Twist And Tell

Party Like A Party Dancer

2006-06-18T10:44:00.000-04:00

The same day that Michael turned one, Sam turned 13 and had a Bar Mitzvah. And Balloon Lady was there.

When I was thirteen, I oftentimes dreaded going to Bar and Bat Mitzvahs because 13-year-old girls can be so mean to other 13-year-old girls. I realized last night that 13-year-old girls are mean to everyone, even if you're more than twice Bat Mitzvah age.

A sampling of things said to Balloon Lady last night:

"What am I going to do with this [in regard to very cool balloon rainbow]?"
--Mean 13-year-old-girl #1

"Why would I want a balloon? I'm just going to throw it out when I get home."
--Mean 13-year-old-girl #2

"I don't get it. You just go around and make stuff for people?"
--Mean 13-year-old-girl #3

"Uh, thanks? [In response to my handing her a balloon butterfly. Insert look of utter disgust]"
--Mean 13-year-old-girl #4

The crowd was tough, but mostly because the kids were much more into the African-American party dancers that were hired to rev up the party (read: teach white people to dance.) The whole scene was problematic on many levels: African-Americans hired to entertain, Hispanic waiters doting on the elite, elderly and deaf coat check women...all to serve the overprivileged and underappreciated future leaders of corporate America. I took a break from twisting, went to the bathroom to wash my face (and the metaphorical scum of the Earth I was feeling all over me), looked at myself in the mirror and thought, "Am I really part of THIS world? The black party dancing, spoiled rich kid entertaining party world?"

After the kids cocktail hour, I bonded with Cypress, one of the party dancers, over well-whipped guacamole and expensive nachos chips. "Tough crowd, " I said, telling him about the boys who asked for balloon whips and chains and then laughed as they popped everything right in front of me. "They're so damn spoiled," he said, "they have no idea." We both looked out on the beautiful landscape view from the Rotunda Room for a moment and took deep breaths. And then Cypress put on his dancing shoes and I snapped on my balloon belt again and went to work.

Baby Michael Turns One and I Hate Magicians

2006-06-18T10:42:00.000-04:00

Several weeks ago, I received a phone call:

"I am having a very elaborate birthday party for my one-year-old. Are you available to do balloons for the party to bring in the party mode?"

She had money to spare and flattered my artwork nicely so of course I was available.

It was indeed a very elaborate party: A stilt walker who juggled rings and blew a whistle (?), a strolling magician (more on that later), full catering (oyster bar, mini hamburgers and pizzas and plenty of not-so-friendly-for-a-one-year-old beer), a professional cameraman (asking people to leave their thoughts and messages on tape for Baby Michael) and me, the Balloon Lady.

Baby Michael was so excited for his first birthday party that he, well, slept through the entire thing.

Aside from the slight absurdity of the whole event, people were friendly and appreciative and praising of the fish hats, butterflies, monkeys on palm trees, baseball hats, superheroes, turtles and octopus I made.

I got stumped again though...I just couldn't figure out how to make a Saab convertible. I tried really hard though, as the kid who asked me for it was wheelchair-bound and had some other medical difficulties as well and he sat so patiently watching me and asking me questions while the world of able-bodied people strolled and schmoozed around him.

And now for why I HATE MAGICIANS.

Apparently, the Magician who was one of the other "featured" performers at Baby Michael's 1st birthday party is a "well-known" magician in this area. He seemed to be perturbed by me from the get-go. Maybe because more people were into my balloons than his lame-ass magic tricks. Maybe because he hadn't heard of me and saw that I was pretty damn good. Maybe because little Amy asked me to make a balloon tomato to throw at the magician because she thought he was stupid (Didn't make it for her, though.)

Whatever it was, I played it cool and was very friendly and nice to him, because there is no need for children's birthday party entertainers to be at war with one another. There's enough war already and you would think we would at least bond over being paid to perform at a drooling 1-year-old's elaborate party.

So the Magician comes up to me towards the end of my gig:

"So you should give me your card."

Ok, I say. And I pull out a card and hand it to him. This is nice, I think to myself. The Magician and I are going to become friends. You should give me your card too, I say.

"Oh, I...gave them all out."

Which was a total lie. There's no way he gave out all of his cards, because a) no one asked him for a card the whole time he was strolling; and b) he's a professional magician and they get all of their gigs by handing out cards and there's no way he wouldn't have brought enough cards with him. The Magician was lying like a dead white rabbit on the wide of the road.

