Okay, here goes: my first short post:

 9-1 Nordic Objects is one of my favorite juggling DVDs.  Ever.  If you don't own it, buy it.  I won't be disappointed with you as long as within a fortnight, it's in your DVD player.

Anyway, one of the things that makes 9-1 so enjoyable to watch again and again is the music.  I recently stumbled upon one of the songs used in the film on iTunes.  Check it out!

It's called "Good with the Mothers" and it's by Melpo Mene from his album 'Holes'.  Download it legally please and enjoy.

If anyone has a list of the other music used in the film, please list it in a comment.  I'd love to create a 9-1 playlist.

Posted by Michael at 10:37 PM EDT

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Mood:  energetic

So with gas prices so high, I've actually decided to start running my car on juggling.  I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner.  I get about 744 miles to the gallon and the only waste product is hard drive space!

But seriously, I'm trying to wrap up the question of how juggling can positively impact the world and the final frontier of yet undiscovered discussion is the practical side to this question.  How, quite literally, can the tossing of objects make the world a better place? 

The juggling-fueled car is a stupid example but I'm literally racking my brain trying to think of how juggling as an activity can positively affect the world.  I suppose that if we stopped looking at juggling as either art or sport and instead focused on physical benefits, maybe we could find some answers.  Juggling as exercise!  Yes, some people do it, and Dube does market Exerballs, but how many people strictly juggle for exercise?  Any joggling experts out there?  Does the act of juggling while jogging really multi-task exercising in different body areas as well as I assume it might? 

Could we use juggling to harness energy?  The basic motion of a 3 object cascade involves a circular motion of the wrists.  If we attached some sort of device to the wrists of a juggler, say connected to a turbine, could we harness kinetic energy and turn it into work?  I mean, I suppose it's stupid and primitive and far less productive than using the sun or Hoover Dam but c'mon people, I'm trying to find practical implications for something that is so hard to justify as practical.

And if the physical act of juggling can't necessarily benefit the human race, maybe the theory of juggling can. 

Which came first, juggling or braiding hair?  I ask this because the act of braiding three strands of hair is exactly the same as the three object cascade.  Each strand of hair crosses, stays on one side for two beats, and then crosses again.  Siteswap 3.  Could we use juggling and even siteswap to improve machines?  Perhaps instead of one machine screwing a hole in every sheet of metal, we use three machines punching a hole in every third sheet of metal.  Perhaps we rearrange the paths of satellites using juggling theory so that each one achieves a peak position at predictable intervals.  Juggling theory could be put to use in what could eventually be an automatic driving system (like in I, Robot the movie) where we look at a highway like a juggling pattern.  On a four lane highway, the far left lane is a siteswap 5.  The far right lane is a 2 (a hold).  In the middle we have 4 and 3.  The cars use distance calculations and siteswap theory to determine when it is safe to merge.  You can't merge a 2 to a 4 as a 5 is falling perhaps.

And, as a final statement that is far less global, yes, juggling can always positively affect your world because if you are good enough at it or know the right hack jokes to insert, it can bring you MONEY.  MONEY is an IDEA that humans give VALUE to.  VALUE can be exchanged for basic human needs - food, shelter, and clothing.  If juggling can bring you food, shelter, and clothing, then at the very least you have used a skill to positively affect your life and, if you're so fortunate, the lives of your immediate family.

Doctors, scientists, and engineers are most likely always going to be more important to the survival and advancement of the human race than jugglers.  That doesn't mean that we as jugglers shouldn't become friends with doctors, scientists, and engineers.  Perhaps they may have some good ideas that I haven't stumbled upon. 

However, the important thing to remember is that art is part of culture and culture defines us.  It used to define certain countries and peoples.  Now with the interconnectedness of the human race through the Internet and globilization, future art is going to define us as a species.  Let's juggle so that thousands of years from now, when all that is left of juggling are the hard drives floating through space with every single video file ever, those who find it will find it impossible not to pause with amazement at how a small portion of our species dedicated so much time, thought, and energy to the manipulation of objects using the rules of earth's gravity.

Posted by Michael at 12:54 AM EDT

Updated: Mon, Apr 14 2008 1:24 AM EDT

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Mood:  accident prone

The first couple days of blogging were a bit depressing because I didn't get any feedback in any form at all.  I think that's why I likened blogging to throwing your voice out into the void.  Sort of like, does a keystroke make a noise if no one's there to read it? 

