IJA for Georges
So George has been posting some comments with nice questions, guiding me perhaps toward better blogging for those outside the know of my quirky cliques. I had originally planned to respond in the comments, but instead I think I’d like to take a post to talk about some of the cool things he’s been asking about.
Here is a page describing the diabolo. It’s a prop that is probably unfamiliar to most people oustide the juggling community, (where, incidentally, it seems to most often be called a ‘chinese yo-yo’). It does somewhat resemble a blown-up yo-yo, played on a string that has a stick tied on each end, often with grips for the hands. The diabolo is not, however, connected to the string, which allows for various throw based tricks. The latter link also has nice illustrations of diabolo use: hands holding the sticks, diabolo spinning on the string between them.
As far as the midnight, or Renegade, shows are concerned…
I have a hard time describing them. Some of the pictures might help here. Sometimes they are a forum for routines that do not make it into the public shows of the festival, or sometimes acts from those shows go on the midnight stage to try tricks they missed earlier. Sometimes it’s more like two guys with a string tied between their nipple piercings trying to do diabolo. Nearly always vulgar. (Joke, as told by Mark Faje in the Friday night show: What’s the difference between a clown and a bucket of shit? Answer: A bucket.) On Thursday (I believe) at the championship shows, the emcee did a trick where he got one paddleball going in each hand, and then a third attached to his belt. Fun, as he jumped and pelvic thrusted to get the groin paddleball going.. That night at the midnight show, one man claimed to be inspired by that routine; he had taken a paddleball, and attached it to the handle of a sword, and proceeded to swallow the sword and then attempt to do the paddleball. (So yes, there are yuks from people putting things in their bodies…) Another guy, whose name I should know but currently escapes me, put on a kilt, took off his underwear, and then walked, tightrope-esque, along the backs of the chairs of one row of the audience, pausing to juggle knives for a moment at the end. You never know what you’re going to get with a midnight festival show, but, particularly at the big ones, there will usually be one or two amazing and outrageous stunts.
And for one picture perhaps illustrating some of the spirit of the thing, here is Mark Faje apparently getting dragged off to some horrible fate. (Extra bonus: in the background, on the left, is Rory, an Austin juggler who apparently went to the same elementary school, and, for a few years, the same high school that I did, albeit a number of years later… We met at this festival, more or less.)
One Comment
- Emily Kidwell replied:
hey, just to say we missed you as a juggler of death at fright fest.. i will need to go to a midnight show at somepoint. sounds like a good time.
August 9th, 2005 at 8:16 am. Permalink.
