With Special Guest Star, Wes WEINHOLD!!!

1st European Vlog!

Just to brag a little, that's the t-shirt I won for coming in 2nd at the M2010 Prerelease. Now I have FOUR t-shirts! (And two of them are Magic: the Gathering-related...)

Three Vlogs and then a break, incl. Top 5 Hitchhiking communications

Since we're here and stable for a little bit, we'll take a little blogging and vlogging break. Check back in about three weeks for new adventures! If you're in the Seattle area and want to know if, where, and when we busk (probably at Pike Place Market or Seattle Center), be sure to subscribe to our Twitter feed.

Hitchhiking vlog #1

Hooray! We have a vlog! If you'd like to follow us on YouTube, our username is andjuggling.
A little plug for our camera: It's a Sony Cyber-shot, and it fit within our budget! We got it from the Kamera Korner in San Jose, owned by Stina's Papa Bob.

A follow-up to the video:
We were passed by three police cars total, at least one San Jose City Police and one County Police, and none of them stopped. We waited an hour with the sign with no luck. Then I put the sign down and just held out my thumb and we got a ride within 2 minutes to Fremont. Then in Fremont we tried without the sign for 10 minutes, then 5 with the sign and the man who picked us up said he never picked up hitchhikers, but he saw that the sign said San Ramon and he stopped for us. In which situations a sign may be beneficial vs. counterproductive are still a matter for debate.

General Tips, Observations, and Information

Here are some things we've learned while staying in New Orleans, in no particular order (but in list form, which, interestingly enough, seems to be experiencing a surge in popularity amongst life-planner type people. I've seen two articles about the benefits of lists in the past two weeks in two different publications).

• It is okay for buskers to perform around any side of Jackson Square, provided they are at a respectful distance from other artists/buskers/tarot card readers/storefronts. We got this information from a police officer, and he said nothing about needing a permit.
• The wireless internet at the Community Coffeehouse (C.C.'s) on Magazine St. extends to their outdoor patio area, where the tables are rarely full and Stina feels no pressure (whether it comes from within or without) to buy anything.
• The New Orleans Public Libraries have wireless internet and also computers which those with library cards may use for one hour, while those without must pay $3 for one hour.
• It's free to look at the art in numerous galleries around the city. Considering that the prints (not the originals) in one gallery in the French Quarter we visited averaged around $10,000, I'm pretty sure the curators don't expect everyone passing through to be in buying mode.
• There are so many great movies at the library! It was easy for us to get library cards since we have both received mail while living here, and this is the proof of address the library asks for (any type of mail seems to be okay). We are borrowing Spiderman 3 today; last week we checked to see what it would cost to rent Spiderman 3 at Blockbuster because we had a burning desire to see it, and it would have been $5.43. Free vs. $5.43--what an easy call.
• They don't carry tofu at the Winn-Dixie on Tchoupitoulas.
• The Breaux Mart on Magazine St. is much closer to where we are living on Jackson St. It's a small store, and we found out from friends that there are larger, "real" grocery stores on Tchoupitoulas St. So we visited Rouse's and Winn-Dixie, and while the milk prices at Rouse's are $4.18 for 2% versus $4.69 at Breaux Mart, prices of other products like cereal and produce are comparable. Tip to be learned: if you are willing to do heavy price comparisons within a grocery store and look for the best deals (and this can take some time), chances are you can find the cheapest stuff at the store most convenient to your location.

That's all for now, but stay tuned.

Considering all options

This blog brought to you by the everyday uncertainty that is our brains.

Firstly, we have much that we are considering when it comes to what may or may not be the best circumstances for busking. We don't really have enough patience to do sufficient experiments to include or exclude particular results. There are too many variables that might or might not matter, and even if we figure out that a certain variable does matter, to what extent it matters is also important to us, as we also seek to travel efficiently and cheaply (this regards variables that may be bulky or expensive). Some variables we're trying to analyze with our limited information:
Location in city, proximity to other buskers, time of day, day of week, shade vs. sun, costumes, hooks (e.g. carnival barkers, frozen statues), events in city, etc, etc...

We had an overall positive if difficult experience with busking today. Stina had the idea that since our carnival barker approach could be offensive (see fisticuffs incident of last blog) and tired us out without apparently being super effective, we should try this new approach. One of the difficulties we sought to overcome was our inability to entice a crowd as more common buskers might. Musicians can play music continuously, and someone who enjoyed it might stop for a moment or two. People can evaluate whether they enjoy music or not without engaging the performer. It gives them a safe space to make their decision before committing. This is, I imagine, why most juggling buskers are circle buskers. I suppose we haven't really tried yet, but we are just uncertain enough yet of when and where is appropriate to try a circle busk that we haven't exactly, despite getting positive feedback most times we've performed it.