I didn't get what he was trying to do at first (and maybe I still don't) so I asked him what his name was.

"Oh, I'll email you."

So basically the Magician would not tell me his full name so that I could look him up and be in contact with him. But he wanted my card so he could, what scope me out and stalk me and blacklist me in the children's entertainment community? I don't get it. What trick is he up to? And what a total prick to treat the Balloon Lady like that!

I hate magicians, I tell you. Always have.

Grandpas Love Balloons

2006-04-03T18:45:00.000-04:00

These are two of the last photographs I took of my grandfathers. I miss them.

Balloon Boobs

2006-03-28T11:53:00.001-05:00

I have some very religious cousins. So religious that they have strictly kosher diets. So religious that they don't use electricity or drive on the Sabbath. So religious that even the balloons I make for them have to be modestly dressed.

On a recent trip out to yeshiva-land, little Yochanan asked me to make a chusen and kallah (bride and groom) out of balloons. So I made what I always make when someone requests a bride and groom sculpture, never really paying attention to the fact that the bride's dress is sleeveless or, as in the case above, has a little balloon bosom showing.

So I didn't really notice this. But little Yochanan certainly did:

"The kallah's not sneeus [Yiddish expression for 'not modest']!"

Sometimes balloon customers are impossible to please.

Internet Fame

2006-03-10T11:45:00.000-05:00

Seth's dad told me that Seth had been excited for weeks about Balloon Lady coming to his birthday party. When I arrived at the party and was introduced to the birthday boy, Seth smiled and said to me:

"I remember you! I remember you from the Internet!"

Apparently, Seth's dad had showed Seth my website and he was very excited about someone from the Internet coming to his party.

A Day At the Mall is No Day At the Beach

2005-12-03T18:12:00.000-05:00

It's holiday season and the shoppers are out. And so is the balloon twister.

For the past two weekends, I've been hired by two fancy pants malls to make kids happy while their parents drag them out for some excessive December spending. I was one of several children's entertainers out at the Acorn Dip Mall last weeked--Goby the Magician, Bryan the Yo-Yo Man and Matt the Trivia Quizzer (with prizes!) and then me, the Balloon Lady. The Mall was packed and my line didn't let up at all for 4 hours. Parents continue to chuckle and ask, "don't your fingers get tired?" They think it's some kind of silly question, but I always answer, "Yes, they do." And then said parent proceeds to request balloon Elmo's for literally every child in the family.

I made some good stuff at both mall gigs: Batman, Mickey Mouse, Elmos, dinosaurs (stegasaurus AND bronotsaurus), and your usual steady supply of dogs, butterflies and lady bugs. Derek, the party entertainment agent who hired me, suggested I make things "less complicated" in order to keep the line moving. My mom suggested I have a sign with pictures of all the things I can make so that I avoid either 1) the paralyzed and dumbfounded look of amazement on kids faces when they see all the colors of balloons in my balloon belt and subsequently can't decide what they want; or 2) the disappointment of a child when they see that the balloon bicycle I have made for them is not lifesize nor is it ridable; or 3) the occasional request for the impossible; i.e., "Can you make a fireman in a firetruck going to rescue a dog from a flaming building?"

But I don't want to make "less complicated" things. Then it's boring for me. And I don't want to have a sign because then I'm stifling kids imaginations to come up with something--anything--for me to make. And I'm also losing the surprise element of what the finished product looks like. I love the look on a kids face when they see their new inflated latex toy.

Oh, and by the way, tips are awesome.

Today's mall gig was tougher and I was cranky about life and I hope it didn't come through in my balloon performance. Best part of the day though was when I was walking through the mall after the gig (still with my striped rainbow tights) and a little girl (Pink Flower) came up to me and said:

"I really like my balloon. Thank you."

Thank you.

Son of a Balloon Witch

2005-11-01T18:40:00.000-05:00

I went to a fancy Halloween party of a "friend" of mine who lives in a mansion in New York. I didn't know anyone who was going to be at the party, so I offered to make balloon witch as decor. Figured it might be a good way for me to strike up conversation with a stranger ("So what do you do?" "Well, I made that balloon witch in the hallway.")

The party was packed but everyone was in a different room and the balloon witch flew overhead, alone, and garnered no attention. I felt for her. Because that's pretty much what happened to me. Well, except for the flying part.

