Cute Animal Videos – Plus: How to Diss a Juggler But Good

Posted on May 14, 2006 by Ampersand

Because sometimes you wake up too early and it’s Sunday morning and you’re too tired to do anything but watch funny videos of animals.

Cats, cats, cats. Cats fighting their natural enemies: Dogs, bears, cardboard boxes and (mostly) infants. Typical cheesy funny-cat stuff.

Recasting “Grease.” With a dog in the Travolta part. What makes this video great is how much fun the dog seems to be having.

* * *

Oh, and as long as linking videos, I don’t think I ever linked this, which Kip emailed me a while ago: performance versus skill.

This is juggler/comedian Chris Bliss, performing a three-ball routine that got emailed and linked a billion times on the internet, usually under the heading “the greatest juggling you’ve ever seen” or the like. You don’t have to watch the whole thing, but watch a few seconds to get the idea.

This is juggler Jason Garfield, performing pretty much the same routine (he adds a couple of tricks, like spinning under the balls, that Bliss doesn’t do), trick for trick – but with five balls. Ouch.

A lot of people enjoy Bliss’ video more, because he’s a better performer – he does a lot with his body language and expressions to make fairly easy juggling tricks look very, very hard. But sometimes it gets silly – like around 3:35 into the video, Bliss does the easiest juggle in the world but his facial expression makes it look like he’s doing something that requires intense, intense concentration. (At that point in the parody video, Garfield does a brief imitation of the “this is so hard” look and then shakes his head in exasperation). I love juggling, and I want to be going “holy crap, I can’t believe he just did that” – so I like Garfield’s stuff a lot better.

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3 Responses to Cute Animal Videos – Plus: How to Diss a Juggler But Good

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  3. Bill Hooker says:
    May 14, 2006 at 12:44 pm

    I’m a juggler too (though not a good one, not even in Bliss’ league), and I prefer Bliss’ routine. It’s simply more fun to watch. Garfield has zero showmanship, at least in the Diss routine — he’s just doing a bunch of tricks, not paying any apparent attention to the music, and it’s only fun at all if you know something about the level of skill he’s displaying. Well, I do understand the skill involved, and I don’t really care — juggling is entertainment, not some form of Holy Art. Garfield, in his explanation, comes off as a self-important jerk.

    Put it this way: who would you book?

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