Wednesday August 9 2017 | File under: circus, juggling |
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For the last year or so, I've been spending some energy pursuing one of my life goals of being an extra in a movie. I made my first significant progress a couple of months ago with a fleeting appearance on SyFy's Z-nation (covered here). Well, I'm happy to report that I'm moving on up towards that goal with my recent appearance on MTV's reality show called Promposal.
The filming of the show was super fun. We were brought in to be the background circus folks for the filming of a high school music video. Mostly, we just juggled and looked circus-y whenever they pointed the camera at us. Otherwise, we just sat back and watched the magic happen. It was fun seeing both the professional side of things (the MTV crew with the fancy equipment, lights, etc.) and the high school side of things (disorganized but having a ton of fun). We were there for 4 hours with a lot of waiting around (as is par for pretty much anything in TV/film or so I'm learning). At the end, we had no idea how much screen time we'd get if any. Fast forward 2 months to air date. I was super excited to see myself and my circus buddies on such a popular network. We actually got a fair amount of screen time too! While a lot of it was background shots, there were a few featured-ish moments. And by golly, I even got a few solo clips, one with a line!! To top it all off, we even got our names in the credits! Overall, I'm super stoked on the whole thing—the filming, the screen time, the excitement! If you have access, I encourage you to check it on MTV. I think it's even carried On Demand on various carriers. Otherwise, check for reruns, as I think it might happen every now and again. If you don't have access, shoot me an e-mail and we can try to work out getting you hooked up. Yes, I consider this a big step towards my movie extra life goal Just like NYT crossword and some of the others, it doesn't happen overnight. But with persistence, hopefully it will become a reality. And whatever the case, as long the road to movie extradom is as fun as this Promposal experience was, I'm excited for the ride! |
Tuesday May 30 2017 | File under: extra, juggling |
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May I proudly present, for you viewing and beta-testing pleasure, the brand new www.WrenAndDella.com! Over the past 3 or 4 years, Della and I have been ramping up our performance presence beyond an act here or there in various shows. We have created our own stand alone show and really started booking lots of events (parties, festivals, fairs, etc.). It only seems fitting, now, that we have ourselves a professional looking website. And here it is. We're both pretty stoked on how it turned out. It's great to have some wonderful photos and videos of our acts in the same place. We'll continue to tweak some of the text over time, and hopefully replace the grainy video with some professionally shot stuff after we amass it, but for now, we're hoping that it serves the dual purpose of letting people know who we are and what we're about when they see we are performing near them and increase our booking! Every time I post about my juggling "career", I laugh a little about how far I've come—from never wanting to perform to being a professional juggler. But, as in so many elements of life, things change, and that can be a good thing. In this case it is: I get to do a job I love with a person I love making people smile. If I've gotta have a job, I can't think of a better one! Anyway, feel free to check out the website and let me know if you see anything awry. Please include the browser/operating system/device you're using if you find a layout/technical issue. (A screen shot of how it should look can be found here). And if you know anyone looking to hire some dynamic, fun, genuine entertainment, point them our way!! |
Wednesday April 19 2017 | File under: juggling |
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In what has become a lovely yearly habit for me, I recently attended the 2017 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament out in Stamford, CT. With it being my 4th year, I now know my way around the tournament and hotel, have met some great people that I always look forward to seeing year after year, and have some helpful data to see the progress my solving skills are making. But overall, I just have a lot of fun.
