From lm03_cif Sun Feb 2 19:41:15 1992 Received: from gawain.cif.rochester.edu by uhura.cc.rochester.edu (4.1/1.16) id AA21104; Sun, 2 Feb 92 19:41:12 EST Received: from uhura.cc.rochester.edu by gawain.cif.rochester.edu (4.1/1.15) id AA18813; Sun, 2 Feb 92 19:38:10 EST Received: from troi.cc.rochester.edu by uhura.cc.rochester.edu (4.1/1.16) id AA21094; Sun, 2 Feb 92 19:41:00 EST Message-Id: <9202030041.AA21094@uhura.cc.rochester.edu> From: lm03_cif (Larry Moss) Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1992 19:41:00 -0500 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.3 5/22/91) To: balloon@gawain.cif.rochester.edu Subject: only dogs Status: O There hasn't been any discussion here yet. Perhaps this will start something. I also really will write up more of the animals I know how to do, like I said I would originally. On Friday I was handed most of a series of articles by Jim Klein on balloons at birthday parties. His main theme was the use of only dogs (or only one type of animal) when presenting each child with a party favor. His reason was sensible enough: children (well, adults certainly can't be accused of this :-) will often decide they want the same thing that someone else has. If one child asks for a dog and then sees the next child in line receiving an alligator with 4 toes on each foot and clearly sculpted nostrils, the first one isn't going to be satisfied with his/her gift. OK, I admit that given the two balloons I just mentioned it's perfectly understandable that some children would consider fighting for the "better" balloon. However, in my experience this is not the usual scenario. Most often when I ask children what they want they ask for things they've already seen other clowns/magicians/etc make. This means that they almost all ask for dogs, cats, swans, swords, and ninja turtles. (There is the occasional request for something as unusual as a chicken.) I do usually show off and make something nicer for the birthday child. I suppose it's only recently that I've had anything to show off with, but even when I started the birthday child always got at least an octopus from me. I never got any complaints about the birthday child getting something bigger. It was understood that on their own birthdays (if they could talk there parents into "inviting" the magician) they would get something like that also. All of the others were always happy with the dog, cat, swan, sword, or ninja turtle that they had since I was able to produce exactly what they asked for. Much to my surprise, when we discussed this article at lunch on Friday, there was a general acceptance of the idea presented of limiting yourself to one figure at a party. Personally, when I'm making balloons I get bored constantly doing the same thing. I also find that many kids are happy with "personalized" balloons. When they ask for something less common I often make them think that they're putting me on the spot and forcing me to dream up some method of creating whatever it is they asked for. (this is often what's happening, which can make it quite a bit easier to convince them of this. :-) When this does happen it becomes as much of a game to see if they can stump me as a way to get their own balloon and they don't seem to care who gets what. When someone does succeed in stumping me, they just enjoy it and laugh at me when all I make is a dog that's completely out of proportion. As an aside, the parents never understand that I like the game and they don't need to feel sorry for the abuse the kids are putting me through. Anyway, I was wondering how everyone else feels about this and what experiences you've had. Larry -- Larry Moss | "Any sufficiently advanced technology lm03_cif@uhura.cc.rochester.edu | is indistinguishable from magic."