This ultra-nerd-dancing-hero show great body control skills and choreography, in this strangely entertaining and uplifting video.
Impressive editing work too.

Manipulation Research Laboratory
presents:

 More Fun Than Visiting a Zoo – 
Volume 3 – Remix

Performed by:
Wesley Jefferson Peden & Jay Nathan Gilligan

489 tricks! 1 hour main feature plus 1 hour of bonus tricks! Available now for 10€ from 



http://www.wespeden.com/?page_id=8

At 4:44 in the clip above, Merlin the magician, as a squirrel, Contact Juggling with an acorn. It’s from the 1963 Disney classic, The Sword in the Stone.

If you still believe that Micheal Moschen “invented Contact Juggling” in the 1980′s. Don’t worry, in this movie, Merlin is a time traveling magician, so he probably learned from Moschen, then traveled back in time to 1963 to appear in the film ;p.

Thanks to Lawrens Godon and Paponda for the clue.

Steve bags has assembled together a great compilation of videos from the last century of vintage hoop rolling, juggling and spinning. All these clips have been assembled from Juggling.tv and juggler.com.

Bags has launched a new blog, The Hoop Hub with online hoop tutorials, hoop articles and performance videos.

Wow! What a great routine. It’s simple, yet effective. He seems to have mastered cute, funny and technical all in one show, the head sequence from 2:38 shows wonderful control.
Theatro Hugo & Ines website has more videos, include a video of him performing mime in 1982 – 30 years of performing!

A Top Gun-tastic video from professional grape munchers Stunt Double Circus.
Thanks for Rob for the link… You can be my wingman, anytime.

Woah, flashback to late 1990′s Aerotech Glowball juggling routines.

In a ploy to get contact jugglers everywhere to open their wallets*, Orbotix have announced a smartphone app (Android only at the moment) which will control and choreograph multiple Spheros at the same time and they now ship Sphero internationally.

Previously on MoM.
More info.
Will we fall for it? You bet ya we will. iMark, it’s time to get your checkbook out..again.

Atomic: Full of Love, Full of Wonder was a ball installation in 2005 by artist Nike Savvas at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne.

Her pentagonal string sculptures are also fantastic.

via Colossal which has more photos.

Following a discussion about creativity with MCP earlier today, here is John Cleese explaining creativity and how to become more creative. Aimed primerily at a business audience, the background of his lecture is scientific, the guide based on his own experience. (35 minutes long, but worth it.)
Interesting stuff, plus play features heavily.
My notes after the jump, (will only make sense after watching).
[edit: thanks to lg Felix for the replacement link]
(more…)

Yuki and Mike Sharkey * have made an amazing tutorial video about a Paper Helicopter. The video production on this video is great, the slow pans, the from the finger shot and the free feeling about it. The end is uber cute. Big Ups to this video for upping tutorial quality!

They’re looking for votes for the 3rd annual IJA video tutorial contest, to vote for them, follow the link in the youtube video description.
[*edit]

what’s up internet videos!

http://www.patrikelmnert.com/

http://www.tonypezzo.com/

http://www.wespeden.com/

Colin annouced today that he intends to close The Internet Juggling Database, the largest English language internet Juggling resource. (Full text below).

We thank Colin for all the great work that he’s put in over the last 11 years and we look forward to seeing who picks up the torch to provide the international Juggling Community with a new web space. Rec.juggling should still be available and still be accessable via the web at google groups, but it’s not yet clear what will happen to provide a space for the essays, events listings and clubs listings.
The end of an era.
Drew

Dear IJDb Members, rec.jugglers, and friends,

The IJDb has been live for 11 long and happy years. But now, I am sorry to
say, the time has come to shut it down. This site has been a labour of
love for myself and many contributors (who are too numerous to name, you
know who you are), however, for the past five years it has received very
little (technical) attention. As a result, parts of the site are in a bit
of a bad way (perhaps not visibly or externally, but trust me, it is an
accident waiting to happen). I have made the occasional request for
assistance, but nothing has really come of it. Personally, I am not upset
about this at all, my preference is that someone creates something
innovative and new, rather than adopting my work. This is much more likely
to result in a new site that will last for many years, rather than
allowing this one to just plod along for a few more years.

I hope you all understand that I am not doing this out of spite or
frustration. It is just my wish that the site is shut down on my terms,
whilst it is still something worth remembering, not slowly left to rot
(just like the site that the IJDb superseded).

I plan to shut down this site at some point soon. And after this, the
sourcecode and data will be made available for anyone to use under a
suitable open source licence (all email addresses and personal data will
be removed).

I sincerely hope people understand why this is happening and that the IJDb
will be replaced by another (or many other) new websites.

Regards, Colin E.