ICYLOKI
Ross Berteig, 2004.

Presentation:

"Every culture has folk-tales and legends about tricksters. In my family's Norse heritage, the trickster is Loki. Where I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, local legends are more likely to speak of Raven. At Caltech, we met the trickster and learned to face the truth: the trickster, call him what you will, is always at hand to keep things interesting if you allow him the chance.

"Recently, Loki was particularly out of sorts. For an age and a half, nothing worthy of his notice had happened. The world around him had learned simple and reasonable explanations for everything, leaving little room for his particular flavor of mischief.

"He decided it was time to shake our view of the world.

"Here we have the wooden bowl he placed where it would be found.

"Nearby, two jugs of sweet cream. One he left untouched, and from it pours the evidence: thick, sweetened cream.

"And here is the other. The contents switched with Loki's pride, a cold colorless liquid. Fire's opposite. Far colder than ice.

"With eyes blinded by habit, out it is poured without notice.

"Chilled by this unexpected gout of smoke, all I can do is stir. Stir until the spoon stands on its own, and the smoke recedes.

"Revealing Loki's gift of surprise.

"I scream.

"Ice cream!"


Method:

I'll tip the mechanics, because the recipe itself has been exposed in a wide variety of places, and because the material needed is actually not that easy to obtain.

The recipe works, I have done this myself when I still had ready access to LN2 by the liter.

First, a safety tip. LN2 is cold. Really cold. Don't splash it on anyone, wear gloves, use wood or plastic utensils and test in advance to make sure they will survive the thermal shock.

Use two thermos bottles, both decorated to look like milk jugs. Fill the one with your favorite ice cream recipe.

Fill the second with LN2. Be sure to plan for extra LN2 to top it off as a fair amount will boil off as the inner glass face is cooled down.
Be sure not to seal that bottle, as you don't want it to presurize and explode.

In my experience, you need only a little more LN2 than ice cream if you stir it in as you pour, and assuming that the ice cream mix started out chilled. It will make a lot of smoke as the LN2 boils off and freezes the cream. Nothing is toxic or even harmfull. The smoke is rapidly condensed water vapor. LN2 is just nitrogen, and the air you are breathing is 78% nitrogen.

However, it is probably a good idea to make sure that you do this in a well-ventilated space. If too much LN2 is splashed around, the nitrogen can displace enough oxygen to conceivably cause troubles. If candles won't light and canaries are tipping over then you went too far...

It probably isn't practical to make it more than a quart at a time, so some crowd logistics may be required if fairness in distribution is an issue.


Background Thoughts:

This came to mind while discussing ways to make small amounts of non-toxic smoke.

It really does work. It was featured on the Tonight Show within the last two years. I have done it myself. And a quick search on Google will pop up a Popular Science column complete with photos and a suitable recipe for strawberry ice cream.

The presentation above is a first draft, and should be considered as little more than a hint as to a direction to take. I wanted to find a bizarre magic trick that evoke positive emotions. A fair proportion of the items thought of as bizarre seem to depend on negative stereotypes, and are designed to create fear and/or unease in the audience. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I wanted to show that it is possible to do something bizarre without fear.

Theodore Gray, Popular Science, HOW 2.0, July 2003.

Please feel free to try this. PM me if you want reassurance about handling the LN2.

HAH! Ross you stinker! Good story to go wtih it too! Hmmm, Loki as the Fire god though, I suppose in his trickster mind it could work, especially if you DID use a couple candles near the bowl and they went out, thereby indicating that one must keep Loki happy or he will take back the fire he provided!
Just a little reminder to the humans!

Another great one from the Dark One from the North. The gods have been appeased for yet another season.

I have some, uh, blood-curdling ideas for toppings