Greetings from Montreal!

Hello, fellow jugglers all over the net. I'm writing this from beautiful downtown Montreal, and since Steve Salberg asked for an update, I decided to go ahead and offer my humble point of view for your entertainment and consideration.

Bill Gilliland, Qarin Van Brink, and myself arrived here on Friday night after the long flight from San Francisco. We found out why it was so hard to get hotel rooms... in addition to the IJA fest, there's also an International Fireworks Festival and the Francofolies (a French rock music festival) going on, each of them bringing hundreds of people right into this immediate area. This is also Gay Pride Week, and I imagine we'll be seeing some interesting things as the days progress, culminating in the grand parade right outside the gym door on Saturday.

While we are being just a little clumsy with the money and having to get help with some of the menus and being mildly ridiculed by French speakers, we have found the majority of Montrealers to be friendly and helpful with us. Weve been doing the touristy things all weekend, like exploring the waterfront and visiting the Biodome, but today as we were plodding through the Insectarium we kept mumbling, "Isn't it time for the festival yet?" (we had a little appetizer of juggling last night... after we watched the last fireworks show late in the evening, we found 99 Juniors medalist Emile Carrey and partner Nick doing their street show -- which was excellent -- and bumped into Simone from San Francisco and her sweetie Ben Jennings from London, bouncer extraordinaire... and had a little impromptu juggling event in the dark at 11 p.m. accompanied by bad music from the 70s).

So after being good tourists, we took the Metro back to the University stop and checked out the fest site, even though officially it won't be open until tomorrow morning. Some Renegades and Peter from Oddsports were setting up their vendor spots, and a few folks were throwing some props around, but in general the feeling was one of anticipation. The gym is underground, and about three basketball courts in size, which surprised me... if there are more than 300 people here, it will be quite crowded. Also, the floor was lined with new blue vinyl which was offgassing like crazy and is rotten to do pirouettes upon. But it might turn out to be fine... if the ventilation clears the odor, and we have a few other gyms available, it should work out great.

While we were hanging out there, Dan Bennett and Craig Barnes showed up... also Dave and Athena from AZ and some new folks from the east coast. We headed out for some dinner, and managed to choose (out of hundreds of potential places) an Italian joint that already had a table full of jugglers: Erin from Registration, Dr. Stardust, Stuart Celarier, Melonhead, Capt Mike and Bill Renegade. On the way back, we bumped into Perry and Bud (who both were headed off to bed).

The weather has been cooperative, our hotel turned out to be wonderful (many of the Francofolie artists are staying here), and the city is a busy one -- there are crowds of people out on the street, both on the sidewalk and driving, until 2 or 3 a.m. every night so far. The area we are in is a curious one... in one direction, you have the Chinatown (Quartier Chinois); near that is Old Montreal, full of touristy geegaw shops and cafes and art museums and the Basilica Notre Dame; just to the west is a sort of sleazy part of town, full of sex shops and peep shows, but just beyond that is Centre-ville, the business and upscale shopping district. To the west and north are rows and rows of restaurants and cafes, and then the Latin Quarter, and further west is the city's gay village area (lots of bars and clubs). There's a feeling of history with the towering churches and stone walls, but they are flanked by Burger King and McDonalds. People who only speak English are clearly the minority, but most of the folks we meet are bilingual and patient with us.

Merci for reading this far, and if I can log in again while I'm here, I'll try to keep you all updated as we go along. Tomorrow is the first offical day of the fest... I'm doing the Clubs and Affiliates meeting (though my board liaison quit last week) in the afternoon, and the Public Show ought to be tomorrow night.

And please note: apologies in advance for any misspellings of names and places -- I'm not in a position to check them. Also, I'd like to thank Qarin for letting me hog her laptop and the phone line to get this posted...

