This year's shirt was designed by Lee Downing.

Seth Rider, Book Kennison, and Erik Tait 2002 Phil Winners

Groundhog Day 2002 Report

184 jugglers registered for the 24th annual Groundhog Day Jugglers Festival, topping last year's registration by over 50.  Records show that folks came from New York , Florida , Kentucky , Mississipi , Alabama and Tennessee .  The gym did not seem unusually crowded, which indicates that the large number of registrations probably reflects a larger proportion of attendees registering, rather than more jugglers at the festival.

The gym stayed open until 11 pm Friday night.  The supplemental lighting system kept everyone seeing well during the evening, with many big passing patterns and exuberant greetings in evidence.  The T-shirt emblem was picked from a field of 5 designs and featured a picture of a groundhog in a wizard's cap with the slogan "Lord of the clubs, balls, and Rings".  Lee Downing gets credit for this sell-out design.  Long-time AJA members Rick and L.J. Purtee surprised us by showing up for the festival from their new home in Seattle , Washington .

Saturday's juggling started at 10 am.  The weather remained cool but clear, so the unicyclists and hardier folks could go outside of the crowded gym.  The 2002 Georgia State Yo-Yo contest took place once again in the Gym, featuring tricks such as "Skin the Gerbil" and "Advanced Split the Atom", as well as the more usual "Walk the Dog" and "Rock the Baby".  A healthy contingent of serious Yo-Yo players helped round out the usual motley crew of club throwers, unicyclists, and diabolists.  The yo-yo contest winners in Single were Styron Pennywell (1), Lao Alovu(2), and Anthony Greer(3).  In Sport, winners were Josiah Kailing(1), Bruce Plott (2), and Travis Bish (3).  The "Team Tarkin Controlled Chaos Award" went to Josiah Kailing for his exceptional freestyle performance.

Henry Slack brought the sign-up sheet from the 1982 festival, which had 65 names on it. Six folks from that group were in the gym and had attended every one of the intervening 19 festivals.

The Seed & Feed Marching Abominable band kicked off the competition in fine form this year, led by our own Bruce Plott carrying the highly symbolic broom.  Despicables included a truly hirsute guy in drag waving a giant toothbrush.

Seven hardy contestants braved the spotlight in contention for the coveted Phil.  Book Kennison of Saint Charles Missouri, was Most Astounding.  His act included several remarkable 3-ball flexibility tricks, including a double-twist mills mess, juggling with either hand across his back, and a finale which featured a 3-ball juggle with one foot hooked behind his head.  Most Amazing was Erik Tate of Knoxville , Tennessee with a well-paced 3- and 4-ball routine concluded with a brief run of 5 balls.  Seth Rider of Edgewater , Maryland took Most Awesome with a 3-ball routine which featured blind throws across the back of his neck.

Other notable acts included Aaron Rider playing a bagpipe while riding the unicycle, young David Brown and Robbie Kuhn ending their performance passing 7-clubs flat, and a fine lying-down 3-ball routine by Alex Burke.  The SalsAtlanta dancers, led by Julian Mejia, showed the audience a "Rueda" --hot group Latin dancing-- as the judges deliberated.

The rest of the day was taken up with passing, teaching, learning, and the usual activities of a busy juggling festival.  Sights included L.J. Purtee teaching a couple of civilians to juggle in the front hall near the registration table, a big mob of unicyclists buzzing around the pavement outside, and a big group torch juggle organized by Lisa Chkoreff after dark Saturday night.  Inside were the usual thrilling assortment of pairs and singles intently working on Impossible Tricks, and groups of widely varying experience working on tricks easy, hard, and in-between.

The midnight Cabaret was M.C.'d by Rick Purtee, with stage management from Jon Perry.  Paul Dimuzio started with a good 3-, 4-, and 5- ball act. Next, Mike Gardner of Emory University did several rap songs as soulful singer-songwriter numbers to an acoustic guitar.  Many of the post baby-boom generation were in tears (of laughter).  Charles Shapiro won the Mouse award this year.

The DVO's Bambola sang a couple of songs, Erik Tate did a 3-ball routine in the dark with 3 glow balls, and Jon Perry did an audience participation act involving the name of a famous beer.  Tim Settimi played ukelele and probed the musical and dramatic possibilities of an aluminum cane.  Seth Beasley did a daring fire eating and transfer act.  Rodger French performed the thirtieth anniversary flag routine, successfully spelling deoxyribonucleic acid in just three letters. Carrie Mcqueen closed the show with a musical torch swinging act.

Sunday started again at 11 am with the last intense burst of group work, teaching, learning, et cetera.  Tim Settimi led an informal but large workshop on mime techniques, illustrating such useful skills as walking without actually going anywhere, creating intangible walls, and going up and down nonexistent stairs.  Other workshops also included large group club passing, and the obligatory Three Balls for Civilians.

The festival finished at 5 pm, and many of us went on to the traditional dinner at Thai One On before staggering home to a brief rest before the week's official madness began Monday morning.