Well, we definitely have had more visitors---Katia, Karen, Mike, Claire, and Sasha have all joined the list of folk braving our lovely little apartment here in Brighton. I feel like I got burnt out on our first round of visitors so I haven't had the energy to bounce around with them.
To be fair, I'm also getting anxious trying to get A Different Spin moving more which doesn't leave me too fresh to socialize. We've done a good job of stopping by Boston University's Center for Fine Arts and practicing more...well, practicing at ALL is better than before so I won't whine about 'how much' time we've spent practicing. At the least we've come up with a neat variation on the juggling pattern 'Shooting Star' that involves 11 clubs and 4 jugglers with lots of movement. It's pretty much ready to throw into a show and this Friday should see it's debut for the unsuspecting public. Ah yes, Friday. Friday is going to be a dorktastic evening as we are performing with a bunch of other local circus performers as well as the fantastic Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band at the Arisia Science Fiction Convention. Should be a story at the least :)
The circus promo video hit a snag when Jeremy realized he lacked his firewire. Bah. That will hopefully arrive Monday and (if we are extremely lucky and don't need anymore footage) the video should be done by the end of next week. A week late but done is done as they say. The website overall looks pretty darn good. You can check it out at www.adifferentspin.net to see what all the fuss has been about. A few photos are missing but it is definitely a solid representation of what we want to use to 'sell ourselves'. And no, not in that way, you dirty-minded reader. Jeeze, kids today...
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Progress
A Different Spin is making slow-but-steady progress on the website redesign (should be up and rockin by Wednesday night) and took a little video at the BU Spin Jam to start the long promo video process.
We've been hosting visitors galore over the past week or so---Susanah, Matt, Peter, Katie, Felix, Ashlyn and my brother have all spent at least a night with us and several have overlapped. Glad people tolerate our new home enough to visit :) Lookin forward to gettin a couple more friends out here and finally getting my room in decorated-order.
On the juggle-front, I am making minimal progress on my new 'juggle 4 balls' goal but progress is progress. Oh, and Ricky and I can rock 7-club passing like nobody's business at any time, any place. And Tim, Ricky and myself are close to being consistent on 10-club. Awesome stuff. Can't wait to find a way to get 7-club into our revamped daytime show (more info on that later in the month).
Must sleep, fighting the sickness thing. Though I am not a fan of birthdays, it seems odd to be sick on that day of all days. Oh, it is that day. I am now one year older based on our calendar. I can...rent a car? Um, meh....
We've been hosting visitors galore over the past week or so---Susanah, Matt, Peter, Katie, Felix, Ashlyn and my brother have all spent at least a night with us and several have overlapped. Glad people tolerate our new home enough to visit :) Lookin forward to gettin a couple more friends out here and finally getting my room in decorated-order.
On the juggle-front, I am making minimal progress on my new 'juggle 4 balls' goal but progress is progress. Oh, and Ricky and I can rock 7-club passing like nobody's business at any time, any place. And Tim, Ricky and myself are close to being consistent on 10-club. Awesome stuff. Can't wait to find a way to get 7-club into our revamped daytime show (more info on that later in the month).
Must sleep, fighting the sickness thing. Though I am not a fan of birthdays, it seems odd to be sick on that day of all days. Oh, it is that day. I am now one year older based on our calendar. I can...rent a car? Um, meh....
Friday, January 2, 2009
New Year
So I have this feeling that if there were some 'blog counter' out there it would show unequivocally that January 1st and 2nd is the two-day most blogged-on period in the year. All that resolution and reflection stuff, ya know? And you throw in the 2nd to account for those who party too hard on the 31st and then don't remember those resolutions until the 2nd :)
Well this is my home-stretch of sorts this year. A Different Spin gets one last solid hurrah before I decide to put this passion and goal on the back-burner while pursuing some other career. We had an overly-long meeting yesterday which kinda set the 'wake-up and do it, punk' tone for us (it was overly-long due to my misinterpretations and self-defensive nature to not enter into a venture that could let me down out of nowhere) and laid out a few deadlines to get stuff done so we will see what happens by the end of the month. We've cleared out some of living room to make it juggle-able and a couple of us are heading to the nearby YMCA shortly to see if we have a nice large neighborless practice space to really kick it into hardcore practice mode. A circus arts video and a *complete* website overhaul are to be done by the 11th of January so that is check-in #1.
