My 17-year-old son had just returned home from the European Juggling Convention where he was fortunate enough to see many of his idols perform, and even to meet a few of them. After he described a kindly encounter at the airport with his favorite juggler of all, Wes Peden, he told me that he wanted me to watch Peden’s new video Gumball. It was an hour of self-produced juggling adventures by one juggler who has been known to push the bar. But a whole hour? In the end, I sat down with him to watch it because I knew juggling was a topic over which we could both rejoice, and as we settled in, I realized that an hour was hardly enough time to contain the awe, surprise and glee we would feel as we watched each act of the video unfold.

Yet what a contemporary approach for marketing one’s skills– a video full of inspiration that could be purchased for 15 euros by juggling nerds across the globe. Peden himself admits it was the culmination of a lot of time and energy with this simple rubric:   Peden often allows his sense of humor to permeate his work, which helps his juggling come across with a sense of joie de vivre. You can sense that he considers himself privileged to have the life he does. For example, here is how he describes his ...