Sunday, March 26, 2006

Comic Chatter

Tom Spurgeon interviews Buzz Dixon, the fellow behind the Serenity comic book/manga that we discussed here.

• Posted at 4:19 PM · LINK

The Will of the People

Okay, the polls are closed. We asked you to vote on whether you were okay with having video links embedded in this weblog and an amazing 909 of you wrote in to tell me how you felt. I'm not sure what I would have predicted but it sure wasn't this: 858 of you voted in favor of the embedded videos. 14 of you voted against them. A bit of a landslide, wouldn't you say?

I feel sorry for some of the fourteen...the ones who wrote that the links crash their computers or just plain don't appear...or they're on dial-up connections and the thing loads at the speed of a boulder eroding. To make their visits here a little easier, I've changed something about the main page here. It used to feature the current day's postings plus the previous four days. Now, it features the current day plus three. To read earlier posts than that, you click on the link at the bottom of the page. That should speed page loading up a bit.

The remaining 37 voters said things that didn't fit wholly into the YES or NO categories but were mostly more in favor of the embedding than against...so I think the embedded video links are here to stay. Thanks to all who voted.

• Posted at 1:01 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Here's an update on the condition of Art Buchwald. He's still dying but boy, does he seem to be making it about as enjoyable an experience as it could be. [New York Times, so register already.]

• Posted at 7:48 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link(s)

You may have already seen this. It's been e-mailed more times than that photo of George W. Bush playing the guitar during Hurricane Katrina, plus I linked to it about two months ago. But every day, six or seven people write to me and suggest I put up a video link to Chris Bliss and his incredible juggling finale, so here it is.

An interesting controversy is brewing about this in some circles. I don't know Mr. Bliss but he's a very successful comedian who closes his stand-up act juggling three balls to a Beatles medley. He put a video of it up on his website so that potential clients could see what he did and perhaps hire him...but non-bookers found it, loved it and it's being forwarded and reposted all over the World Wide Web. This has upset a number of professional jugglers who feel that what Bliss does in it, at least from a technical standpoint, isn't all that impressive, especially because he only uses three balls. If you scan the many public forums on which this is being discussed, you'll find an amazing number of irate jugglers writing things like, "My own mother sent me this video and asked why I don't do something wonderful like that."

There's obviously some petty jealousy at work there but there's also some honest (if misguided, I think) upset that people who practice for decades to master more complicated routines are not getting this kind of grass-roots attention. And it's certainly true that the rewards for an accomplished juggler these days are not great. There aren't even all that many places you can do it and make a buck. Then again, it's not Chris Bliss's fault that folks love the clip and are forwarding it to each other. As far as I can tell, he's making no claims other than that audiences enjoy his finale. Which they obviously do.

Recently, a championship juggler named Jason Garfield did his own version of the Bliss routine. He calls it a "parody" while others are suggesting that Garfield, who has apparently been quite outspoken against jugglers who rip off others' routines, has committed that very crime. If I were doing my own parody of someone's act, I don't think I would use his soundtrack, nor would I take bows at the end in response to the standing ovation that he received. I'd also try to parody what he does instead of trying to prove that I can do it better.

The two performances are not really comparable. Bliss did his in one take in front of a live audience. Garfield did his sans audience in a gymnasium somewhere and the tape appears to be edited together from multiple takes. My own reaction, just going by these two videos, is that Garfield is the more skilled of the two but his performance is cold and impersonal, and his juggling doesn't connect with the music the way Bliss's does. But it's not fair to judge either man by what they did under different conditions. Perhaps in front of a packed crowd, Garfield would have given a warmer performance. Perhaps with the luxury of editing, Bliss would have attempted more elaborate feats.

I admire both but if forced to choose, I'd rather watch Bliss. What's impressive to me is not that he can keep three balls in the air for four and a half minutes without dropping one but that he moves them (and himself) with the rhythm and emotion of his accompaniment. I'd also rather watch Michael Goudeau or Charlie Frye or Anthony Gatto or the Flying Karamazov Brothers or the Passing Zone or any of a number of other great jugglers out there who do what they do with style and personality, even if they aren't always keeping five balls aloft.

Jason Garfield's performance is our non-embedded video link today. Our embedded video link is Chris Bliss...

• Posted at 12:39 AM · LINK

Today's Political Comment

I spent some time today, as I sometimes do, reading the websites of folks whose views on the world do not often coincide with mine.

On the subject of the Iraq War, I would feel a lot more optimistic if the supporters of George W. Bush would spend less time trying to prove he was right to invade and more time arguing that he knows what to do now.

• Posted at 12:38 AM · LINK