I'm anxious and need to do some personal reflection to make sure I am in the right mindframe to let this be my 'last shot' at a circus and fire arts career so I should be blogging quite a bit in this regard :) I plan on taking time to reflect substantially every day on how am I personally doing (physical and mental health, reflect on ADS progress, etc) and will post at least once a week as to how life is going. Who knows, maybe I'll become all 'into' the sharing thing and post more often than that about how pissy/excited/scared I am.
Here's to a new year and I hope much success. At the least I am determined to learn.
Well this is my home-stretch of sorts this year. A Different Spin gets one last solid hurrah before I decide to put this passion and goal on the back-burner while pursuing some other career. We had an overly-long meeting yesterday which kinda set the 'wake-up and do it, punk' tone for us (it was overly-long due to my misinterpretations and self-defensive nature to not enter into a venture that could let me down out of nowhere) and laid out a few deadlines to get stuff done so we will see what happens by the end of the month. We've cleared out some of living room to make it juggle-able and a couple of us are heading to the nearby YMCA shortly to see if we have a nice large neighborless practice space to really kick it into hardcore practice mode. A circus arts video and a *complete* website overhaul are to be done by the 11th of January so that is check-in #1.
I'm anxious and need to do some personal reflection to make sure I am in the right mindframe to let this be my 'last shot' at a circus and fire arts career so I should be blogging quite a bit in this regard :) I plan on taking time to reflect substantially every day on how am I personally doing (physical and mental health, reflect on ADS progress, etc) and will post at least once a week as to how life is going. Who knows, maybe I'll become all 'into' the sharing thing and post more often than that about how pissy/excited/scared I am.
Here's to a new year and I hope much success. At the least I am determined to learn.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
On the move...
Headed to Boston today---Saturday the 15th of November. Tim, Jeremy, Ricky and I are moving into an apartment in Brighton. Hopefully we will find flexible enough jobs to get us through the winter months and still work on promoting and even performing. I am anxious to say the least. Also far too contemplative these past few days...I'm sure I'll post about that soon. Back to last-minute packing.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
comedy
So I don't quite get my reaction to humor. (Random side note: spelling it humour doesn't piss me off like spelling color like colour or those other random British 'u' words...no clue why) If I am watching a comedy alone I will most likely not laugh out-loud at all. I also don't *really* find them that funny when I watch them alone. But if I'm with other people who find it funny it somehow becomes funny for no reason known to me. There's the saying about laughter being contagious but I just can't believe that's all there is to it. I am a fairly humorless person on my own so what changes when I am with other people? Hrm...talk about useless blog post.
In unrelated news, I am very uncomfortable with my lack of direction and productivity. Wait, did I say 'news'...?
In unrelated news, I am very uncomfortable with my lack of direction and productivity. Wait, did I say 'news'...?
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
wooo!
First off: Obama wins. Hellz freakin yeah. Looks like I won't be apartment hunting in Canada/Australia/New Zealand anytime soon :) (Random side note: I might not even be allowed to go to New Zealand as they have some weird health-standards that prevented a woman I know with an auto-immune disorder from going. ) The future is more hopeful and I am excited to experience where Obama's administration takes the country.
Secondly: our last two college performances were pretty darn great also. SUNY Cortland got rocked and were some of the most engaged students we've experienced and Johnson and Wales University was fun too! Four college gigs in one month is pretty darn sweet. We learned from each one and are confident in our ability to provide kick-ass entertainment to any event. Crappy sound systems, weird barriers between performers and audience and odd stages are no match for our rock!
Thirdly: We are probably moving to Boston in like a week. Dear lord that is frightening as I have no organization in my life as is and now need to help find an apartment and pack and clean and all that good stuff. This is pending Club Med NOT working out for us which would be sad. Bahamas in the winter would be swell as would seeing Dij again (he is awesome).
Blah, I've been inspired lately but had the whole 'going home to vote' and 'Crohn's disease rearing it's ugly head' thing these past two days to keep me from jump-starting things. Hopefully the hectic final week of our lease in this apartment will be a forced time of evaluation and consolidation in my life. Here's hoping...
