Barry Gibbs Essay: The Truth About Flaming BeautyInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

What do you get when mix cheapness, desire, spring flowers, flash paper and a mobile home? Barry Gibbs tells us one possible outcome.

Read On . . .

While working at the Magic Fun Wagon I had a local stockbroker who became interested in magic and was using it as an "Ice Breaker" with many of his clients.

One afternoon he stopped by the wagon and said that he wanted to do a really dramatic effect at a meeting and asked if there was a way that he could produce a bouquet of spring flowers from a bowl of fire. I suggested a fire bowl, but he didn't want to invest the money in one.

After talking a while longer he finally settled on buying flash paper and a spring flower bouquet. His thoughts were that if he loaded the flowers in a bowl of some kind, then stretched a large sheet of flash paper over it and secured the paper with a rubber band, he would have a "cheap version" of a fire bowl.

His thinking was that he could nonchalantly drop a hot cigarette ash onto the paper stretched over the bowl, thus igniting the flash paper and releasing the flowers.

I told him that it didn't seem to logical to me, but he insisted that he "thought it would work", so I sold him the flash paper and flowers.

I also cautioned him to be very careful and that he should test the idea in a safe place, before trying it in public.

…

What do you get when mix cheapness, desire, spring flowers, flash paper and a mobile home? Barry Gibbs tells us one possible outcome.

Read On . . .

While working at the Magic Fun Wagon I had a local stockbroker who became interested in magic and was using it as an "Ice Breaker" with many of his clients.

His thinking was that he could nonchalantly drop a hot cigarette ash onto the paper stretched over the bowl, thus igniting the flash paper and releasing the flowers.

I told him that it didn't seem to logical to me, but he insisted that he "thought it would work", so I sold him the flash paper and flowers.

I also cautioned him to be very careful and that he should test the idea in a safe place, before trying it in public.

I didn't see him for about 2 weeks and then one afternoon he showed up at the Fun Wagon. I was curious as to how his idea with the flowers and flash paper had worked. He then proceeded to tell me that he hadn't exactly taken my advice on testing the idea in a safe place as the "safe place" he had decided on was in his motor home while on a camping trip with his wife.

It seems that after they had reached their destination for the first night of the trip, that he decided to "test" his idea in the motor home. Well, needless to say, it turned out to be a disaster.

He prepared everything carefully and set the bowl loaded with the flowers, covered with flash paper, on a table in the motor home. Next he touched the center of the paper with a lit cigarette and to his horror the flash paper didn't flash, but started to slowly burn.

Cheap + Fire = More Fire

As the burning hole of fire got bigger he sat staring in amazement as the flowers began to slowly spring up "on fire", then suddenly all the flowers sprung out, not only on the table, but also the carpeted floor of the motor home. Without thinking how hot the bowl was, he grabbed it to carry it outside.

Yes, you guessed it, it was so hot it was burning his hands and he dropped it, resulting in more burning flowers falling onto a soft easy chair in the motor home and of course other areas of the carpet.

Meanwhile, his wife, who had been outside entered the home to see the chair and carpet on fire and of course she panicked and started screaming that he was burning the motor home down, which of course he was.

I guess the material in the chair and also the carpet was quite flammable because in a matter of a few moments the fire was out of control and he and his wife escaped outside and stood and watched their motor home go up in flames.

At least he said no one was hurt, other than a few blisters on his hands, and that he had good insurance to replace the motor home, but the "spring flower fire bowl" sure ruined his vacation.

I guess the moral of the story is buy the trick that works properly, because the few bucks you save on testing an idea might just cost you a lot more in the long run.

Barry Gibbs