On Tuesday night, I went down to Albany’s Riverfront Park to check out a weekly event known as the Spin Jam.
The event draws fire spinners — people who dance with, juggle and even eat fire — from all over the Capital Region. I’ve always liked fire, and so I was excited to learn about the art of fire spinning, and write about it for The Sunday Gazette. In particular, I was intrigued by the concept of fire eating. I mean, just how does that work? I asked Corey White, a professional spinner from the Fulton County village of Mayfield, for some insight.
“You do not inhale when the fire is in your mouth,” Corey explained. “You want to breathe before you do it. You want to be as vertical as you possibly can. You do not want to put your lips around it.”
And?
“It takes guts,” Corey said.
I’m not sure what I was expecting to hear, but this wasn’t it. I guess I’d mistakenly believed that eating fire is like a magic trick, that some sleight of hand or secret mechanism — flame-retardant mouthwash, perhaps? — is involved. But no. Apparently, all you need is guts. As I stood there, examining Corey’s homemade torch — a piece of wire attached to a Kevlar wick — I tried to imagine inserting a flaming object into my mouth.
I couldn’t.
Does this mean I don’t have guts? I don’t know. Maybe. But I think it has more to do with getting older.
As I get older, my list of things I want to do before I die keeps getting bigger and bigger. (Weird. You’d think it would work the other way around.) For instance: I want to go to Hawaii and New Zealand and Iceland. I want to write a book. I want to hike every Adirondack high peak. I want to visit a volcano, read Proust and see Prince in concert.
Yes, it’s a humble list, but it’s mine, and it’s always evolving.
Also evolving is a parallel list, of things I’m never going to do, and I think it’s safe to say that I am never going to eat fire, or spin it, or juggle it. Not because these things aren’t cool. They are. It’s just that there are so many things I want to do, and I can’t imagine investing a lot of energy in mastering the fire arts. Or ice climbing, or bungee jumping or snowboarding. Or running a marathon, or competing in a hot dog eating contest.
Now, I can relate to the urge to do these things.
My friend’s 8-year-old son saw Corey White’s troupe, Shilly Shally Fire Arts, perform earlier this year, and he wanted to join them. And when I was 8, I probably would have wanted to join them, too. That’s because when I was 8, I wanted to be a magician. I acquired magic books and tricks, and practiced them with my friend Jon; we even put on a couple shows at our church.
Recently, my father asked me about my old hobby. “Remember all that magic you used to do?” he asked. “Whatever happened to that?”
“Well,” I said, “I grew up.”
Of course, you don’t have to give up magic just because you’re a grown-up — nothing’s stopping me from running home from work every night and practicing magic tricks. But I’d really rather watch a movie or go for a bike ride, to tell you the truth.
And it’s not like Jon and I ever displayed any real aptitude for magic; neither one of us passed up promising careers as the next Harry Houdini or Harry Blackstone. One of my more vivid magic memories involves our repeated attempts to master a trick (featured in an old magic book bequeathed to me by my father called “Tricks Every Boy Can Do”) where two people bind their wrists together and free themselves without cutting the rope or undoing the knots. Every time we went downstairs to show Jon’s mother this trick, we became hopelessly entangled. “Wait! We’ve almost got it!” we would yell. “I think you need more practice,” she would say.
In any case, I guess we can add “become a professional magician” to my list of things I’m never going to do. I do this somewhat begrudgingly, because there’s a small part of me that still thinks it would be fun to become a professional magician, and also because I don’t like to rule things out. I mean, it’s also highly unlikely that I’ll ever skydive or windsurf, but you never know, maybe I will. All I can say is that I’m not ready to put those things on the list just yet. But become a professional magician? It can go on the list. I’m comfortable with that.
I did meet a professional magician the other night. He was hanging out at the Spin Jam with his wife, who only recently learned to spin fire and has since become an avid practitioner. Like everyone at the Spin Jam, they really love what they do, and I enjoyed their enthusiasm. Because even though I’ll never join them, it makes me happy to know that the Spin Jammers are out there, every Tuesday, spinning and eating fire, long into the night.
Who knows?
Some 8-year-old might see them, and fall in love.
Oh, yeah. My article on the Spin Jam will appear in The Sunday Gazette.
Foss Forward makes a weekly appearance in print, in The Gazette’s Saturday Lifestyles section.