Secondly: our last two college performances were pretty darn great also. SUNY Cortland got rocked and were some of the most engaged students we've experienced and Johnson and Wales University was fun too! Four college gigs in one month is pretty darn sweet. We learned from each one and are confident in our ability to provide kick-ass entertainment to any event. Crappy sound systems, weird barriers between performers and audience and odd stages are no match for our rock!
Thirdly: We are probably moving to Boston in like a week. Dear lord that is frightening as I have no organization in my life as is and now need to help find an apartment and pack and clean and all that good stuff. This is pending Club Med NOT working out for us which would be sad. Bahamas in the winter would be swell as would seeing Dij again (he is awesome).
Blah, I've been inspired lately but had the whole 'going home to vote' and 'Crohn's disease rearing it's ugly head' thing these past two days to keep me from jump-starting things. Hopefully the hectic final week of our lease in this apartment will be a forced time of evaluation and consolidation in my life. Here's hoping...
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Two colleges have already felt the power!
Iona College on October 3rd and Canisius College on October 9th were targets for the east-coast contingent of A Different Spin.
Result: direct hits.
The Iona College gig was about as difficult as could be---our day show was requested for 8:30pm in a parking lot and our mic randomly stopped working after 2minutes of our show, said parking lot was separated from half the audience by a 4-foot high brick wall and 3-foot high iron railing which caused a great disconnect for many audience members as well as ourselves---and yet we put on a great pair of shows under the circumstances. The coordinators were thrilled with the product which is a hugely important piece of the puzzle and we had our first 'real' gig as a group under our belts. A success for sure.
Canisius College is in Buffalo---5.5 hours each way for us---was a totally kickass show. It was a ridiculously windy day which put a big damper on our club juggling (but luckily we were not hired to do a day show so we just avoided the clubs) but the crowd had fun learning to juggle. They were also freaked out by Jeremy and my glass walking (and Jeremy's face-plant in glass while Ricky juggled knives while standing on Jeremy's head) and I made quite a few people flip out with some card magic. A great time was had during our four hours of 'circus entertainment'. The fire show was amazing, though; under the watchful eyes of a crew of a fire truck from the City of Buffalo Fire Department we performed damn near as well as possible and the audience had a complete blast. Our audience volunteer was reluctant to join the crazy performance but eventually had a good time with the four weirdos with electrical tape on their faces (ie, us). It was a lot of fun and maybe we'll even get to go back again in the future to teach and/or perform.
We've got two more gigs this month at colleges---SUNY Cortland on the 24th and Johnson & Wales on the 30th---so our plate is full of fun fire shows in October :) I think it is an overall fantastic beginning to our journey as professional fire performers!
Result: direct hits.
The Iona College gig was about as difficult as could be---our day show was requested for 8:30pm in a parking lot and our mic randomly stopped working after 2minutes of our show, said parking lot was separated from half the audience by a 4-foot high brick wall and 3-foot high iron railing which caused a great disconnect for many audience members as well as ourselves---and yet we put on a great pair of shows under the circumstances. The coordinators were thrilled with the product which is a hugely important piece of the puzzle and we had our first 'real' gig as a group under our belts. A success for sure.
Canisius College is in Buffalo---5.5 hours each way for us---was a totally kickass show. It was a ridiculously windy day which put a big damper on our club juggling (but luckily we were not hired to do a day show so we just avoided the clubs) but the crowd had fun learning to juggle. They were also freaked out by Jeremy and my glass walking (and Jeremy's face-plant in glass while Ricky juggled knives while standing on Jeremy's head) and I made quite a few people flip out with some card magic. A great time was had during our four hours of 'circus entertainment'. The fire show was amazing, though; under the watchful eyes of a crew of a fire truck from the City of Buffalo Fire Department we performed damn near as well as possible and the audience had a complete blast. Our audience volunteer was reluctant to join the crazy performance but eventually had a good time with the four weirdos with electrical tape on their faces (ie, us). It was a lot of fun and maybe we'll even get to go back again in the future to teach and/or perform.
We've got two more gigs this month at colleges---SUNY Cortland on the 24th and Johnson & Wales on the 30th---so our plate is full of fun fire shows in October :) I think it is an overall fantastic beginning to our journey as professional fire performers!
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