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High: Meeting Charlie Dancey, and him turning out to be a really nice bloke [as is his juggling partner Haggis McLeod, for that matter]. Charlie's Encyclopedia of Ball Juggling, which I bought purely on the strength of an Amazon recommendation while I was buying James Ernest's contact juggling book, really opened my eyes to the fun and possibilities of toss juggling. Three years later, I've looked at Ernest's book probably no more than a couple of dozen times, but my copy of the Encyclopedia is extremely well-thumbed. It's always good to meet your heroes and not be disappointed :-)
Low: Thomas Dietz's public show act. This amazing juggler comes out to perform for us, and he does Yet Another pisstake "ooh, aren't poi swingers silly" act, and no actual juggling? I'd have been disappointed if he'd done that at a Renegade show, but in a public show (with a decent number of actual members of the public attending this year, apparently), that's just not on.
Apparently he was doing amazing things with seven balls in the gym the next day, but I didn't see any of that.
Also, the journey home: we narrowly missed one train, the next one was cancelled, the one after that was delayed, causing us to miss our connection in Edinburgh, and all told we arrived home over two and a half hours late. Fortunately, we shared the Nottingham to Edinburgh leg with fellow jugglers Meg and Steve, and the midnight Edinburgh to Glasgow leg with an operatic soprano and a navigation officer in the Merchant Navy, both of whom had some good stories to tell, so it was all pretty companionable in our adversity :-)
Crush: Thomas Derrick, for his wonderfully inventive large tennis balls act, which combined ball, ring and club juggling tricks, multi- and single-ball contact juggling, and cigar box moves all very naturally in one act :-) Also Get the Shoe, for their fantastic club stealing/passing/stage combat act at the end of the public show. Simply incredible stuff.
Goal: Meet cool new people (solid check), renew frienship with cool previously-known people (check, mostly, but there were a couple of people I didn't manage to catch up with), qualify five balls (no check - I made ten throws a few times, but it's the catches that matter...)
Bane: Waking up still drunk on Saturday morning after my birthday celebrations on the Friday night, which turned into a hangover around about Saturday lunchtime, and hovered like a resentful cloud until about lunchtime on Sunday. Less drink is definitely indicated for future conventions and birthdays. And not having![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wormwood_pearl with me, of course :-( .
Other good things: Sarah from my club acquitted herself well in the British Young Juggler of the Year contest, not winning but being invited to perform at the Crawley convention show; my Nottingham-based friend Tony (who I hadn't seen in ages) took me on a tour of Nottingham's oldest pubs on the Thursday night (one pub claims to be the oldest in England, and three or four others claim to be the oldest in Nottingham - not sure how that works...); and all the potential acts I spoke to seemed really keen to come and perform at the Scottish Juggling Convention next year (one was, and I quote, "soaked" at the prospect). Looks like we should have a pretty good show for you, everyone...
Low: Thomas Dietz's public show act. This amazing juggler comes out to perform for us, and he does Yet Another pisstake "ooh, aren't poi swingers silly" act, and no actual juggling? I'd have been disappointed if he'd done that at a Renegade show, but in a public show (with a decent number of actual members of the public attending this year, apparently), that's just not on.
Apparently he was doing amazing things with seven balls in the gym the next day, but I didn't see any of that.
Also, the journey home: we narrowly missed one train, the next one was cancelled, the one after that was delayed, causing us to miss our connection in Edinburgh, and all told we arrived home over two and a half hours late. Fortunately, we shared the Nottingham to Edinburgh leg with fellow jugglers Meg and Steve, and the midnight Edinburgh to Glasgow leg with an operatic soprano and a navigation officer in the Merchant Navy, both of whom had some good stories to tell, so it was all pretty companionable in our adversity :-)
Crush: Thomas Derrick, for his wonderfully inventive large tennis balls act, which combined ball, ring and club juggling tricks, multi- and single-ball contact juggling, and cigar box moves all very naturally in one act :-) Also Get the Shoe, for their fantastic club stealing/passing/stage combat act at the end of the public show. Simply incredible stuff.
Goal: Meet cool new people (solid check), renew frienship with cool previously-known people (check, mostly, but there were a couple of people I didn't manage to catch up with), qualify five balls (no check - I made ten throws a few times, but it's the catches that matter...)
Bane: Waking up still drunk on Saturday morning after my birthday celebrations on the Friday night, which turned into a hangover around about Saturday lunchtime, and hovered like a resentful cloud until about lunchtime on Sunday. Less drink is definitely indicated for future conventions and birthdays. And not having
wormwood_pearl with me, of course :-( .Other good things: Sarah from my club acquitted herself well in the British Young Juggler of the Year contest, not winning but being invited to perform at the Crawley convention show; my Nottingham-based friend Tony (who I hadn't seen in ages) took me on a tour of Nottingham's oldest pubs on the Thursday night (one pub claims to be the oldest in England, and three or four others claim to be the oldest in Nottingham - not sure how that works...); and all the potential acts I spoke to seemed really keen to come and perform at the Scottish Juggling Convention next year (one was, and I quote, "soaked" at the prospect). Looks like we should have a pretty good show for you, everyone...