Small Talk

Looks like it.
http://tlmb.net/BBU/webcam.html

# by The Void, 2013-05-08 13:48 BST Parent

Hi Uri,

Thanks for the invite, am guessing your weekly juggling meet is Circus Playtime - the Jerusalem juggling meeting #Jerusalemjugglingmeeting

You will find people without facebook accounts cannot see your facebook groups page, at York Jugglers we tried to get round this by having an facebook organisation page as well, as these are viewable to non-facebook users (at the moment) but not sure having to have more facebook pages might be confusing for people. Hopefully the travelling jugglers will see your Juggling Edge listing with e-mail address and phone number.

Slightly envious that you have nice enough weather to have an outdoor regular meeting at 8 in the evening

# by York Jugglers, 2013-05-05 16:27 BST Parent

Hey hello Uri.

# by pumpkineater23, 2013-05-07 17:26 BST Parent

FYI - Itsik has changed his name to Kulo. He's still on the juggling scene. His finale in the Israeli show at IJC was absolutely brilliant.

# by Scott Seltzer, 2013-05-05 20:44 BST Parent

Just curious, is this the act he performed? It's very cool. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJrT1_SldMc

# by Nicholas, 2013-05-06 03:48 BST Parent

Yes, it's a new and much improved version of that concept.

# by Scott Seltzer, 2013-05-06 12:09 BST Parent

Even basic tricks should impress your average audience. And those tricks you mentioned would look awesome with a fire devilstick!

# by Nicholas, 2013-05-05 03:41 BST Parent

Unfortunately fire is not an option. :'(

# by Mats1, 2013-05-05 09:24 BST Parent

I think the general public like tricks that are significantly visually different from each other, such as a pirouette, chin balance, stick on stick balance or juggling the devilstick and handsticks like juggling clubs.

Also remember that general audiences can enjoy tricks that we don't even think of as tricks like simply throwing it high. I think anything under the leg or behind the back is good because the audience can easily tell that it's harder and different. One handed tick tock is quite nice if you clearly show one hand isn't doing anything by putting it in the air or something.

Good luck with it!

# by Owen Greenaway, 2013-05-05 10:35 BST Parent

Indeed. Let them think it's hard and you won't have to do much at all. That's quite the skill in itself though.

# by barnesy, 2013-05-05 10:39 BST Parent

Eh, what, gerroff!

Ah hang on, my mistake. As you were...

# by barnesy, 2013-05-04 22:20 BST Parent

Arf!

# by Orinoco, 2013-05-04 22:28 BST Parent

Yep, this was announced at Lestival. Jolly good, looks like there will be a BJC next year....

# by The Void, 2013-05-04 23:46 BST Parent

As far as I can tell, siliconeballs.com appears to be Dave Spotlight - and I wouldn't buy silicones from anyone else.

What he doesn't know about silicones isn't worth knowing.

# by Little Paul, 2013-05-04 09:44 BST Parent

Cool, thanks for the reply. I was slightly suspicious as they're cheaper than the G-force ones I got (though admittedly the G-force ones had a high price markup). Anyway it's good to know that it's someone that people have heard of that's running it.

# by Adrian G, 2013-05-04 09:56 BST Parent

I say "as far as I can tell" - I'm putting a lot of trust in what the site claims - I notice that they're significantly cheaper than jugglestore (which is *definitely* Dave) although they do mention jugglestore/spotlight everywhere.

Does anyone else know for sure?

# by Little Paul, 2013-05-04 10:16 BST Parent

It's linked to the facebook profile of David Marchant (but it has davidspotlight in the url so I assume it's the same person). Anyway, we'll see what others say...

# by Adrian G, 2013-05-04 10:42 BST Parent

Yup, David Marchant = Spotlight.

# by Orinoco, 2013-05-04 10:48 BST Parent

In which case they're a bloody bargain at those prices!

# by Little Paul, 2013-05-04 14:08 BST Parent

Yeah, I got the G-force ones from JuggleArt in Melbourne, Australia and because they have to import them all and don't sell a large amount of them, they tend to have higher prices than would be expected. However, if you get them from Play directly then they're much cheaper, but I didn't get them all at once so shipping would have made that more expensive anyway...

Yeah, I think G-force ones at least have a slightly higher bounce, but really not enough to be a big deal (at least I don't find that silicones have 'too low' a bounce). However I find that silicones do have a slightly nicer bounce however, even if it isn't as high.

But yeah, I definitely wouldn't get them just for the bounce but, even ignoring the feel and long life, they also are a bit more grippy which is useful when starting and ending high numbers and I need a new set of bounce balls anyway so instead of getting a set of G-force which won't last that long I might as well get silicones for around 1.5 times the price which will last much longer.

I'd normally agree that they're expensive enough that it might no be worth it but siliconeballs.com seems cheap enough that I think it would be.