Well, apparently, one or two blokes/chaps/buggers have been frequenting this poop-colored page and even enjoying it.  In fact, a friend of mine named Ed did something that I hope more readers do in the future - he called me out on a post.  In other words, he wanted me to clarify something I said earlier.  This is exactly why I started writing a blog - so people would force me to back up my blabbering.  His questions, based on my blog's genesis, were:

1)How can your juggling impact the world in a positive way (as I suggested)? and

2)What good is an unforgettable theatrical experience?

Wow.  I literally just took a 30 second pause to stretch.  You think I'm joking.  These are tough questions but I'm glad Ed called me out on them and I'm going to do my best to answer them.

First, how can my juggling (or yours) impact the world in a positive way?  The answer's not simple and i think I will probably fail a lot while trying to accomplish this lofty goal. 

I view juggling primarily as an art.  A form of art.  A specific medium through which art can be expressed.  In my opinion, art is extremely intimate.  Therefore, it is often difficult and frustrating to come up with any sort of statistics on how art is positively impacting the world.  Right?  After seeing the movie, "You, Me, and Everyone We Know" I was immediately inspired to start connecting with people more.  That week alone, I started calling lots of friends that I had lost contact with.  Because of some of those phone calls, certain friendships have been renewed.

BUT...neither the movie's screenwriter nor any of the actors in it know that that movie had such a positive effect on me.  And neither do my friends.  I didn't want to tell them that it took a movie to get me to call them.  I wanted them to feel (because partly it was - I just needed the right impetus) that it was out of missing them that I called them.

So my point is that juggling as art in a theatrical setting can affect hundreds, even thousands, but on so many unique, intimate levels that it is impossible to ever gauge the effect you have had with your juggling.

So, as long as my juggling deals either with impressing people or self-expression, my impact on the world, whether great or small, will be largely underrecorded and difficult to calculate. 

UNLESS you deal with inspiration, which to me is a force to be reckoned with.  How many people who have seen me perform live or on video have gone on to train harder or to try something new they might never have tried?  It goes both ways.  My juggling routine at Philly Fest in 2003 would never have existed without the inspiration of Viktor Kee.  Remote inspiration again, of course, unknown to him.  I have had many people come up to me at festivals and juggling clubs all over America and tell me how a certain video or performance inspired them to either start juggling or to explore new territory and technique.  Inspiration is also hard to calculate, but less so than other emotional consequences of your art.  People are more likely to tell me that a routine inspired them to start juggling than they are to tell me that a certain routine made them remember an old relationship, even if both are true. 

Wow, all that writing and we're still having a hard time visibly affecting the world?  Damn, this is hard.  Don't go though - stay with me.

So what is the next step?  Analogy!  Some of you aren't going to like this one, but it works and it works well.  I currently work for a company named FoodPlay productions.  They tour a show to elementary schools which uses juggling as an analogy for healthy (and sometimes unhealthy) eating.  During the show, I juggle five balls to impress upon kids that they should eat five fruits and vegetables every day.  I do the yo-yo trick to demonstrate the ups and downs of being on a mostly sugar diet.  And yes, I even eat the apple (get over it) to show what good foods can do for you.  This may cause some jugglers to groan but this stuff works.  The inherently visual-kinetic power of juggling is undeniable.  It takes words, thoughts, and ideas that may otherwise be abstract and makes them comprehensible, even to young minds. 

I recently performed and am still working on a piece that deals with relationships, especially with the one person in your life that you can't shake off, for better or for worse, no matter how hard you try.  Like a good actor, the piece isn't necesarily about me - that can slowly begin a slippery slope to onstage therapy.  (Every love song is NOT personal.)  But it definitely has a personal touch to it - my goal in performing it is to use juggling as a visual analogy for something that many people out in the audience may be feeling either now or in the past.  The analogy is in a ball that is attached to a string around my neck.  All the patterns in the piece deal with the special properties of this one ball being able to swing freely from my neck, even when it is dropped.

Does anyone else cringe when they hear about a juggler making way too much money to appear at a corporate retreat and teach stuffy businessmen time management skills with the use of juggling?  I roll my eyes as well but that's because I'm a juggler.  To a stuffy businessman, the use of juggling to explain time management may just be exactly what he needed.  Who am I to judge the effect juggling can have on non-jugglers when used as an analogy?  After all, there are many more important things in life than juggling so why not use what WE love to tackle real issues and events that occur in the general human experience?

I'm sorry, I gotta quit.  You guys are going to stop reading my blog if every entry is this long.  I will finish this question and attempt to tackle #2 in my next entry.  Ed, thanks for the prompt.  I love forcing my brain to work.