Montreal Diary, Day 2

After a strangely sleepless night (which started by crashing Qarin's computer twice and erasing and rewriting the first installment, so that I didn't get to bed until after 3 a.m.), I awoke later than I intended to. After scrambling around the hotel room to make sure we had everything we wanted for the fest (our hotel is a good 15 minutes marche from the fest site, so we didn't want to have to dash back for anything), we started off through the wet weather for the first full day of the festival at about 11 a.m. Stopped at an indoor mall on the way for excellent quiche and creme de noisette coffee -- turned out to be hazelnut flavored.

The reg desk was humming with activity, under the watchful eyes of registrar Bob Mahler and manager Jerry Martin and their able crew. Secretary Richard Dingman saw me and handed me a handful of printed emails and mailed messages relating to the IJA Clubs and Affiliates, which I had been wondering about (Walt Szeezil, the director in charge of C&A, had asked me to help with them... but since he'd resigned a while back, I wasn't sure if the board still wanted me to work with them. Apparently they did). I asked about where the C&A meeting was to be held later that afternoon, but nobody seemed to know. Ah, well, plenty of time to find out.

The shirt is a pastel clown, sort of what I think Impressionistic would be if I knew what Impressionistic was. They were on pale purple, pumpkin, charcoal, and (I think) a denim blue. It's a nice shirt, the best of the last three years in my opinion. We still have to wear wristbands, but it's OK to have them on your shoe or backpack instead of being forced to wear them on a hand or foot. Also we have nametags available, for the first time in three years, which is a godsend for people like me who remember faces but are idiots with names. The program gives the name of the theatre but there is absolutely no map or any information whatsoever to help us find either the theatre or the workshop space... fortunately the local Montreal jugglers come through in spades and print up piles of maps of the local area, including the workshops, theatre, and Renegade show spaces. They are staffing an info table wearing bright yellow shirts with question marks on them, and are all being as helpful as possible for confused newcomers.

Down to the gym... hey, that's Jason Garfield waiting for the elevator! The rumor is that 700 people have preregistered (why, I don't know... as far as I can tell, there aren't any perks for preregistering), and that the theatre only holds 700. I make a mental note not to be late for the Michel Lauziere show at 8:30 tonight.

The room isn't as chemical-smelling as it was last night, mercifully, though it does seem chilly. But I remember that we've got hundreds more to show up, and all those sweaty bods will warm the place up nicely.

Martin Frost, who had been considering not coming due to a cold and a past horrible experience with a congested descent on another flight, has decided to show up. Many faces swim in and out of view, and if I tried to list them all I'd be here all night. While chatting about festival construction with Mark Haywood of the Madison Area Jugglers, Joanne Swaim's dad introduces himself and we talk about homeschooling (he's a 30-year veteran public school teacher, and he's all for homeschooling). I spot some really pretty juggling balls in his bag, and ask to try them... sparkly rainbow stretchy things, I demand jokingly that he sell them to me. He points to Oddsports and I make a beeline to buy six of them before they are snatched up. Maybe this will be the incentive I need to get five down solid...

My roomie Bill (aka JUGGLE magazine's Spin Doctor) is ecstatic to find out that Donald Grant is here, and even more tickled that Donald has read his stuff and recognizes him. Watching Donald do diabolo is like watching a fish swim... you know you can't do it, but he makes it look so natural and easy. There are also the bungie diabolo bouncer toys set up, and Bill has a great time with them until he misses a cord and nails a spectator.

I pass for a while with Justin McCoy, an old Damento who has been teaching Sideshow 101 for the SF School of Circus Arts (acrobatics, contortionism, fire-eating, sword-swallowing, walking on glass, on and on). He's relocating yet again to Seattle, and I'm happy to hear that he's hooked up with the funky Circus Contraption. He's here as Jane Barnes' swing dance teaching partner, but when he finds out that workshop leaders have to pay to get into the fest, he volunteers to work for Craig as his assistant for the competitions show so that he can attend the rest of the fest.

I finally meet Alan Howard, who is working with Stan Allen on JUGGLE magazine. I want to be mad at him because he's doing the job I wanted, but I can't... he's a sweet and smart guy who seems genuinely interested in my ideas and input. And he's been doing a good job, too. I swallow my snit and have a nice chat with him.

