· Garbo: A couple of weeks into the exposition Garbo dreamed up the idea of getting inside an EXPO garbage can and declaring himself "EXPO's smallest pavilion." He smuggled a park can out of the grounds and rigged it with a seat and sight gags, then smuggled it back in. When the guy in charge of the cans found out, he became very hurt and said, "I would have given him one..."

 

Garbo did about 15 minutes inside the can with puns on garbage, some neat sight gags and a guided tour of his pavilion. Leaping out of the can, he then did an excruciating series of acrobatic flips, a very tidy three ball routine and five balls. His finish trick was to balance a running, bladed chainsaw on his chin. That's the kind of trick that prompts people to get out their cameras, just in case!

 

· Circus Shmirkus: I figured that I'd include our act just for the sake of completeness... The theme of our show is two fairly dense characters who are better jugglers than they think. But they're trying to impress with bombastic theatrics. We start with a three club pass, including hats and shoes and whatever else we find lying around, and work up to six. We do a bunch of four-beat tricks, including the eponymous "Steve Trick," which is usually done by Fred for some reason.

 

After this Fred gets stuck doing four while I go get another club and we pass seven. We follow that with a long stealing routine. We usually ended the show with

our box bit. A brief summary of that ­ we've both got two boxes and fight for control of a fifth. We get tied up with each other and do body tricks with each other's appendages, then decide to resolve it with a six box synchronized contest that ends with each of hopelessly tangled. You know, quality stuff!

 

· Jim Jackson: A European-style clown who has a nice twist to ping-pong ball juggling. Through sleight-of-hand and a bicycle pump, ping-pong balls multiply in his mouth until he's got five of them jammed in there, looking like a chipmunk with the mumps. He then spits them in a hand­assisted cascade.

 

· Los Trios Ringbarkus: These two guys from Australia aren't jugglers but they do the funniest juggling bit I've seen. They play a pair of nerdy characters who are .almost strangled with stage fright. They timidly announce that it's time for their juggling act, and bring out a bag of day­old buns. They gently toss them out to the audience and invite the audience to toss them back. Of course, one always comes back a bit too hard for their liking. The nerds throw them at the crowd a little harder, and soon the whole thing disintegrates into a wild bun-throwing brawl. Mark my words, Gatto will be doing it in Las Vegas within the year!

 

Finally, there are two moments that I will always cherish from our weeks out west. First, when Fred and I headed into the Karamazov's dressing room to say hello and they were all standing there buck naked. I figure, that has to count for something. The second, and my favorite, came when I was strolling through Vancouver's Granville Mall. There was a guy cocooned in a battered army surplus blanket, and he was playing a harmonica. He had a bedraggled little terrier with him, and when the guy played the high notes the dog howled along. You can't do better than that!