# by Adrian G, 2013-05-04 11:11 BST Parent

They also have much better grip if you're doing things like adding "English" (spin) to a ball. I've never really got that to work with rubber balls (eg oddballs, which are incredibly similar to g-force balls)

Oh, and they make a lovely noise if you hold them to your ear and tap them with a fingernail :)

# by Little Paul, 2013-05-04 14:11 BST Parent

"Oh, and they make a lovely noise if you hold them to your ear and tap them with a fingernail :)"
Definitely the most important characteristic of a juggling ball :P

I don't do that much stuff with spin but that's a good point as well. I actually didn't use silicones at all when I was originally trying to add spin so I got used to the small amount that you can put on g-force balls, and then I tried it with some silicones and realised why it had never worked quite as well as it should have.

# by Adrian G, 2013-05-04 14:22 BST Parent

Not all sillies are the same when new; as they get older their properties can vary even more.

I have a large set of white Spotlight sillies of various sizes, which were given to me by David Marchant (aka Dr. Spotlight) for a workshop set. They are very much seconds since they all have blemishes which make them unsellable, but they are nevertheless made of good quality silicone. I also have a set of yellow Spotlight sillies which I bought as cosmetic seconds, i.e. visibly imperfect but they perform like a first quality ball. The weird thing is that the white ones feel significantly softer and squishier than the yellow ones, and have a noticeably poorer return ratio than the yellow ones, despite being made form the same basic material, by the same manufacturer. This seems consistent with your experience.

I am also a balloon modeller, and the difference that the various dyes make is marked. Good quality modelling balloons are made out of natural latex, with vegetable dyes added to create the basic colours, and presumably somewhat fancier dyes for various options such as metallic and neon finishes. The softest compound of all is the undyed ones, which appear milky white when uninflated, and almost completely translucent and colourless when blown up. The plain colours are the next softest; then the neons; and then the metallics. I have no idea what causes the difference but I am certain that it's the dyes that are responsible, and I wouldn't be the lest bit surprised if that sort of effect happened to sillies too.

# by Cedric Lackpot, 2013-05-10 16:57 BST Parent

Yeah, the white ones I tried also seemed a bit softer. I suppose it's just strange because I've always heard that white ones bounce slightly better due to the coloured ones having to be dyed.

Interesting, I haven't really done much with balloons so I've never really thought about the difference between different ones. That makes sense though, I'd be interested to know exactly what it is about the dyes that does it (or if it's just that the consistency changes)

# by Adrian G, 2013-05-11 12:37 BST Parent

Yay! Nice to have you on board dan!

Have you juggled at all during your gap?

# by Little Paul, 2013-05-03 18:08 BST Parent

Ah, a fourth set of rules! :-)

# by The Void, 2013-05-02 14:03 BST Parent

The first sentence of that post is missing the word "April".

# by The Void, 2013-05-01 11:20 BST Parent

No it isn't. Marvin is infallible, his word is law, he cannot err.

Apotheosis of sock-puppet robots aside, has everyone else noticed the rather healthy-looking upward trend in posting levels and numbers of links? It's taken a good few months but I'm beginning to get the hang of The Edge I think, and what seems to be the increased level and quality of traffic is a very good thing. Keep it up chaps!

# by Cedric Lackpot, 2013-05-01 11:51 BST Parent

Indeed, I'm very pleased with how things are going. We may not have the traffic of some of the Facebook groups but I think the quality here is fantastic, so thank you to everyone for contributing.

There also seems to be an upward trend of things that were working suddenly stop.

# by Orinoco, 2013-05-01 12:44 BST Parent

I think things are shaping up nicely, still plenty of room for growth but we wouldn't want to get too big too quickly as bubbles like that tend to burst!

Now, how do we get more people involved from here on in? :)

# by Little Paul, 2013-05-01 18:16 BST Parent

More of the same please. Just keep up the relaxed friendly chat.

I think a sudden explosion in growth would be a very bad thing for the Edge so I'd much rather keep up the slow trickle of new users coming in. The larger the deluge of people that join in the harder it is for me to adapt the site quickly enough to meet the community's needs.

# by Orinoco, 2013-05-02 12:59 BST Parent

Lovely indeed. I think because juggling props are thrown about & generally abused they miss out on being lovingly decorated. I've seen some beautiful Indian clubs but I don't believe they were ever intended for genuine use.

This reminds me of something I wanted to ask a while ago: Norbi, any chance of some close up pics of Francis Gadbois' boxes?

# by Orinoco, 2013-05-01 12:57 BST Parent

I know props in general get a lot of hammer, which can make fancy decoration difficult, but in the specific instance of cigar boxes it really wouldn't be that difficult to glue printed paper or card panels in place and then lacquer them, or even to have heavy-duty stickers printed up. I really think jugglers are missing a trick by not having their cigar boxes resemble something cuboid, such as, er, cigar boxes ;-)

# by Cedric Lackpot, 2013-05-01 15:36 BST Parent

Or books
http://www.jugglingedge.com/smalltalk.php?ThreadID=576

# by peterbone, 2013-05-01 15:50 BST Parent

His newer versions are fantastic. Very nicely painted, they really look like books.

# by Norbi, 2013-05-01 17:11 BST Parent