Breaking my silence on Chris Bliss, and not writing anything myself
So I’ve gone back and forth a number of times, trying to decide if I should post anything about the Chris Bliss video. When my upper elementary school teacher sent it to me, the first person to do so, I thought, that’s a nice little video, and forgot about it. When other family members and friends started sending it to me I thought, that’s odd, this plain little video is really getting around the internet. When I started coming across it on my favorite blogs and it continued to arrive in my e-mail, I started getting annoyed. I considered writing a crotchety post about why this video’s success annoyed me…but the idea seemed too sour. Besides, as a certain young lady I happen to live with kept half-jokingly pointing out, I was probably just jealous and would love to have a juggling video of MINE suddenly explode like that, regardless of the quality. There may be some truth to that, so I decided not to write anything. I vented a little to friends, a little to family, and that was that.
Then a friend of mine from college, someone I hadn’t heard from in five years, found me on myspace, and sent me a video. It was Chris Bliss juggling, this time to a Fatboy Slim song. Seemed like a music video. I sighed. She had sent it as a comment, so it would show up on my myspace profile. I just couldn’t bring myself to approve it.
Now, my friend Mark comes along with a nice explanation of why many jugglers have felt some inner exasperation at that video. I present to you Mark Hayward with some thoughts, and two new videos. Apparently, there is now a contest to make a juggling video to that Fatboy Slim song. Vova Galchenko made one, with Mark Bakalor. Mark Hayward links to both the original with Chris Bliss and the Vova version.
I like the Vova one a lot. Technical juggling at astronomical levels. My favorite bits, though, are the neat little three club, and five ball tricks scattered throughout, particularly in the second half, that create interesting visual patterns and body shapes.. I mean, it’s amazing that Vova can do those under the leg combos, but they’re not so visually interesting to me after a while…same thing with the pirouettes. But check out what Mark Hayward has to say on this for a non-crotchety response to the Chris Bliss explosion. I agree with him..and I really do wish that it was a better example of juggling that had exploded..a video with truly great juggling, both technical and artistic. I’ve seen so many phenomenal juggling acts at festivals and the like…I know it’s out there..
One Comment
- Erica replied:
i feel the same inner exasperation with almost everything popular, which chris bliss is an excellent example. where the people who get the most attention have sometimes the least talent, or hard-work put into whatever it was that made them famous but the american public eats them up nevertheless because its cheap entertainment. the sad fact for most of us (if we care about attention and fame and legacy etc) is that no matter how talented and hard-working (whether you are a waiter or a dishwasher or a drummer or a painter etc) only a small few will ever witness and appreciate your contribution. its easy to get frustrated when a person like Chris Bliss gets so much attention from THE PEOPLE and (if you are a juggler) you know that there are so many people that ARE SO MUCH BETTER, how could this happen!?!! But um, Britney Spears, anyone? All I’m saying is its not Mr. Bliss’ fault that he got shoved in the face of every juggler (and non-juggler) on the planet (and the non-jugglers ATE IT UP).
June 18th, 2006 at 2:41 pm. Permalink.