One of the Family

2005-09-20T23:31:00.000-04:00

Family means something to everyone--good, bad, warm, cold, complicated, fulfilling. But perhaps the most interesting and common feeling is that family is a loosely defined entity. Some blood relatives you may not even talk to and they are family; your neeighbor or best friend--well, they can be family as well. At Jennie and Patrick's wedding, I came to appreciate this loose definition, as I learned that Patrick's parents were both no longer living and yet he was surrounded by surrogate parents who offered tremendous support to him and his orphaned brothers.

I was also introduced to Ashley, a nine-year-old cousin who was family to Jennie in a rather confusing way. Ashley instantly loved me, as she was fascinated by the bride and groom sculpture I made for the wedding and was thrilled beyond belief when her cousin told her I would make her balloon animals at the wedding. It was nice to have a fan/date at the wedding; I must have made quite an impression because apparently when Jennie gathered all of her family for a photo, Ashley asked:

"Can the curly-haired balloon lady be in our family?"

Sometimes a loose definition of family means you can choose to be related to a balloon lady.

Balloon DNA is Just Not Fun

2005-09-10T20:09:00.000-04:00

There is a remarkable misdistribution of wealth in the world and, as a balloon twister, I often see both ends. When I do a gig at a school where the parents can barely afford school supplies, I see one end. When I do a gig at the Premier Institute of Technology University's Welcome Class of 2009 Carnival, I see the other end.

I was a little worried about sustaining for the duration of the PIT Carnival gig because it started at 10PM and ended at 2AM, which is very late for someone who is no longer in college. But there was not a lot less pressure on me to perform seeing as students could also occupy themselves with the Bounce House, Sumo Wrestler Ring, Velcro Wall, or Dunk Tank or they could just feed themselves for the four hours with pizza, cotton candy, chips, soda, brownies, cookies...I laughed a little to myself recalling that I had TOTALLY been to that party before at my University, and that it was a thinly veiled way of saying, "Have fun now; study your ass off tomorrow."

The PIT Class of 2009 were remarkably uncreative (they said so themselves!) in their balloon requests (lots of beaver requests, the school mascot), but I did have a few students challenge me--one to make a millipede (with ALL 1000 legs) and the other to make DNA. I asked him why he wanted DNA, which I thought was a pretty unfun thing to have made out of balloons, and he proceeded to tell me how amazing it was that the assembling of proteins could map out every single thing we are made of....I got bored listening to him and especially because I felt like he thought I was maybe dumb and didn't know what DNA was because I was making balloon animals. Yes, kid, DNA is very cool, but asking for DNA made out of balloons: not so cool.

Shoeless and Balloonless

2005-09-10T19:25:00.000-04:00

School is almost back in session. My friend Sara, a teacher at the Radnock School in Dorcester, thought it would be fun to get the kids and parents at her school excited about the coming year by having balloon twisting at the Radnock School Family Day. I gave her a discount because she's nice and the school (and the students) don't have a lot of money.

I was one of many activities--bracelet-making, jungle gym-playing, watermelon eating--that students could choose from. I set up under the shade of a tree by the swing set so I could stay a little bit out of the heat (I've noticed that my balloons pop a lot more in the sun. It's quite embarassing when I say "oh, they never pop....POP!!! Uggh.)

As I was clipping on my balloon belt, a Very Small Boy in a Michael Jordan basketball jersey and his afro hair tied up high in a ball on his head, pull on my skirt three times and asked me, "Can I take my shoes off?" I had never received a request like this before but assumed that shoe-taking-off was harmless so I said, "Ok."

I started twisting balloons--butterflies, swords, lady bugs, dogs, parrots, penguins, Tweety bird (a first)--and the faster I twisted, the longer the line of people waiting for balloons got. It was sunny out and there was a glare so I couldn't see the end of the line, but I swear it lasted for miles. My fingers started to get sore, and I secretly wished that I would just learn to compromise my creativity and make stupid easy one balloon animals rather than the fancy things I made. Kids would get crappy balloon animals but at least the line would move faster.

I noticed that the butterflies looked really nice when I made the body a dark blue and made the antennas orange or yellow. I was marvelling at this new color combination as I handed the creation to little Rosa, who promptly let out a well held-in, gooey, loud, splattering sneeze all over the balloon and all over my arm. I had to take a break to wipe myself free of this sudden germ onslaught.

