- Reed Payne and Cristina Ramos-Payne of The Juggling Paynes announce the birth of their son, Chase Allen Payne, on May 20. He joins his big sister, Marina, as the newest member of the New York Juggling Club.

 

- This year's Davidson College Freshman Juggling Poll showed a dramatic increase in the juggling ability of the Class of 2000 over that of members of the previous five classes. Juggler's World editor Bill Giduz has conducted a face-to-face survey of incoming students at the college where he works to compile a historical record of how many can do a few tosses of a three ball cascade. In the Class of 2000, 42% of 189 male students can juggle, and 21 % of the 225 female students polled can juggle - almost double last year's figure. The overall total for the entire class is 30% jugglers, which continues the stead trend upward during the history of the survey. Here is a summary of the results to date: Men: (1996 - 42%, 1995 ­ 33%, 1994 - 33%, 1993 - 29%,1992 - 32%, 1991- 27%). Women: (1996 - 21%,1995­11%,1994 - 8.3%,1993 - 7.7%,1992 - 9%, 1991 - 9%). Overall: (1996 - 30%,1995 - 22%, 1994 - 20.7%,1993- 20%,1992 - 21%,1991­18%). Giduz invites others to conduct surveys of groups to compile more accurate figures on juggling ability in the general population.

 

- Rodger French served as production coordinator for Bizzoso Art Park, a 17 -night vaudeville extravaganza held in Atlanta in conjunction with the Olympics. Thanks to grants from Coca-Cola and the Rockefeller Foundation, the Art Park presented visitors with five hours of free entertainment nightly on two stages underneath a large circus tent. Among the performers were French and Toni Shifalo as Lenny and La Banana, and local Atlanta jugglers Andy Ford, Dave Altman and Bruce Plott.

 

- The cover of ComputerWorld's "The 100 Best Places to Work" special issue pictures Michael Radcliff (chief information officer of Owens Corning) juggling three bean bags.

 

Page 1 shows the seven members of the company's "global development team" also juggling three bags. The magazine's article entitled "Counting the Intangibles," reports that jugglers are everywhere in the information systems department of the company's Toledo, Ohio, headquarters. Radcliff is quoted as saying, "Juggling is a great metaphor for what we are doing, which is getting everybody involved, mastering their competencies and learning by doing." The headquarters employees all learned to juggle at an information systems training workshop, and those positive results have prompted the company to offer juggling instruction in training sessions for branch employees also.

 

- IJA championships director and original MIT juggler Arthur Lewbel got calls from several media outlets following publication of his article, "The Science of Juggling," in Scientific American magazine last November. The most interesting outcome was a six­minute piece that was shown on "Video Journal," a program produced by the New York Times. It was filmed mostly at the MIT juggling club, but also includes NASA footage of juggling on the space shuttle. The show included Lewbel, Barry Rosenberg, Dan Foley, Rhodes scholar Toby Ayer, and IJA People's Choice winner Gil Pontius. Lewbel also gave a talk on the science of juggling at Brandeis University, where he teaches economics. "It was surely the first time an economics professor has been invited to give a lecture to the physics department," he noted.

 

- The "Orange Juice" affiliate newsletter reports that the Orange County Fair in California featured four jugglers this year ­ Atsuko Koga, Barnaby, Dan Wiles and Brad French. Barnaby did ball spinning tricks, four ball bouncing, rings and his trademark juggling balls while playing a guitar. He also performed the Bobby May trick of lighting a cigarette by tossing a lit match behind the back to be caught in the mouth. Dan Wiles from Sacramento included five ball work, miniature bicycling with volunteers from the audience, unicycling, four torch tricks and rope tricks. French and Koga took turns doing their acts as part of the 45-minute "Bijou Magic Show." French performed comedy juggling, including a trick on two ladders with three torches and a potted cactus. Koga's did stylish Japanese juggling, rolling coins, boxes and balls atop parasols of varying sizes, including a three-tier parasol of her own invention. She also devil­sticked assorted objects such as a parasol, a broom and a regular devilstick. Diabolo work finished out her routine.

 

- Congratulations to Owen Morse of "The Passing Zone" and his wife, Dorli, who are first-time parents. Helen Stephanie Morse was born August 27.

 

- Wool E. Bull, the mascot of the Durham Bulls Baseball Club, proves that variety arts and baseball are a wonderful combination as he performs at the home games of the club in Durham, N.C. (photo by Greg DeKoenigsberg)

 

- Festival regular Joanne Swaim (r) could not attend the Rapid City festival because of an urgent meeting with Republican Presidential candidate Bob Dole. Dole reportedly offered that Swaim be his running mate on the Republican ticket in November, but she turned it down when Dole declined to promise her that the IJA could hold the 1998 festival at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.