🚀 go-pugleaf

Jack Boyce is right that numbers impress onlookers, but not proportionate to
the difficulty. While practicing seven, the most common comment I heard was
"look, he's doing six balls." I admit I have a low pattern.

In an academic juggler column a few years ago, I speculated that one thing that
makes a trick memorable is how easily it can be recognized/summarized by 
a nonjuggler. All the really well known, really popular tricks are 
instantly recognizable and described, e.g., "he ate an apple while juggling,"
"he juggled fire/chainsaws/a bowling ball" an audience might be impressed by
mills mess, but they certainly can't describe or remember it, so it probably
makes less of an impression than the string trick (motioning so that two balls
look tied together with a string). 

If true, this theory is a bit depressing for performers, since it suggests that
genetalia jokes or spinning a ball on your boob are the way to go. And people
ask me why I don't perform...

Arthur Lewbel    Lewbel@binah.cc.brandeis.edu