I also overheard Sara asking that Very Small Boy, "Rory, where are your shoes?! Go find your shoes and put them on right now!" I felt kind of bad that I had ok-ed it....

As the sun set and the line seemed to have barely gotten shorter, I realized I was going to have to leave soon and not everyone was going to get a balloon. People were MAD when I cut the line off at the last four kids in front of me. "Lady! We've been here forever!!" So have I!, I wanted to say. I felt bad leaving on a bad note with them after what had been a very nice gig (aside from the sneeze) but sometimes balloon twisters have to lay down the law. And that means: no balloons for you.

And She Was Happy

2005-08-20T10:22:00.000-04:00

I went to a rehearsal dinner barbecue for Marco and Audrey who are getting married today in a Portuguese-Jewish wedding ceremony (has that ever been done before?) Was a beautiful night and everyone seemed happy and looking forward to the nuptials. Or if they weren't so pleased, they did a bang up job of hiding it. I guess there had been some tension between the bride and the mother-in-law, one wanting things her way, the other maybe not wanting it at all...

I sat at a table with the bride's other friends, caught up with some old high school friends and then veered into some random tangentially related stories. I had made a bride and groom balloon sculpture for the event which intrigued the adults but especially intrigued Heather, 6, Bryan, 14, and Elly, 9, Marco's neices and nephew, who were looking for something to do and saw me as potential party entertainment.

So I busted out my balloon supplies (which I had really only brought along to do maintenance work on the sculptures if necessary) and made a butterfly, a mermaid, a crown and CatMan (an original superhero creation by Bryan). I started gathering a crowd from both the Silverio and Cooper families, who were all equally intrigued by the balloon making. I offered to teach people how to make a balloon dog, as I often do to somehow remove the mystique of what I do with balloons. As I've said before, it's empowering for people to be part of the magic.

Mrs. Silverio, Marco's mom, became one of my students and was actually one of the better ones. She followed my instructions ("And now you make the legs just like you made the ears...") with total ease; she was a natural born balloon twister. And she had a wonderful smile on her face the whole time. She seemed to fully enjoy learning this new skill and, as the mother-of-the-bride pointed out to me later, looked the happiest she had been in a long time.

And so the Silverios and the Coopers laughed a little and twisted some balloons together the night before their families, two religions and two cultures were to be joined together. And I felt good that I somehow had a part in making Mrs. Silverio happy.

I'm a Balloon Snob, But So Are My Friends

2005-08-20T10:21:00.000-04:00

It's the summer and the balloon twisters are out in Harvard Square. Well, actually, this summer there's only one twister in the Square; the summer sped by before I had the chance to renew my Street Performer's Permit this year. I had enough paid gigs to fill my weekends anyway, so not such a loss.

So there's one balloon twister in Harvard Square this year. He sets up shop right outside the T so that everyone getting out at Harvard is greeted with his brightly colored creations on the rail. Maybe "creations" is a generous term. Maybe a better description would be just "lame things." His display consists of a few fully inflated 260s (the standard long twisty balloon) on top of which he ties 5" heart balloons. This "lame thing" involves not only zero creativity but also no twisting! Then he has some weird one-armed bear thing and some very unfun looking balloon person thing....it's really awful.

One morning, as I got out of the T, Lame Balloon Thing Man very unenthusiastically asked me "do you want a balloon?" I paused for a moment, looked at him and found myself on the verge of ALMOST saying something terribly rude like:

"You have no idea who you're talking to."

Then I realized I was a HUGE balloon snob and decided to simply smile and walk on.

I'm sure it doesn't help further inflate (no pun intended) my balloon ego that several of my friends have told me that they also spotted Lame Balloon Thing Man and told me that they were totally underwhelmed by his work now that they had seen mine. See--even my friends are balloon snobs.

Bicycle: The New Dog

2005-08-20T10:09:00.000-04:00

Recently, I've received an enormous amount of requests to make bicycles. What's going on? Are bicycles the new dog?

Then I saw Wedding Crashers, in which Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson crash a wedding, scope out the scene and then divide up attention-gathering responsibilities:

"You dance with the flower girl; I'll make balloon animals."

