The Way the Ball Bounces - Roger Montandon

 

Unusual artifacts of juggling interest are fairly scarce. One of the most fascinating that I have seen is the stone carving, Juggling Boy. It was hand carved from a 25 pound slab of Indiana limestone by Tulsan A. J. Sumner, a former stone cutter who did the scroll work on several Tulsa buildings. This sculpture was done around 1927. The boy is holding an apple in each hand and one is balanced on his forehead. The detaiIs are superb, with the apples having their stems, the fingers individually carved with fingernails under which one can almost detect a bit of dirt, a large tear in the boy's pants, and many other intricate details. Once, a friend, admiring the sculpture remarked about the "unbuttoned" buttonhole. Sumner told him that he had buttoned the jacket once, but the kid keeps tearing it apart---juggling all the time!

 

Tops magic magazine ran a series called "The Juggler's Art" by Fred Merrill in the July and August 1947 issues and continued in the January, February, and May 1948 issues. It has been reprinted in the August-September 1973 double issue of The New Tops. It is

a very elementary treatment of ball juggling with practice moves given the main coverage, but collectors who missed the original run might like to save the reprint.

 

The cover of the RB&BB circus program [102nd edition] has an unusually good artist's conception of a tramp clown [the late Otto Griebling (1896-1972) --Editor] juggling 4 battered tin plates.

 

In American Heritage for April 1960 there is an article about the early developings of motion pictures and one paragraph reads in part, "Since the first motion-picture camera resembled an upright piano and weighed nearly a ton, the subjects that could be photographed were rather limited. But Edison was a bit of an impresario. Recalling his success with vocal and instrumental performers from Manhattan , he summoned jugglers, acrobats,........ Would some of our New York IJAers care to do some research to see if the summoned jugglers can be identified?

 

A letter from Bert Sikorsky, president of Clowns of America, advised that his son Tom traveled all last summer with Circus Kirk, an all student 3 ring tented show. The center ring Juggler was Craig Carlson from Minnesota who ranked #7 in National Collegiate Gymnastics and the third member was Mike Straka [now a member of IJA] from Williamsport, Pennsylvania . Tom also has a unicycle act with three sizes and has thoughts about a tight wire unicycle act. Both Tom and Mike hope to return this summer.

 

Fumbles the juggler mumbles: "Tossing in your sleep won't make you the World's Greatest!"

 

And that's the way the ball bounces!