First, the progress: This year, I finished 336th out of 619, putting me in the 54th percentile, my second best showing. Besides one stupid error (which cost me about 20 places in the rankings), I don't feel bad. The puzzles were decidedly harder this year. As usual, puzzle 5 destroyed me with a super complicated double theme. Puzzle 3, supposedly an easier one, left me somewhat flummoxed with names of elements I've never heard of. Puzzles 1, 4, and 6 I aced and had just 1 square wrong on each of 2 and 7. So, overall, I'm not displeased—room to improve but still a strong enough showing. But the real fun of the tournament, for me at least, was the talent show. Since my first trip to the ACPT, I've been brewing this act combining my love of juggling and love of crosswords. This year, after poking at it here and there over the years, it all came together and I had a chance to present it. It was a hit, with people really appreciating the nerdiness as much as the talent. I'm excited to work out the kinks and get a few more run throughs to really solidify it. Then the hope is to add it to our upcoming summer shows. I'm sure the reception won't be nearly as great as it was with a room full of hardcore crossworders, but hopefully it will stand on its own. See for yourself! Thanks to all who made the ACPT such a fun and successful event! Hope to see you all again next year! |
Thursday March 30 2017 | File under: crosswords, video, juggling |
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Thursday February 23 2017 | File under: juggling, holidays |
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Sunday September 4 2016 | File under: pics, juggling |
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Arrrrrggg! I'm a pirate— or at least I play one in the Bellingham Circus Guild's new production, Something Wonderful. The show tells of a boy taken through a magical world of sea creatures, ship wrecks, dreams, and more. The show is more highly produced than any I've been a part of so far which makes it really exciting. The costumes are top notch and the professionalism regarding timelines, rehearsals, and contracts has been very refreshing. Last week, we had our first showing, on the big stage at Western Washington University. The huge stage with all the necessary contraptions, lights, staff, and more made it feel all the more big deal. The show went great, except for a couple drops by the pirates (opening night jitters, I guess). This upcoming weekend, we have a 3 show run at the Cirque Lab in Bellingham. There are tickets still available. The shows are going to be so fun! The pirates do a juggling bit that involves 2-highs, complicated moving patterns, and a neat little passing the bottle routine. I also got roped into doing a little black suit puppetry as well, a new one for my resume. While the amount of time spent on this, between rehearsals, teching, etc. has been more than I've been used to in the past (and makes the hourly wage far lower than minimum wage), the experience has been helpful and even fun. I'm proud of the show and I'm excited that it might get staged again in the future, maybe even at bigger venues! In the meantime, I look forward to the run this weekend. I hope to see you there! |
Tuesday May 17 2016 | File under: circus, juggling |
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One of the great purposes of this blog has been to serve as a digital scrapbook for my future self. I know that 90-year old me will love sitting in my hover bean bag chair looking through the fun exploits of his former self. It is with that thought that I started my Minor Media Mentions series, snippets of when I've made newspapers, etc. Two such snippets recently showed up. The first is from the Sunday Bellingham Herald dated 1/31/16 about the Talent Show at Mount Baker Theater we were in (blurb and video here). The other is from the super fancy Bellingham Alive magazine from December 2015. The article has nothing to do with us, but it's a pretty fun picture of the street show we did at the Bellingham Night Market. |
Tuesday February 2 2016 | File under: juggling, circus |
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Saturday January 30 2016 | File under: juggling, circus |
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I was recently hired to do ambient juggling at an event at a Porsche dealership*. The theme of the event was "electric" so they were looking for glow props. In talking it through, we decided that the majority of the reasonably priced glow clubs on the market wouldn't be glow-y enough so I thought I'd take a crack at making my own using EL wire. For those interested in the making of the clubs, I've chronicled that at the end of the post.
In the end, while the clubs turned out pretty good, it was all for naught. The gig wasn't dark enough for the glow to show. I would have been better off just juggling my long-suffering renegades or really pushing for fire*. But whatevs. The party goers didn't notice the lack of glow and were duely impressed by the juggling in general, so it was all good. They were also treated to some super-dope poi-ing by Nick with way better glow props than myself. So glow was incorporated after all. And although the glow clubs weren't a hit for their intended purpose, glow juggling props are perfect for long exposure photography. With Rod as the organizer and Thaddeus as photographer, we did an after-juggling club photo sesh that turned out some super fun shots. Now, after all the eye candy, I bet you want to see my clubs in action! Well, never let it be said that I disappoint. Behold!* For a base, I used Dubé airflite glow in the dark clubs*. I cut about 2cm off the top to allow access to the inner cavity to store the battery pack (2 AAs). Then I wrapped a 3m piece of white EL wire (starting at the center so as to have it lay out evenly), hot gluing the wire in place every 1/2 wrap or so. After the wire was glued in place, I took a 1-inch wide roll of saran wrap and wrapped it tightly to help secure the wire. I used a narrower piece so it could go on more wrinkly free.
Once the wire was secured to the club, I put the battery pack in the cavity sandwiched between 2 pieces of foam. Another piece of foam was put in to essentially cap the cavity, to keep the battery pack from flying out. All this weight made the clubs quite end heavy. To combat that, I wrapped some lead wire at the knob end of the club and secured it with black athletic tape. I continued the black tape wrap all the way up the handle for looks. In retrospect, having black handles on juggling clubs you plan to juggle in the dark was a bit of an oversight, but it does make the clubs look cool. In the end, the weight and counterweighting made for some dang heavy clubs. And the 1 of the 2 brands of battery packs I used flickers off if dropped (or caught abruptly). But all that said, they look pretty freaking awesome. It was a great experiment. Oh, and here's the requisite self-portrait. Good times. |
Thursday October 15 2015 | File under: juggling, work |
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