How to eat fire.

[Lieutenant Kije]

The answer to the question, "how cool is that?" is actually not as cool as it sounds.  After you've learned how to eat fire, you will be surprised with the ease of it all.  The coolness lies in the words "eat" and "fire" close together.  Add a little imagination and voila!  It's more fun saying that you know how to eat fire (especially to those who don't) than actually eating fire.  It's not nearly as fun to say "I know how to put fire out with my mouth."

I've got to go now, but I will explain it later/soon, starting with how to make your torch (that's important.)

[Lieutenant Kije]

How to make a torch:

1. get a straightened out wire coat hanger.  You don't need the whole length, only about half.  Curve one end of it very slightly (a very small curve.)  This is the end where you'll wrap the wick, and the curve is to make it difficult for the wick to slip down the length of the hanger, and keep it on the tip.

2. Take a strip of cloth, about a foot to a foot and a half long, and about an inch or 3/4" wide.  You can use an old T-short or something like it.  Wrap the cloth around the curved end of the hanger.

3. Wrapping: when you start fold a bit of the cloth over the end of the hanger, so that when you've wrapped it caps the end of the hanger and for sure won't slide down the length of the hanger.  The first four or five wraps should be pretty tight - as tight as you can get it.  Then after that start wrapping more loosely, then much more loosely until you're finished.

4. get some thin, pliable wire - not very thick at all - and below the base of the wick wrap it around the hanger tighly four or five times, and then wrap it around the wick itself.  You'll only want to circle the wick three or four times.  When wrapping it over the wick wrap it as tightly as you can without breaking the thin wire.  The idea is to get the wire as embedded as you can in the wick.  This is why wrapping the wick loosely helps - it makes it more cushiony and the wire can sink into it more.  You want the wire to sink into it because you don't want any metal to be touching your tongue or mouth.  That will burn you.  You only want the wick to touch.

5. Break off the wire.  The wire is there to keep the wick from falling off the end of the hanger or unwrapping.  Make sure that the wire is embedded into the wick, and that all the outer edges are cloth and not metal.

There's your torch!

[Lieutenant Kije]

Touching the fire to your toungue:

This is a little extra thing that helped me to get used to having the fire that close to important body parts (well, okay, they're just about all important) and is a neat thing to add to any fire-eating display you want to put on.

1. get some charcoal lighter fluid and squirt it on the wick.  The more you put on, the higher the flame will be (which doesn't affect you so much when you're touching it to your mouth, but when you go to swallow it you don;t want the flame so high that you can't reach down the hanger far enough to keep your hand out of the flame.  Some brands burn brighter/higher/longer than others.

2. light the wick.  Now you have a flaming torch!

3.  hold the torch horizontal to the ground above your head, and watch the flame, checking to see if the wind or other surrounding environmental factor is drawing the flame a particular direction.  What you don;t want is the fire to start blowing up onto your face when it's that close.  Adjust you position accordingly (so that if it's blowing, it's blowing away from your face.)

4. Lean you head back just a bit, and now tap the torch on your tongue, lightly and quickly.  Maybe do it two or three times, for effect.  If you do it lightly and quickly you will not get burned.  Just remember to keep one thing moving at all times: either the flame or your tongue.  By tapping your tongue quickly you keep the flame moving, and it doesn't stay in one place long enough to burn you.  You can also move your tongue under the stationary flame, but this is a bit more difficult.  Just so long as something's moving and the heat doesn;t have time to build up on one spot.  

[Lieutenant Kije]

Now to eat it:

1. lean you head back, so that your face is parallel to the ground.  You want to give the fire as wide a target as you can.

2. that entails opening your mouth as wide as you can also.

3. smile as big as you can.  Your lips do not have the wet protective coating that the tongue or insdides of your mouth do.  The fire will burn your lips, so keep them away!

4. exhale slightly.  Not so hard, or you'll extinguish the flame (it's really that easy to put out.)  What you do not want to do is inhale.  Inhaling fire can be a problem if you do it.  Scratch that.  Inhaling fire will be a problem if you do it.  Exhaling slightly keeps the fire away from you and going out of your mouth where it should.

5. hold the torch vertically over your head and lower the flame into your mouth.  If the fire is too high it may be difficult to hold on to the torch, so you might have to wait for it to die down a little bit.

A lot of the trouble is gauging how close the torch is to your mouth.  It's hard to see, and I actually found it's easier if I just didn't look at it.  I line up the torch above my mouth and them when I lower it I stop trying to watch it as it leaves my view, and I judge by the heat how close it is, and if I'm too close to my tongue, teeth, etc.  You'll be able to feel it, and you'll know when it's too close, in plenty of time to avoid getting burned.  That part just takes doing it a few times to get the feel.  After that you can just pop it in no problem.

When the flame is in there remember not to inhale (you should be exhaling slightly.

When you want to "eat it" (put it out in your mouth) you can actually do it by exhaling harder than you currently are.  That's enough to do the trick.  But it doesn;t look as cool.  If you have the flame in enough, so that the majority of the wick is in your mouth, you can close your teeth quickly around the torch and that will put it out.  It closes the air off enough.  Just to be safe, when I close my teeth on the torch I also exhale harder just to make sure it goes out.  But by closing your mouth around it it gives it the "eating" look.

Obviously, next, take the torch out of your mouth.  It will be smoking, and you don;t want to inhale that.

That's how you eat fire!

If you're really nervous about it, remember that the fire is so easily put out that if you really need to get it out you'll do it instinctively without any problem.  Just donit inhale it!

[Lieutenant Kije]

Oh, and you'll only want to use each torch once or twice.  After that :

- the wire can get brittle from the heat and might break

- the wick might burn down enough so that there are place where metal might touch your mouth or tongue.

So just make a new one.

That's all!

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

Now to try this out.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

make sure you video tape it so if you mess up we can mock you

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

Will do Captain Blanco.

[Mistress of Darkness]

So, Kije, are you eating fire in "Forever Plaid", or did you just happen to learn it from your theatrical buddies?

[Lieutenant Kije]

I eat fire on stage.  Starting Oct. 25th, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday night until Nov. 29th at the Hale Center Theater in Orem.

[Mistress of Darkness]

Well, I'm still impressed.

[Lieutenant Kije]

So I had to demonstrate for the Fire Marshal today just exactly what we would be doing onstage, to get their stamp of approval.  The theater managers were very skeptical, but...I still get to do it.  I was surprised myself.  We just had to make a couple small changes (lighting the torch onstage instead of backstage, and putting fire-retardant spray on my dinner jacket sleeves and lapels) and we're good to go.

If anyone wants to come, they're selling student rush tickets after 4pm every night for that night's performance.  If you're not currently a student just bring an old student ID; they're not going to check.

[Mistress of Darkness]

Bad Kije! You're encouraging dishonesty!!  :-/

I'm going to try and be there. Did we want to make a WTWG night of it?

[Lieutenant Kije]

If they cared, they'd check.  They just like having full houses, which in the beginning of the run of a show can be difficult to manage every night.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

how did your fire eating go? Still hungry? And when do we get to see a hairless Kije Video?