JW; You don't go to juggling conventions or local gatherings?

JC: I went to a convention one time when it was local. Yeah, I'm such a lousy juggler that in the company of other jugglers I would quickly sink to the bottom.

 

JW; How would you characterize jugglers in general? Are they trying to make up for an inability to participate in team sports? math nerds ?

JC: Oh, no. I don't think there's any characterization that would stretch across the whole group of them. I'm, sure they're extremely diverse. Must be millions of them by now. Well, some of them are human beings. Most of them have two hands. Beyond that, I'd be unwilling to say.

 

JW: Does Klutz Press have any new juggling projects in the works?

JC: No. It's not as if we've said the last word, but we don't.

 

JW; How about the Flying Apparatus Catalog... Have you added anything to that recently? Do you still pick those things yourself?

JC: I don't think we've added anything. We sell a bunch of clubs and scarves and various implements for the juggler. The last thing we threw in there was crystal balls for juggling which are also used for telling the future. I don't know which way they're being used but they're quite expensive.

 

JW: Whats your best seller?

JC: Probably the basic clubs and the basic bean bags, just like you'd expect.

 

JW: Why do you include the International Juggling Association's brochures in your products? Did they bug you to death, or what?

JC: Yeah, who was that called me all the time? Carter! Carter seemed like a nice guy. He bugged me two or three times and Davey, who does all the mail order said he seemed like a nice guy. And so we agreed he was a nice guy. So we did it.

 

JW; Would you like to forget all about juggling sometimes? Do you feel haunted by that era of your past?

JC: No, not too much. Every once and awhile I am introduced as Mr. Klutz, which is not great. The juggling book is just one of our books, but at this point there are some 20-odd. It's not the oniy one.

 

JW: What are your real interests now?

JC: I always have a personal mini-fad with whatever we're doing. Usually, not always. We do three or four books a year. So I have to immerse myself with the subject of each book and right now we're doing books on a new catch and throw toy called "the foxtail" which I have immersed myself in. It's a rubber ball with a nylon tail. And we're doing a book on how to braid little girls' hair, which I'm sort of immersing myself in. I like to look at the pictures, but I still can't braid hair. Another one we're doing is science, which I did immerse myself in for a couple of years. We did a book on kids' science recently and I was really big into that. And my wife did a lullaby tape. Those are my three personal fads right now: braiding little girls' hair, playing catch with the foxtail, and general science for kids.

 

JW; You're the only writer at Klutz. Why?

JC: I don't know. Why is that? I don't know. If I didn't write here, I wouldn't have anything to do. This job keeps me off the street. I bring a certain tone to the books which is uniform, either good or bad. I think I have a theory about education, which is that I represent the ignorant elements of the population. And most books are written by experts who represent the expert population. Since the ignorant element far out­numbers the expert element, I feel like it's important that the ignorant types write the books rather than the experts. It's important that the ignorant types be in contact with the experts when they write the books but in order to bring that more common point of view into the book, then it's important that the people who write the book be like the people who read the book. In every case, I've been very ignorant and pretty much stayed fairly ignorant going into the subject matter going into the book so I represent that point of view. .

 

JW: When you write directions you seem to be right there at the persons elbow, correcting and cajoling. Is that your natural style or do you have to work at that?

JC: Nah, that's the way I do it. I usually teach the stuff beforehand, too. I taught a lot of juggling. In fact, to answer a question you didn't ask, I would probably say I'm a far better instructor in juggling than I am a juggler myself. If I were to be taken to the judgment day and someone asked, "What's the very best thing you can do in the world?" I would certainly suggest teaching someone how to do the basic three-ball cascade. I taught many people how to do that. I think I have heard all the psychological hurdles and blocks and I can deal with almost anybody's hang-ups in terms of not being able to get over the first bit in a three ball cascade. That is what I'll hang my hat on when they ask me what I can do well. The rest of this stuff, I just dabble in.

 

JW; Whats the worst hang-up you had to deal with in teaching the three-ball cascade?

JC: Just the fear of looking like a fool. It's universal. So I start the instructions with, "We're going to drop all of these." I have a big long rap about how to pick up drops. We spend in some cases at least two or three minutes learning how to pick up our drops. Lean over from the waist, extend the arm, put the hand over the fallen object, collapse the fingers around the fallen object, straighten up from the waist, open up the hand, inspect the contents, that kind of thing.

 

So after we've talked about dropping and picking up objects for quite a while, when it finally starts happening, we're all set. We've been through that.

 

JW; Do you have any real free time? Or is your life limited to Klutz and your family?

JC: Klutz and my family is about 99% of it, I'll admit. It used to be different. I used to have a different life. But with two kids and Klutz, that's pretty much it.