Derren Brown: Archive
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From: Blue Chip
Date: Mon Mar 10, 2003 12:31am
Subject: Re: [Derren Brown] Sunday Telegraph 9/03/03 Can this man read minds?
bloody good job - keep it up :-)
At 00:22 10/03/03 +0000, you wrote:
>Derren Brown has been astonishing audiences with his apparent
>telepathic powers. Is it just a trick? John Preston spends a
>bewilderingaday with the celebrated 'psychological magician'.
>
>Let me make one thing quite clear at the outset. I am not, I think,
>a particularly crecdlous person. Nor do I generally allow strangers
>to go rooting about in the dark dungeons of my subconscious.
>Frankly, I prefer those dungeons to remain properly bolted - to me
>or anyone else. Especially me, come to think of it. Bearing all this
>in mind, let us step bravely into the unknown.
>
>I am sitting in the Bristol flat of the 'psychological magician'
>Derren Brown. All around the walls are stuffed animals, including a
>moose, a fox and a turkey. There is also - unstuffed - a parrot
>which fltters about and occasionally alights on my knee. Brown has
>asked me to write down three memories from childhood on three pieces
>of paper. One memory is to do with an activity I enjoyed; one a
>hobby I had; and one the name of a friend.
>
>On my first piece of paper I have written 'Athletics'. On my second
>piece of paper, not altogether accurately, given that the only thing
>I can remeber making out of wood is a breadboard, I have
>written 'Carpentry'. And for the name of my childhood friend, I have
>put down his surname: 'Quartermaine'.
>
>After I have done this I fold up my three pieces of paper and drop
>them into a bowl. Whereupon Brown, a small and mildly demonic-
>looking man dressed entirely in black, picks out each one in turn,
>sniffs it and adopts a thoughtful expression.
>
>"Now look into my eyes" he says. "And concentrate very hard."
>
>There is no sound, except for occasional ominous plopping noises
>coming from the non-speaking end of the parrot. First up is the
>activity. "It's something to do with...yes, with running. But not
>just running. More general than that. Lots of different activities.
>Running and jumping. Is it Athletics?" At which I give a grudging
>nod.
>
>Now comes the hobby. "Mmm. Wood is involved definitely. Join.
>Joinery? No, not joinery - but something like that. How about
>Carpentry?" I nod again, even more grudgingly.
>
>Finally, it's the name of my friend - the clincher. "Look at me
>again and really concentrate now. Does it...does it begin with a Q?
>Now, syllables. THree, I think. Is there a T in the middle? Ah, is
>it like the name of that science fiction character? What was he
>called? Quatermass? But not quite Quatermass, no. Is it
>Quartermaine?"
>
>So how does he do it? Well i'd like to be able to tell you, but my
>journalistic integrity prevents me from doing so. All right, I don't
>know. All I do know is that Derren Brown is brilliant inducing
>gaping astonishment in his audiences. On his current Channel 4
>series, Derren Brown: Mind Control, he guesses someone's PION
>number, makes a bookie pay out on losing bets and tells a man that
>he plays golf, used to be a disc-jockey and has three terriers,
>simply by touching his hands.
>
>Yet with brilliance comes a certain amount of oddity. Or quite a lot
>of oddity in Brown's case. Certainly, his flat is one of the
>strangest places I have been. Along with the stuffed animals and the
>parrot, there's a table neatly laid for two in the corner of his
>living-room. Nothing odd about this - except that Brown lives on his
>own is apparently single. Consequently, there's a rather creepy Miss
>Havisham feel to it. Propped up on a small lecternin front of one of
>the place-settings is a volume of Nietsche - author of The Will to
>Power.
>
>Various paintings by Brown himself are very much in evidence - good,
>if sinister, squidgy faced caricatures of his heroes, including Jack
>Nicholson and Bertrand Russell. There's also a self-portrait of
>Brown looking sly and lecherous.
>
>In the loo - that infallible pointer to the private self - an open
>copy of George Bernard Shaw's Music Criticism Volumen Two is resting
>on top of the cistern, while in his monastic-looking bedroom various
>felt-tipped reminders have been written on a board besides his
>single bed. "Shoes are a bit gay", reads one. It's not clear if this
>refers to a particular pair of shoes or is a more general
>observation.
>
>What's hard to gauge is how much of this is done for effect. But
>while Brown's appearance - droopy moustache and tufty beard to go
>with his all black garb - suggests a high level of self
>consciousness, his domestic trappings testament to a more private
>exoticism.
>
>It's all a far cry from Purley where Brown was born 31 years ago -
>the son of a lifeguard father and amother who once worked as a
>model. As a child, he says he had no particular interest in magic.
>When he was 18, however, he went to see a show given by a stage
>hypnotist and came out convinced that this was what he wanted to do
>with his life: "Above all, I loved the idea of being awestruck."
>
>
>To be continued.....
>
>
>
>[e-mail address removed]
| Replies | Author | Yahoo! ID | Date | Size |
| 3239: Re: Sunday Telegraph 9/03/03 Can this man read minds? | hypersang | hypersang | Mon 10/03/2003 | 7 KB |