The following scene is rather funny for many people I imagine, and particualrly funny for balloon twisters. Vince Vaughn is making a bunch of lame animals like mutated dogs and rabbits until he is challenged by a kid to make a bicycle. Vaughn smiles uncomfortably and admits that he can't make a bicycle. "Make me a bike, funny man!!" the exasperated child yells. Wipe pan, time goes by and the next scene is Vaughn presenting the kid with a rather large, awkwardly shaped bicycle made out of balloons.

The scene gets a good laugh out of the crowd. The joke is that wow, there's no way Vaughn would be able to make a bicycle and then, wow, he really did it and it's pretty impressive. I must be a balloon snob; I laughed at the joke, but was hardly impressed with the bicycle.

BALLOON BIKE IN PHOTO CREATED BY CHARLIE FOGARTY

I Can Make Everything Except...

2005-08-13T22:24:00.000-04:00

Sachay Technologies had their Summer Family Day at this beautiful conference center in the woods. I showed up late (got terribly lost) but Stephanie told me it was fine because the face painter who was booked for the previous hour had also showed up late...phew! It's nice when people don't get mad at the party entertainment.

I was brought up to a place called the Gun Room where kids were eating yummy sundaes and proceeded to make butterflies, a fire-breathing dragon, swords, dogs, a dinosaur hat, a flower...I made one elephant (very cute) and then (of course) everyone wanted one. After a herd of elephants was born, I tried to suggest to the kids that I could make LOTS of things (I was getting bored of making elephants...). I said I could make ANYTHING...to which little Amy told me: "You can't make wind, because wind is invisible."

Crap. She was right. I can't make wind. Oh well.

Not My Best Friends' Wedding

2005-08-13T22:22:00.000-04:00

The stylist who cuts my hair does an amazing job. She also rarely speaks, which leaves me with the sometimes difficult job of filling in the empty air with random conversation tidbits while she focuses on carving and slicing and shaping my curly mop.

Last time we met, I mentioned my foray into the world of professional balloon twisting and gave her my card. Within a week I had a phone call from Paula, another stylist at the Curly Bug Salon who hired me to do a bride and groom sculpture AND to twist for 2 hours at her upcoming wedding!

Bride and Groom were introduced to sounds of "Let's Get It Started" by Black Eyed Peas, danced first dance to some super cheesy Rod Stewart song that I'm sure he wrote for the very purpose of getting play at weddings. Everyone seemed psyched about the open bar (except for mix drinks) to compliment their breakfast (read: bacon and waffles) fare.

Was a great ($$) gig. Hotel staff oohed and aahed over bride and groom sculptures and kids heartily enjoyed the Spider-Man, Spongebob, Fireman (all firsts), lobster hat, Red Sox hat, flower hat, dolphin, monkey on palm tree, snail, butterfly, and tigers.

6-year-old Superheroes

2005-08-13T22:20:00.000-04:00

6-year-old Luke's mom won a balloon birthday party that I donated to a school auction. "He likes superheroes and swords," she told me over the phone, so I loaded up my balloon belt with some Spider-Man balloons and some 5" heart balloons which I learned make great superhero heads.

Upon arriving in the FancyBurbs, I was greeted with a kiss (do I know you?) by Luke's bikini-clad, Miller Lite-carrying Mom. Luke's dad's smoky voice was gathering the kiddies around the ice cream cake while Luke continued to dive into the boxes of plastic toy presents he had just received, worried that each second he was away from them, new presents could have grown out of their cardboard surroundings.

Shortly thereafter, 25 sticky fingered 6-year-olds cornered me by the tree, urgently begging for Buzz Lightyears and swords and princesses. A group of highly out-of-control ADHD triplets could not stop touching the balloons in my belt. Kids, that's my only rule: no touching the balloon belt. Triplet dad told me that if Triplet #1 or #2 asked for a sword to tell him there were none left. Triplet #1 asked for a sword. I told Triplet #1 there were no swords left. He didn't believe me. I didn't blame him.

Luke, a young frat-boy-in-training wearing a mini authentic football jersey, was running around with a book of stickers yelling "STICKERS!!" and placing these decorations on everyone. "Here, balloon lady, "he said as he gave me a sticker of a clown holding balloons. I envisioned him 15 years from now wearing Zeta Beta Loser fraternity letters, ordering pledges to wear stickers in inapprorpiate places as part of their pledge week. Oh, and I knew Luke way back when...