Posted by Michael at 5:34 PM EDT

Updated: Sat, Apr 12 2008 6:20 PM EDT

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Mood:  surprised

I am not a juggling historian.  I am no Karl.  But as someone who has been in the game for a bit longer than a lot of these upstart WJFers, it's interesting to look at trick trends.  One of the more random trick trends over the past year has been the overabundance of jugglers practicing flat reverse shoulder throws or "lazies" as some people like to call them.

I am actually a huge fan of the trick when it is done well with maximum backward thrust, with catches as close to the knobs as possible and a general disinterested forward focus :-)

However, I think it would be fair to say, even if we don't like it, that internet is THE defining force in global juggling trends although certainly large conventions also have an impact.  So when exactly did flat reverse shoulder throws first appear on the internet and who was doing them?

 My answer?  Quite simply, Kristian Wanvik in the trailer for Juggling in Stockholm, Oskar Wrango's first publicly available juggling film.  It is available to watch on YouTube with Kristian doing the trick around 0:48.   See it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVElkx96UAE 

 I would be very interested in anyone with an internet video containing this trick and dating earlier than the release of juggling in stockholm.

Since then, I have seen jugglers from both "camps", artistic and sport, doing this trick.  Marcus Monroe and Brett Sheets.  Sean Blue and Vova Galchenko.  Jay Gilligan and Doug Sayers.  As far as I can see, it was the coolest way to juggle the siteswap 3 in 2007.  My prediction for 2008 is that "shoulder pads" will become the cool new way to juggle "3".  The earliest appearance of them flashed is on Wes's "Proper Fun" video.  The earliest appearance of more than a qualify of shoulder pads is on my Normal Like You video.  Again, please prove me wrong if you can.

As with any trend, I think that within the next few years, people will become so oversaturated with lazies that it will enter the "basic tricks" category even though for someone like me entering in on the ground floor, this was a very hard trick to solidify, taking over a year and a half of practice! 

This is the other amazing thing about juggling.  Tricks that we slave over in 2008 are going to come easy to young jugglers in the future because they will be done by so many people that the newbies will assume it is easy and their brains will make the learning process quicker.  This is how juggling will evolve.

Trends become prerequisites.  Watch them.

Posted by Michael at 9:39 PM EDT

Updated: Thu, Apr 10 2008 10:03 PM EDT

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Mood:  rushed

Once you become a professional juggler (meaning, you are being paid to juggle), juggling becomes a source of income which means that, in a way, it is your work.  I'm sure the best jugglers, just as the best artists of any field, would tell you that the minute juggling becomes "work" you need to quit.  I think that's a little strong.  I think the minute juggling becomes work, you need to shift gears.

For example, I think this is why I may never be a great circus performer because I cannot stand to work on one particular routine all my life.  Folks like Viktor Kee and Anthony Gatto - these guys spend years and years polishing their 7 minutes.  Me?  I have been in the game long enough for people to admit that I am always trying out new material in my shows and at conventions and such.  Not because I feel I have to for anyone's sake.  It's because I NEED to for MY sake.  It's this process of creating new routines that often fuels my thought process. 

However, on the flip side, coming up with new material all the time is annoying.  Nothing is ever perfectly polished, and although you find yourself thinking that you should work harder on a particular routine for a second go-around, you discover a new prop or piece of music that gets you even more excited.  If juggling routines were women, I'd be a player.

However, there even comes a point when working on routines becomes boring.  There's no energy in it anymore.  This is why it is often wonderful to return to the state of the hobbyist and do some MINDLESS JUGGLING!  As VISTA says, neither Cancel nor Allow.  With the nice weather back in the northeast, it's good to just go out and let an hour or two pass you by, and not necessarily feel like you've become a better juggler.  Yes, you should learn alberts, but who really wants to put forth the energy today of all days?  You've got your backcrosses down, do those instead.  Be mindless.  It's okay.  You will make a mistake, which will lead to a new trick, which will lead to new technique which will get you excited all over again to create professionally.  Let the funk iron itself out.

 This has been a letter to myself.  :-)

Posted by Michael at 1:17 PM EDT

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Mood:  don't ask

            Juggling to me, is a lens through which life can be viewed.  The world is full of chaos.  In nature, movement seemingly occurs at random.  However, humans, whether they know it or not, are expert jugglers.  As the most intelligent mammals on earth, we have figured out how to arrange the chaos of nature into predictable patterns.  Every day, we are willingly juggled by patterns of our own invention - public transportation, alarm clocks, work schedules, e-mail, television.  Life can be accomplished because we have created patterns in which we are juggled.  We could just as easily drop the pattern but why bother?  Its precision is comfortable.

