Dueling juggling videos

Once upon a time there lived a comedian named Chris Bliss. Chris liked to tell jokes, and he also liked to juggle. One day he juggled to the tune of a Beatles song, and audiences were thrilled. The act was taped and posted on the web, and soon e-mail started flying through cyberspace. "You gotta see this act, it's amazing!" they exclaimed.

But not all were amused. The juggler enthusiasts were incensed. "Juggling three balls like that is easy!" they cried. "And his movements, they are not graceful!" One of them was particularly sick of the praise that Chris's video got, so he made his own. It was set to the same music, but this time, Jason Garfield used five balls, not three.

True, Jason's act was more skillful technically and it was arguably more graceful. But Chris's "lack of grace" has a point — the juggling was set to rock music, so Chris's juggling mimics the jerky, abrupt movements of a rock musician. It's the whole package that's impressive, not just the juggling.

And so the moral of the story is… uh… just go watch the videos…

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