Racism, Sexism, Balloonism

2005-08-13T22:18:00.000-04:00

It's a Wednesday afternoon and I am at the Paramount Bowling Alley doing balloons for Leighton Industries Summer Family Party. I still get that uncomfortable "am I a freak?" thing running through my head when I see people my age at the party and I am the hired entertainment...but I persevere and start making a lady bug, dragonfly, penguin (a first), a flamingo, an elephant...

A young black family arrives. Their close-to 12-year-old daughter has beautiful corn rows braids and extensions in her hair. She asks me if I can make a person out of balloons. Since I can, I proceed to pull out a brown balloon to make a person that looks, well, more like corn row girl.

She is very excited about her balloon and as I start to twist the face with the brown balloon, she tells her mom, "look, she's making the hair!" I have a moment of balloon twisting panic where I realize that I'm trying to make a culturally appropriate balloon and maybe she was expecting a white girl with brown hair. Also, I know how to make cool looking corn rows too by using uninflated balloons so I do that, all the while worrying that I have somehow done something offensive because I have simply taken note of the color of corn row girl's skin. Race issues pervading even the balloon world.

After corn row girl, another little girl came to me and asked for a princess. So I made her one--with a pink flowy gown and golden blond hair. I guess I was too tired to challenge social ideas of femininity by that point.

Best Gig Ever

2005-08-13T22:17:00.000-04:00

I got to bring along Missy the Facepainter again to the hula-themed AES Consulting Summer Outing party in the Keynes Academy fields. Our contact, Cherry, was a little tipsy upon our arrival and the DJ was orchestrating some game which involved all the burly consultants there to drag Cherry onto the dance floor. Chaos and party laughter ensued.

Missy and I tag-teamed again: I made swords and then she turned kids into pirates, with bloody face-painted gashes, battle scars and beards. Baby Amanda's mom wanted Elmo painted on Amanda's face while I made Elmo out of balloons for her. Baby Amanda looked like she wanted to take a nap, but her mom insisted that THIS is what she wanted. Whatever you say, Mommy!

But Missy and I decided this was the Best Gig Ever, because there were maybe a dozen kids total and they were all balloonified and face painted up in half an hour, so Missy and I spent the rest of our "paid vacation" eating free ice cream, talking about boys and watching consultants do the awkwards socializing dance that is the work softball game. Yes...

My Best Friends' Weddings

2005-08-13T22:15:00.000-04:00

When you're in your 20s and have friends, you often spend a good portion of your summer attending weddings. Some weddings you wake up day-of, get all pretty, show up, take some pictures and leave.

But when the nuptials are between people YOU personally love and are excited about, well, then you have to make balloon sculptures.

The two sculptures pictured in this entry are (I think) my best work. I spent hours brainstorming, researching and practicing before creating them, but I'm most proud that all brides and grooms involved seemed genuinely happy with them and that maybe the sculptures made their weddings even more special. I was also happy to have had a unique way to express and deal with my own feelings about the weddings and people involved.

A few months before Missy got married, she told me about this obsession she had with diving from watching Leonardo the diving coach teach at her local pool. Sam, who always so sweetly listened and Missy's jabber, bought her diving lessons with Leonardo for her birthday (what a guy). Missy, of course, proceeded to freak out that not only was she getting married but was now literally "taking the final plunge." I also listen (and love) Missy's crazy mental twists and turns and decided to make a special sculpture for their wedding derived from that theme .

I had planned the nearly life-size sculptures of Joel and Ilyssa for weeks, and they took me all day to create. I couldn't bring myself to design the couple as bride and groom sculptures because knowing them as I do, I just could not picture them in all that formal wedding stuff. So I chose to make them with some festive wine and cheese, which is how I usually see them. Joel is appropriately holding the cheese (he's from Wisconsin, where people eat cheese and nothing else, right?) and Ilene is holding a bottle of wine, Vintage 1996, the year they met. The glasses were a new thing for me and I think came out well, even though Ilyssa looks a little bit like a drunken librarian...

Family of Twisters

2005-08-13T22:09:00.000-04:00

When Great Aunt Sylvia turned 70, her daughters threw her a surprise party. Overwhelmed, she told them they shouldn't have done so much work for her (she's always flabbergasted when people recognize her greatness). So the daughters said, "Fine, when you turn 80, you can throw a party for yourself!"

