I’d definitely know what it means. I use it myself. It didn’t even occur to me that some folks might not recognize it.
That would have been a very different Ed Sullivan act!
Also, I’m familiar with the idiom and have heard it used. My kids did also see a plate spinner at some circus or another.
The Ed Sullivan Show was considered the top American television variety show during its run. It was the one that a performer decided that they had made it if they appeared on the show. However, there were some acts that seldom appeared anywhere else. Plate spinners were one example. Another was Señor Wences:
I use the experession and for exactly this reason. And usually with the explanation “it’s getting to the point that i pick a plate to drop, or it’s going to start being random plates”.
I find this act a bit sus. I skipped to the end, expecting them to show all the plates falling off the sticks. That they did not, implies that they were attached in some way.
Penn Jillette has talked at length on his podcast about learning plate spinning during the pandemic. He goes into a good amount of detail about his practice sessions (in his yard) as well as things you don’t think about - length of the stick, rimless vs. rimmed plate bottoms, weight of the plates, whether the plates should be breakable (they should).
Also, a skilled spinner is capable of keeping all his plates a-spinning. The panicked lunges to correct a wobbler are largely manufactured drama.
mmm
ETA: Also, letting one crash to the ground every now and then is not necessarily a bad thing.
I saw plate spinning on Ed Sullivan, but I also saw The Flying Karamazov Brothers
https://www.fkb.com/
live. I’m pretty sure they did plate spinning in their act.
Hmm, I saw them three or four times, but don’t recall that. Still, they did all sorts of fun stuff.
yup, sure do
Like Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.
I get the reference.
Although I could also see how someone might think you maybe combined two phrases that mean the same thing:
“I have a lot of balls in the air.”
“I have a lot on my plate.”
Video was unavailable for me, but in the meantime, I found one of my old ticket stubs! And a nice letter I got from the guy who played Alyosha.
I’d be more likely to say I’ve got a lot of plates in the air, but I haven’t heard (or seen) that reference in a while.
The Aristocrats?
I mentioned “the agony of defeat” at work, and then had to explain it. I’m old.
Don’t get your hopes up. It’s rare to find a man of that calibre.
Then you’re not gauging it right.
My sister recorded a couple of movies off TCM a couple of weeks ago. Two Broadway Melody of 19xx (38 and 40, IIRC). They were so cookie-cutter it was interesting to watch them close together. Both had a running gag with what was called a specialty act. The earlier movie had an expert on snoring, of all things. It was awful. Just stupid and boooooring. And he got so much movie time. After his first appearance, we just ff’d him. The other movie had a woman called Fritzi who was a juggler, and she was awesome. Spinning plates and all.
According to this site, modern plate-spinning sticks are in fact attached to a ballbearing system in the plate so it’s almost impossible for them to fall off. The acrobats still had to keep them spinning and upright and not bumping each other while they did their acrobatics, though, so I think it still counts as a good trick.
I understand the reference but I have only heard it used with the word “balls” instead of “plates”. For example: “too many balls in the air”.
I understand the reference, though my knowledge of plate-spinning acts comes from WGN’s “Bozo’s Circus,” when I was a kid in the 1970s, rather than from the Ed Sullivan Show.
I don’t think so. I’ve done a little juggling, and every spinning plate I’ve seen has a recess for the pole. I’m not sure if its even possible to spin ordinary plates.