            I guess jugglers are those who are in tune with the true beauty and genius in what most people don't even realize they're doing.  The creation of pattern out of chaos tickles jugglers, which is why we go looking for chaos that nature didn't necessarily even intend.

           Of course juggling is one of these forms of chaos.  We as jugglers thrive on discovering solutions for various degrees of chaos.  One of the most basic starting levels of chaos we encounter is the predictable handling of three balls by only two hands.  If this goes well, we will search for harder forms of chaos to contain and practice and practice until our brain has sorted the chaos into patterns.

          My own juggling continues to evolve from the more accepted forms of controlled chaos.  As a kinetic artist, I am constantly looking for new forms of chaos to control, often with the added hope that these solutions will prove to be visually pleasing.  I like to play with speed, space, shape, and surprise.  With my whee-lo routine, I enjoyed the fact that the whee-los, because of magnets, fell so slow towards the ground.  In my leash-ball routine, I was able to explore space without the use of my hands.  My half rings excited me artistically because I was forced to deal with a shape I wasn't used to.  And lastly, my puppet routine allowed me to be surprised by what my own hands were doing.

          Spend a day looking at life through this juggling lens.  You'll be surprised at how well people juggle themselves through their daily series of patterns.

Posted by Michael at 1:18 AM EDT

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Mood:  not sure

Hello cybervoid,

      Blog is a funny word.  It doesn't necessarily tickle the ear.  Then again, neither does the word juggle.  What's worse is to have a juggling blog.  That's just far two many l's and g's in the course of two words.  Yuck.  Regardless, I have decided to start my first ever web diary about object tossability because I have a lot of things to say about the subject. 

      On a day to day basis, I must admit that I often feel rather incompetent and stupid.  I love to learn new things but yet I find that only subjects that resonate with me have any chance of sticking.  Music, video games, juggling - these things have preyed on my brain like parasites.  Cooking, biology, history, car maintenance - these things tend to slide off like rain water.  Unfortunately, I find myself wishing that I knew more, but often lacking the desire to actually sit down and learn these things.

      In the Carousel of Progress at Disneyworld, animatronics remind us that "there's a great big beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day."  I think that's a good philosophy to have.  I often find myself becoming more productive as the sun sets - my ambition kicks into high gear when the P switches to an A.  How appropriate that my first ever blog post would be around midnight.

      I doubt I will have many fans of this blog as I don't read any blogs and karma is a bitch.  I think blogging is really just another way for us as humans to scream with every fiber of our being to the rest of the world - love me!  Justify my existence!  Well, that being said, I think this blog is going to be enlightening for jugglers and non-jugglers, so I suggest you stick with me for the long haul, especially if you think you know me.  Perhaps I'll get truthful...

      Regardless, this is a blog about juggling.  I got off on a tangent but my basic thought was that juggling is something that, like it or not, resonates deep within me.  I'm very fortunate that I am able to devote so much of my time to this funny little activity, as it has provided me with countless opportunities to meet new people and travel to new places.  I really don't know why juggling speaks to me, but it does.  Perhaps this blog will help me sort out my thoughts on the subject more. 

      I had a conversation with someone I respect in the juggling world today and he really cut me down to size.  He said that I was good for a hobbyist juggler, but only placed me one level above "the hippies" as he called them.  I wasn't mad but it made me realize that even with thousands of hours of practice under my belt, I am just starting to unearth the vast iceberg that is the art of juggling.  I have barely scratched the surface of what is possible.  I can only hope that I have also just scratched the surface of my potential because I have a feeling deep within me that I can change people's lives for the better with my juggling, if not now, someday.  I think this is my goal.  I don't necessarily know or feel confident that juggling will ever make me rich, but I do know that I can create unforgettable theatrical experiences with the talents that God has given me the opportunity to hone.

         By the way, I have named this blog The Karasel for a variety of reasons.  First, I've liked the name ever since I decided to name a carousel "The Karasel" on RollerCoaster Tycoon.  Second, I have this pipe dream that one day, when I'm too old to juggle anymore, I will open up a Museum of Kinetics called the Karasel, quite possibly in New York City.  It will be a place with performances, kinetic art, and workshops related to all things kinetic.  I will post more details about it as blogging continues, but I wanted everyone to know my dream because, as the animatronics put it, tomorrow is "just a dream away."

         If there is someone out there in the cybervoid reading this, let me hear your echo.  It would pleasantly surprise me to know that someone actually read this of their own free will.

Posted by Michael at 12:16 AM EDT

Updated: Tue, Apr 8 2008 12:45 AM EDT

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