All of this is merely to say that we tried something new today. We made a sign that said:
Step One: Drop in some $
Step Two: Give us a topic
Step Three: Hear a story

We stood behind the sign and froze in a position as if we were in the midst of juggling. After a few minutes, a man dropped a dollar in and didn't say anything, so we told a story of Pickled Mushroom Man then went back to our freeze. He said, "Bravo" and wandered off chuckling, "Pickled Mushroom Man" to himself.

Very pleased with this success we proceeded to stay frozen for 30 minutes without any more dollar or change drops. I noticed a few flashing cameras that Stina didn't notice, so maybe I imagined them or maybe they weren't directed at us. Hard to tell when you're frozen. After waiting quite a while, my feet began to ache, and I proposed we simply juggle and stand looking innocent until someone approached us again. No one ever did except a man who wanted to give Stina juggling advice. We should have charged him a dollar for the privilege.

We were out there from about 2-3pm... should have been there earlier, I suppose, for the lunch crowd.

We're still struggling to find something that works for us.
We have been seeking to create costumes of brightly colorful shirts and pants, but have been unable to find anything cheap and complementary. We're considering buying dye and plain white t-shirts and light colored jeans, but there are fewer thrift stores here than Seattle as far as I can tell, and the Bloomin Deals has odd hours that we never seem to make.
(On an entirely unrelated note, Marx says "hifalutin" at one point in the Communist Manifesto... isn't that strange?)

We're also considering trying to follow the renaissance faire circuit and perform there. In that case, we imagine we would have to get ourselves some fancier costumes. It's hard to know what we should do. We haven't made a significant amount of money busking yet, and we did anticipate a slightly better time of it.

For those dedicated readers we propose an interactive element just for you. We need help narrowing our variables... Today, for example, we walked past some trucks and trailers of equipment for the film shooting in New Orleans and starring Renee Zellweger, we think. I said, "Let's busk right here, right now." Stina said, "That sounds like a bad idea." We each had valid reasons for thinking that. We could decide ourselves... and of course we will, but we want some third brain who is neither of our ridiculous brains. If you send us your phone number in a message that says "put me on your variables list!", we will call you now and then and describe in 2 30-second increments the pros and the cons of the busking situation that faces us. You will then have 30 seconds to say "yay" or "nay" and give your reasoning. We will then chat with you for 29 seconds and then hang up. You will be able to read about the decision on this blog the next time we blog. Congratulations, you are an active participant in our busking!

Our first circle busk

I count today as our first true circle busk (gathering an audience, then putting a show on for them, often inside a chalk circle to demarcate the performance space - we just used a circular area and set our sign and hat in the middle). We ran our full show from stilts to stories (...and juggling) every half hour, and between shows we wandered the market hollering out our next showtime and the where and what. After our first show a few kids loved us so much, they wanted to join our troupe. They gladly canvassed for us, asking all the adults and other kids they knew to come see our next show. They were playing some disturbing game in which the bigger kid declared the smaller his hostage, and ordered him about. No one seemed upset, though, so no harm no foul.

West Bend Farmers' Market -  it's been said before, and I know it's true, but knowing your audience is essential. Our first show was too much something. A good half of our audience either wandered away, or made an audible choice to leave about half-way through. It was in the midst of our fight scene, so it's possible we upset people with our violence... or it's possible that it was dull to watch, so people lost interest and wandered away. In any case, we performed thrice today. After the first performance, we reevaluated our show. By cutting the fight and tango, we were able to retain our full audience through the show. We need a bigger finale, though... something flashy. Currently, we end on a story... It's good... it's the (soy)meat and potatoes of our show. It's what we've had the most success with when sidewalk busking, and in our circle busk, people seem to like it (though I think the gimmick is not enough, and we've gotta tell better stories than we have been telling), but it's not a good finale. Maybe a good acrobatic something would be nice to end on... Stina standing on my shoulders...and juggling, perhaps?

Aside to Nikki: everyone everywhere loves the leprechaun joke. Thank you for it.

In other exciting news, our business cards have come. I've never had business cards before, and I really like these. It makes me feel legit.

Also, signs make us seem legit. Putting out not only a hat, but a sign seems to draw fewer looks of pity and more interest and impressedness.