FROM LINDSAY LESLIE in Scotland

 

I am very pleased to have been elected one of the IJA correspondents. I hope I can keep up a reasonable flow of news so that I live up to the honor given.

 

I have enclosed a photo of my barber pole gimmick which is my answer to devil sticks (Editor's note: Lindsay enclosed a color photograph which could not be reproduced in the Newsletter of himself working with a "stick" longer and thicker than a normal devil stick, apparently a perfect cylinder, and painted with large red and white stripes, i.e, a barber pole). I developed this gimmick by chance when I started to practice devil stick moves

using cardboard rolls which. are used to store dress and curtain material on, and as my clubs and rings were colored red and white at that time, the name just struck me as I painted the first one. By the way, I go through a lot of barber poles -­they get damaged as quickly as Badminton shuttlecocks, but they are easy enough to make. I stuff two sheets of newspaper and paste in at both ends; this gives added strength at the ends and stops the clunk noise given off when a hollow cylinder is knocked. I must mention that although I make all my own props, I do not make them for sale for two reasons: first, on close inspection they are not too well finished; and, second, as they are mostly made of wood, paper, etc., they require frequent repair and renewal.

 

Around July sometime John McPeak sent me a letter informing me that the Jonny James trick I explained in the March-April 1977 Newsletter which I thought was original was in fact performed about fifty years ago by none other than Enrico Rastelli.

 

John saw a news cutting photo of Rastelli doing the large and small ball trick in Karl-Heinz Ziethen's juggling collection when he was performing in Germany. I received another letter today from John McPeak who tells me that Bobby May was the first American juggler to work in Israel at the "Caliph," fifty meters from where John is currently performing his act at the Caravan Club in Tel Aviv. John leaves Israel at the beginning of October for Paris.

 

Ireland's first-ever IJA juggle-in was held August 18-19 this year when Fred Griffin looked up Bobby Menary in Northern Ireland and spent a couple of days with him. Fred, a well known IJAer from New York, sure gets around; he was also at this year's Delaware convention.

 

After reading through the article on group juggling in the June-July Newsletter (thanks to Velva Walden's translation from the German), I thought it might be worth mentioning a system I call "Rallies at Random" which I have always thought necessary when doing group juggling for an audience using several formations and line-ups. The problem is what to do when one of the group has a miss or drop which hinders or halts a rally (a rally is a predetermined number of passes, usually eight or sixteen, which fits in with most juggling music). In my experience this happens a lot. Well, we choose a master juggler for the group. His job is to give the signal when each rally will commence, and he is the juggler whom everyone has to synchronize to or keep in step with at all times during the act. Let's say one

juggler drops a prop. While he picks it up the others in the group keep doing the cascade to themselves as if it were part of the act, but when the butter-fingered juggler has got in step with the master juggler again, all predetermined counts are lost. So where do they start? Well, the master juggler checks that all are in step and in position, and then he gives the signal "Yep" just as a prop leaves his left hand. All jugglers then know that when the prop they have just thrown from their left hand reaches their right hand, this is the one that starts the first pass of the rally. I have found this better than making a complete stop for a restart, especially after a drop.

 

Rallies at Random is best practiced with two jugglers and six props, one of which is a different color (if you use clubs, fit a colored sock over the body of one club to distinguish it). The master juggler starts the cascade with two regular props and the marked prop. The other juggler then starts his cascade in step (in hand) with the master juggler and waits for the signal to commence the Rally of passes. When the master juggler throws the marked prop with his left hand he calls "Yep" and the other juggler knows that when the marked prop goes to the master juggler's right hand it will be the one which starts the rally. When both jugglers have tried being the master juggler, remove the sock or colored prop and you will quickly understand the timing.