Sunday, January 17, 2010

Oran Canfield

Oran Canfield releases "Freefall" his childhood memoirs. Oren finished second place in the 1986 IJA Juniors Championships, behind Robbie Weinstein and in front of Mark Bakalor... although this article places him third, the IJA records show him finishing second.

A brief description of the book from Amazon.com...
Whether he was performing the circus as a reluctant child juggler, living in a punk rock commune or being staying with a coke-addled cop in Mexico on a school exchange program, Oran Canfield never had a normal childhood.After being abandoned as a baby by his motivational guru father (Jack Canfield, author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books) Oran spent time with a succession of friends, relatives, teachers, commune dwellers, socialist rebels and circus clowns. But Oran's life only truly entered freefall when he became addicted to heroin at the age of twenty-three. His parents are again united in their desire to make him quit, but Oran is convinced that he is beyond all help ... Freefall is Oran's remarkably honest, often hilarious and compulsively readable memoir, which shows that sometimes you have to hit rock bottom in order to start living life fully, and for yourself.

2 comments:

Mark Bakalor said...

In truth, there were quite a few errors in the book.

Regarding competition placement: Oran did indeed take third to Robbie and I, though that was in the IJA Western Regional competitions which took place in Isla Vista, California the April before the San Jose convention.

A Fettucini Brother said...

Thanks for the comment/correction Mark. I have not read the book at all, just the story on it and then referenced the IJA site to check on/verify the competition results.
Glad to know that you are tuning in. Please feel free to send me any good juggling news that you might know about over there on the left coast.