Saturday, June 19, 1999 | 10:17 a.m.
For today's youth, learning to master the art of moving physical objects through the air with great precision seems a little less thrilling than video kick-boxing.
It's not nearly as expressive as playing a musical instrument nor as aggressively heart pounding as playing football.
But as Penn Jillette puts it, "It's something you can learn really cheap and by yourself."
Not only that, "It's a delightful kind of special thing."
Juggling that is.
When Jillette -- the taller, more boisterous half of Penn & Teller -- began juggling it was practically a secret of the gods -- equally mysterious as magic.
Today it's accessible to everyone. Juggling kits are sold at toy stores all around town, classes are offered at community centers and motor-skill masters are making a comfortable living.
It even has its own special day.
The International Jugglers Association proclaimed today World Juggling Day, a day to raise worldwide awareness of juggling. Jillette was named honorary chairjuggler.
Las Vegas' event took place Friday. Bus loads of children rolled into Sunset Park for the annual Clark County Kids Games, where they were entertained by Jillette, Michael Goudeau from the Lance Burton Show and the Passing Zone duo of Jon Wee and Owen Morse. The performers donated their time.
"I'm promoting juggling because it's ... OK, juggling isn't important," Jillette said jokingly.
"It doesn't take a village to juggle, that's for sure," he said of the loner sport. "It's actually a breakdown of the community."
For Jillette, the endless hours spent alone tossing balls and other items into the air became a profitable career move. Although juggling is rarely a part of his act, like other entertainers, it opened some doors.
"The most successful juggler in the world today is Tom Hanks," he said. W.C. Fields was also a juggler.
Artistic decisions for the performance are developed after the skill is perfected. Eventually, "all of it is writing the act," he said.
"Wherever you go anyone will watch you for about 15 seconds," he said. "But no matter how good you are, they'll quit watching."
"Bottom-level jugglers make more money than medium-level comedians," he said, "but there's no head room."
Even so, he added, if someone learns 12 minutes of juggling, they should be able to work for $850 a week for the rest of their life.
Jillette began juggling at the age of 12 when he a friend, Mike Moschen, also a renowned juggler now, made a trip to the library in Greenfield, Mass., to learn about the craft.
By the time he was 19, he and Moschen had saved enough money to rent a high-ceilinged apartment in New York City where they spent eight hours a day, five days a week, practicing throws -- thousands of them over and over for four months.
"There's a certain kind of practice that you don't get in most (other things)," he said. "It's just raw practice. It's straightforward. Things happen on a nonintellectual level."
"There's a purity in it that relates to something else," he added. "Once you've accepted the fact that something is possible and can be learned, then you just know that if you just do it over and over again, there is a part of you that will learn it."
The most wonderful thing about juggling is that it's completely and utterly binary, he said.
Although Las Vegas is home to "more working jugglers within 10 miles of you than anywhere in the world," there are no formal activities scheduled today.
"I can't stress to you how insignificant this is," Jillette said. "It's just musings on something I'm obsessed with. If I were in charge, Juggling Day wouldn't happen."
Instead of hosting Juggling Day events, Penn & Teller will be performing at today's Golden Rainbow benefit for AIDS in Nevada at the Luxor hotel-casino.
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