From tiemann@spot.Colorado.EDU Wed Mar 29 10:00:29 GMT 1995 Article: 18588 of rec.juggling Newsgroups: rec.juggling Path: hal.COM!nntp-sc.barrnet.net!netsys.com!nntp-ucb.barrnet.net!agate!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!gatech!psuvax1!news.cac.psu.edu!newsserver.jvnc.net!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!nott!pnfi!gateway!spot.colorado.edu!tiemann From: tiemann@spot.colorado.edu (TIEMANN BRUCE) Subject: Magnus Nicholls, and also EIU and 5 balls Message-ID: Sender: juggling@pnfi.forestry.ca Reply-To: tiemann@spot.Colorado.EDU Organization: Petawawa National Forestry Institute, Canadian Forestry Service Date: Wed, 29 Mar 1995 00:37:19 GMT Lines: 104 In honor of his coming centennial, I'd like to share how Magnus Nicholls (or was it his brother?) has influenced my juggling life. I had thought it was only tangentially juggling-related when I started writing it, ..but see below! My grandparents had a bed & breakfast place in upstate New York, not too far from where I grew up, and they apparently hosted Magnus for a night once while he was visiting the northeast. He juggled briefly for them, impressing them mightily, but I won't even tell you how many they said he did for them, because when *I* juggled for them, having just learned, they couldn't tell how many I was doing, and it wasn't that many! Besides juggling for them, he also told them a bit of his personal life, and in particular one of his many jokes he pulled on his first wife. He evidently was quite a prankster, and not everybody took his "jokes" in quite the same humor that she was able to, at least at first. Rastelli, for example, didn't find Magnus's antics the least bit funny. He had an identical twin (who his wife knew), I think his name was Ingvar or Ingvay - something like that, I don't recall - and he was also in the wedding party. The joke was, they switched during the wedding, so the person his wife gave the ring to, and later kissed during the ceremony, was actually Magnus's brother, and not Magnus himself. Of course noone else in the ceremony knew that this had happened because they looked so similar, (of course, they had switched jackets), and she didn't find out until later that night, and there was a certain scar missing from his torso, and a certain person in his birthday suit waiting in the closet, who had such a scar. She was shocked at first, but took it in humor, having been willing to marry him, after all! Nevertheless, she got her revenge while giving a toast at a banquet later that year, in which she humiliated her brother-in-law for an embarassing thing "he" had done, but actually it was Magnus who had done it, and of course noone else present was the wiser. My grandfather told me this story often, and with great gusto, while I was growing up, and of course it was embellished a bit more, and so took some time to tell. I endured its repetition because he enjoyed telling it, and was a great storyteller. And frankly, it was pretty funny, even when you'd heard it many times before and have a good memory. I'm no storyteller; I'm sorry that I can't tell it so well; I'm not doing it justice. My grandfather died in 1979 when I was 13, and I never heard the story again. I haven't even thought about it in the last 15 years; only reading other's posts about Magnus reminded me of it. I am no master of my unconscious mind, as anyone who knows how I feel about performing knows, but, while rereading this post for typos, and in thinking about Magnus, I am astonished to realize that switching things around, without anyone being the wiser is exactly what I had intended to do with siteswaps - balls interchange positions without the hands "ever knowing it". Although I had thought I came up with it on my own, I now have to wonder about how deeply a chance passing of this great man with my grandparents many, many years in the past has affected my juggling and the way I think about it. Chaos theory says that the most minute change in initial conditions of a chaotic system yields an eventually unrecognizably different outcome: "the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil causes a hurricane in Texas." Though I'm sorry to admit that some people find siteswaps about as destructive to the beauty of juggling as a hurricane, perhaps it was just the flap of Magnus's wings, so to speak, alighting on my grandparent's home for just a night, that started it, at least for me. In any case, I have to marvel at the mysterious and wonderful way in which all of our lives, however separated in space or time, are so intertwined. ____________________________ Speaking of wonderful, I had enjoyed the EIU convention last weekend, and I'd especially like to thank Jay and Fritz for not being there, so that I could clean up at the competitions. ;) Also, I thank Chris LaRue and Kevin Smyk for their hospitality. And Peggy for, shall I say, convincing me to attend it. (Oh - and Ben - I got the fish, and they're UGLY!!! but they work just fine for six and seven, but not eight. Didn't try nine. The color's fine... it's the shape I haven't quite gotten used to yet. Not that I expected anything different, of course!) I recall being told "37 mins, 56 seconds" (by Stuart Celarier?) for my winning 5-ball run in Montreal right after I stopped, but I also remember that the time printed in JW was different, and for all I know the JIS has yet a different one. I'm sorry I didn't hear the people chanting "Anthony, Anthony" while I was still going, or that I was "only" 7 minutes from eclipsing his 45:02 run of five clubs; if I had, I woulda gone for it, and maybe even the nice, clean, one-hour mark. Geez, to think that *I personally* could have caused Anthony so much trouble as to waste another afternoon, taking the record back from me... Rats. -boppo "Directions: Take these pills for stomach pain." Uh, I'm not feeling so well... My stomach hurts!!! ----------------------------------------- "Pull down for fire." Whoooooosh!!! Crackle, crackle... ----------------------------------------- etc...