Page 12 October 1980
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TARMAC THE MAGNIFICENT (Anonymous) Moving
right along (after a long holiday) from the esoteric to the concrete,
Tarmac offers a few suggestions for those tired of the standard balls,
clubs and rings. For instance: Toilet
brushes-Looking for a cheap club which can be juggled without waking
the baby / neighbors and tends not to destroy fragile objects? Pick up
three or four toilet brushes. To be feasible juggling brushes, the
bristles must be symmetrical all around the brush end, rather than only
on one side. The perfect brush will have a wooden handle. I further
quieted my set by putting one
of those bumpy rubber thimble-like things cashiers use for counting
money over the end of each handle. Whether the "club" lands on
its bristles or its handle it is quiet. and I got away with practicing
four in an apartment with a grouchy lady beneath. If you want to get
fancy. you can enamel the handle and spray-paint the bristles, dropping
glitter among them when still wet. These have good shock-absorbing
qualities when juggled from unicycles. If your audience is offended by
your juggling toilet brushes. tell them you are juggling hedgehogs on
spits.
Glass
balls - An English
juggler, Lynn Thomas, buys ball-sized transparent glass balls from
fishing shops for his street act. They are normally used to keep nets
afloat, but Lynn has
another angle. He has a kid blow bubbles from a simple commercial bubble
wand into a top hat. He then reaches in, removes three of the
"bubbles" (his floats) and juggles them. The kid then keeps
blowing bubbles at his pattem as he juggles. The effect is quite
magical. Scarf
balls- Wind often makes the juggling of scarfs outside a bit dodgey.
Try this compromise. Sew or tie a small dog ball to one comer of a filmy
scarf. Now try juggling three of these. For the best effect your
patterns should be high, wide and handsome - and relatively simple. Big
cascades, reverse cascades, haIf-showers and showers air look good. Vegetables,
etc. - For those of you into organic juggling, here is a nice bit of
the it'shard-to-juggle-things-of-different-sizes school. (The trick was
stolen from someone whose name I forget.) Get a large cabbage, an orange
and a peanut. Show them to the audience. Then
make a big production of shelling the peanut. Throw the shell away and eat
one kernel. Split another kernel, eat one half of that, and now juggle the
three bits: cabbage, orange and one-fourth of a peanut. It's not hard, but
it is a stunt people remember. Chickens
- I think it was Lloyd Timbertake who thought this up, but there is
always someone who did it sooner than the person who claims to have done
it first. Feathertess chickens found in novelty shops make nice juggling
props once you stiffen them up properly. Do this by making a Y -shaped
device from a coat hanger wire tied to a dowel or bit of broomstick. Bend
the ends of the wire double so they won't pierce your chicken, then shove
the whole contraption down the bird's open mouth, wire first so the two
protruding wire bits each go into a leg. The dowel fills the neck and
body. One carpet tack through the chicken's head holds the thing together
and you juggle it like a club, catching the chicken's neck. You can juggle
three chickens while making ridiculous barnyard noises |