. “That’s for you grandma!” Criss shouts. “Criss Angel is amazing,” a bystander said, “I was sitting right here, and I can’t explain it, to see it up close…he’s really a mindfreak.”
One of the cardinal rules of magic is to never perform the same trick twice. The problem with re-creating the same illusion is that since the crowd has seen it before, misdirection becomes that much harder. This isn’t a problem for Criss Angel however. In a re-creation of an illusion Criss did in his first season, we find the Mindfreak on a New Orleans thouroughfare with a cheering crowd. Criss climbs into one of the state-supplied N’awlins trashcans with the crowd gathered close around. “I’m going to ask you to put your hands on the lid, keep pressure on it.” Criss disappears into the trashcan while the crowd stands around with their hands on the lid. A couple of people bang on the lid, and you can see Criss bang back on the lid from the inside. As the crowd wonders what will happen next, Criss appears on the balcony above, “I’m up here.” “He was in the trash can, and then he wasn’t” said a bystander, “It was unbelievable. He’s bad, man, he’s a bad dude, hey, can he come back from up there into the trash can?” Maybe next time, greedy, is your mind not freaked?