Bill and I sneak across the street for a midafternoon snack at the Sauginet Bistro, a little bar and cafe mere yards from the entry of the Sports Centre. The waiters are boisterous and friendly, and we enjoy our meal (great fries. in fact, we haven't had bad fries since we got here). Martin wanders in and Bill leaves us to go back to the gym while Martin and I chat about the upcoming Affiliates meeting. It's three thirty, and the meeting's at four... time to find out where it's going to be held.

I spot Norm (Schneiderman, chief administrative officer of the IJA and newly appointed board member) at the reg desk and ask him if he knows. Nope, he says to wait for Ginny (Rose, the fest coordinator) to show up. About five minutes before four, she tells him by radio that the meeting is supposed to be in the workshop building, two blocks away. I don't want to go that far from the juggling floor, remembering that folks tend to walk in and out of this meeting... I want it to be accessible and easy for people to find. I ask Norm if there's anything else at all on site, but he's not able to help me out. I try to catch Ginny's eye, but she's not looking like she's wanting to talk to me at all. Feeling frustrated, I start looking around the immediate area for someplace to meet, while people are asking me where to go for the meeting. I spot a janitor and ask him: is there anyplace that me and a few folks could sit down and meet close to the gym? Sure, he says... how about this classroom just outside the gym door? He unlocks a door, and lo and behold, I see the perfect room... three tables and a whole bunch of chairs. Voila!

I ask Norm to announce this over the loudspeaker, but it seems that the PA has sprouted legs and wandered off. A helpful fellow (Dan?) finds it and announces the meeting. Over 20 clubs are represented and we have a very productive and positive gathering for the next hour (strangely, the fest videographer comes in and films us gabbing for the first half). I feel like we have some great energy and ideas in this group, and they are eager to offer their talents and resources. I am heartened by the potential for the renewal of an active C&A program.

After this, I greet my third roommate who has just driven in with Arthur Lewbel from Boston: Rick Rubenstein (Rick, Qarin and I have to leave the fest early on Saturday to get back to the SF Bay Area for a wedding that we are juggling in... we will miss the closing Cascade of Stars show, so somebody else is going to have to take notes on that for you). Chuck Fernald shows up with pictures of his new baby girl, who he promises to show off at the Lodi fest later this year.

Qarin, Madelyn Dinnerstein, and I sit and stare in utter awe as Heather Hackett, Darin Marriot and Peter Kaseman (probably botched all those names horribly, sorry) run fifteen clubs. Fifteen clubs flying through the air between three people is a hell of a lot of clubs. Heather tells me that she and Darin are competing in teams again, and asks me to braid her hair again (I did it in Primm, and I'll happily do it again... it's the closest I'll ever get to a competition stage, and I'm glad to help her). I also hear that Patrick McGuire, David Cain, Matt Hall and Dorothy Finnigan are competing this year. The other bit of gossip I catch is that Jay Gilligan and Cecile Poncet are leaving the Gandini Juggling Project.

Bill and I run off to dinner with Matt and Lisa, and manage to decipher a French-Vietnamese menu enough to have a delicious meal. We hear their lost luggage nightmare story, and I have flashbacks of being in Niagara all week last year with NO luggage. It all came through with me this year, and I am indeed grateful.

We get back in plenty of time for the 8:30 show, but the gym is virtually deserted. Hmm. I pull out my program, and sure enough it does say that Michel's show is at 8:30... but the presentation of an award of appreciation to Rudy Horn starts at 8. Damn! We boogie over to the show site and find a dozen other jugglers milling around at the unmarked corner trying to find the same thing. We finally find the theatre, which is indeed packed... I will NOT be late again! We come in while some video clips of Rudy's cup stacking routine are playing. He is presented the award by Ernest Montegno (spelling?), and Rudy turns out to be extremely charming and self-effacing. We find out that he has been awarded Germany's highest civilian decoration, but that tonight's standing ovation is only the second he has received in his lifetime.

