Soon the lights come up, and we are back at Mostly Magic, a New York night club where magicians and their followers commune to witness the impossible. People are a bit surprised when they behold the creator of the light show. Somehow, he looks a little younger, or maybe a little shorter, or maybe just a little more human than what they had imagined.

The ordinary blends with the mystical as a methodical clicking sound emanates from five penny-filled tennis balls. They cascade through all the major patterns - and a few more obscure ones - as if glued to the air, followed by an exuberant club routine so precise that the front row gasps as clubs nar­rowly miss their heads, while the jugglers marvel at such unusual variations as "reverse back-crosses." This is not a light and airy style; one can feel the twisting of the wrists and the reaching of the fingers as they carve a path for the objects, molding rather than expanding the space around them.

The complexities seem to dissolve as the juggler pulls a red stage ball from his prop bag, explaining that "This represents the essence of my work." As the music becomes more meditative, the ball rolls up and down his forearms, changing direction at the elbows, onto the head, around the face, drops to the feet where it becomes engaged in a game of catch between them, only to be kicked up into an unbelievable balance on the tip of the nose. Still it is the final sequence which seems most beguiling: the ball balances on the back of the juggler's wrist, which gradually rises as he spirals around faster and faster until his arm is almost vertical, when both sphere and juggler sink to the floor in a gesture of obeisance to the forces which bind them together. An ordinary red ball has suddenly taken on global dimensions for those who are touched by it.

Those who can tell a juggler by his claws might have guessed the performer to be Tony Duncan (no relation to Isadora or the yo-yo), who proclaims as his motto, "Why do something merely simple and spectacular when you can do something so beautiful and subtle and complex that people don't even notice?"

When asked how such a vocation took hold of his life, Duncan recalls its fairy-tale beginnings. Two friends were invited to spend the evening with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia and his niece in Washington DC. After dinner the niece requested each of them to demonstrate a skill typical of their culture.

While Duncan's friend gave a modest presentation of some juggling skills, Duncan cooked his best French toast. Evidently the damsel preferred the pointless to the practical, but our toastmaker had the last laugh two years later when he earned the reputation of "top juggler" in Dupont Circle, then the DC jugglers' hangout, and was featured on PM Magazine.