So when Great Aunt Sylvia turned 80, that's just what she did. And what better way to celebrate than with a nearly life size sculpture of yourself in balloons! I used a new double-stuffing method (stuffed a red 260 inside a gold 260) for Sylvia's hair in this sculpture. Figured it was the best way to solve the "argument" between her and her daughters over what exactly is the color of her hair...

And possibly the most fun of the party was when I had heard enough of my cousins ask "how do you DO that?" that I busted out my balloon belt and started to give lessons. I had the whole family--young and old, cousins and people who were maybe my cousins but I had never met--twistin' up dogs and flowers and such. It was quite a scene.

Sometimes I think teaching will take the magic out of what I do for people, but I always find there's something empowering about being able to things out of balloons, as silly as that may sound. I guess it's just empowering when you hear people say, "I could NEVER do that!" and then you show them that they can.

Fun with a Collaborative Balloon Dragon

2005-08-13T22:01:00.000-04:00

I met Skylar last year and in 48 hours, we were friends. When her birthday came around this year, her mom really wanted me to do the party, and even though it was a crazy weekend, I couldn't pass it up. Skylar at 11-years-old is insatiably curious and just so damn talented. She loved making balloon animals, something I had turned her onto so I decided to do something a little more exciting at her party.

I should premise this with the fact that though I am definitely over my first-gig jitters, birthday parties still make me nervous. I'm not very good or big on doing a balloon show--I don't have corny jokes, I don't have routines--I just kind of like to wow people with the balloons and talk to the kids about what they like to do, what they're learning in school, what they watch on TV. No one's ever complained about my "performance" but sometimes I think I'm not the best party entertainment.

Anyway, at Skylar's party I experimented with some collaborative balloon art. Skylar and I both showed some of the girls how to do some basic twists with the balloons and then we all contributed some part to the above picture Collaborative Balloon Dragon. Sure, it was kinda crazy looking, but the girls got so into making and adding parts and I once again felt great about empowering them to make the sculpture with me. In the end, I like that much better than getting up and "performing" in front of them. I was proud.

The Duck Parade

2005-08-13T21:58:00.000-04:00

When Robert McCloskey wrote his famed book Make Way for Ducklings in 1976, I'm sure he had no idea to the extent with which Boston would actually physically "make way for ducklings." Every Mother's Day, kids from all over Massachusetts don their best feathery costumes and march around Boston Common, flapping their wings and quacking tiny yellow makeshift beaks. It is, truly, quite a scene.

But there is always one things missing: balloon ducks.

I happen to be very proud of the balloon duck I created. I've copied designs of many animals, but the duck is one I came up with on my own as I was playing around with these bizarre Clown Head balloons one day.

So I went down to Boston Common on Mother's Day with a bag full of Clown Head balloons and my pump and just made balloon ducks for the three hours of the parade. This was my first gig in Boston and I was slightly worried as I only have a permit for street performing in Somerville proper but the spirit of the day (how could you not be in a good mood kids roaming the streets dressed as ducks?) and an occasional smile to the Boston cops led me to believe I'd be ok...

A family of 4--two sunglassed parents, a little girl in a stylish rose sundress, a little boy in an untucked button-down Polo shirt, khakis and brown sandals--walked through the park and stopped at the short line of kids waiting to get their balloon ducks from me. "I want a teal duck with a magenta beak," said the little boy. "Yeah, and I want a lavender duck with an aqua beak and light red tail," chimed in the little girl. I, for one, was psyched at this color selection because honestly I was running out of yellow Clown Head balloons. The Sunglass parents decided to point out to me, "Our children are VERY creative."

If it made her feel better about sending her kids to $30,000/year preschool, then yeah, they are as creative as they get. I, on the other hand, was the one who was actually making the balloons, which may be slightly more creative than listing off colors you had read on a Crayola wrapper...

PHOTO COURTESY WWW.UNIVERSALHUB.COM

Running the Face Painting Union

2005-08-13T21:55:00.000-04:00

Story to come!

My foray into performance art

2005-08-13T21:51:00.000-04:00

Story to come!

Year 2: Down to Business

2005-08-13T21:19:00.000-04:00

Still glowing from my new role in life as "Balloon Twister to the Stars," I am brought back down to reality of having my own business and needing to market myself. Year 2 begins with an afternoon at a JCC Bar Mitzvah Expo, which was sad in terms of the small sad booth I shared with the I-write-personalized-cake-ceremony-poetry lady and Magic Mike. Oy.