The Michel Lauziere show flies by -- he does an amazing array of musical inventions and games with audience members, and I will let somebody else go into further detail... but if you have a chance to witness his nutty and creative genius, don't pass it up. He also receives a standing ovation from the sold-out crowd. I get a quick visit in with Bob Nickerson during the intermission, and walk back to the gym with Jerry Martin, who says that registration is running smoothly.

One thing that Jerry confirms is that he won't be doing a fest newsletter again. I'm sad -- I wanted to work on it, but I don't have the energy or resources to crank one out by myself. It's a shame, though, because the issues I collected at Niagara and Primm were some of my most cherished souveniers of my visits. I wonder if anyone else is going to do it.

The Renegades have posted info about their midnight shows... there will be one tonight, but I hear at 11 p.m.that the seats are already filled in the tiny club they have chosen. Back in the gym, I pass clubs with Bill and Simone, and then work on some really frustrating patterns with Chuck (ultimates, simultaneous, both of us crossing... trying to avoid certain collision paths! just insane, but we actually manage a few runs that last more than two seconds). It's hot in the gym... I guess they've turned off the A/C for the night... and I finally decide to bail for the evening. I've got to get to the IJA Member Forum in the morning, scheduled again for the unheard-of hour of 10 a.m. (I haven't woken up before 10 all week, and hear from many friends that they're sorry but they probably won't make it). And I don't feel like fighting the crowd at the Renegade show, either.

So, back to the hotel room to do the laundry and type this up, to organize my thoughts and papers for the member meeting and election day tomorrow, and to rest up for another day of juggling.

Did I mention that the 2001 fest is going to be held in Madison, Wisconsin? No dates yet that I can discern, but I'll post 'em if and when I hear 'em. Well, it's after 2 a.m.... more tomorrow if I can!

Montreal Diary, Day 3

It wasn't a dark and stormy night, but a restless one nonetheless. Bill and I woke up in time to meet the reg desk crew for breakfast by 8:30 a.m. at an Italian place close to the fest that had large and delicious plates of carbohydrates in many flavors for few dollars. Mine was banana and chocolate on French toast.

We headed off to the IJA Members Forum at 10, only to be stymied as to where it was. It had been listed in two different places in the program, and a third undecipherable position appeared on a pad of paper at the reg desk. It was another unnecessary meeting problem.

Well, if you've already been to one of these meetings, you have an idea of what happened. The obscure placement and way-early timing (again) caused a lot of frustration among the members, who dribbled in throughout the whole meeting. Two candidates, Martin Frost and Ben Schoenberg, who both had intended to be there at 10, were forced to miss significant amounts of the event.

Besides the candidates' speeches and introduction of the board (including thanks to the departing board members, Bud Markowitz, Perry Rubenfeld, Sam Kilbourn -- who wasn't at the fest, and Walt Szeezil, who'd just resigned), we met the new board members: Paul Richmond and Norm Schneiderman. (For those keeping score, the only board member who was staying over from the old board was chair Braidy Brown, plus member-for-life Art Jennings).

Once the board intros were done, Walt Szeezil gave a detailed accounting of how he had come to his decision about the Life Member Program. I took copious notes and when I get my brain back, will type them in (along with the info from the Affiliates Meeting). It wasn't pretty but he took the heat for the decision in a way that was simultaneously refreshing and disturbing.

The Q&A session was more or less a round-and-round presentation of complaints about how the LMP was handled, along with other suggestions for better board functioning. Some good points were brought up, and responded to in a respectful manner by the board.

We headed back afterwards to the still sparsely populated gym, and I sat and chatted with the charming Jerry Martin while watching people vote and teasing registrar (and new CAO, by the way) Bob Mahler about splitting his head open after running on the stone stairs... looks like he's got some stitches but was handling the reg desk unfazed.

Bill had dashed back to the hotel for his tripod, because Donald Grant was going to give a diabolo master class in the dojo on the top floor and he wanted to record it. Towards the end I wandered up to watch it wind down. He issued a challenge: if anyone could land this silly whip catch (toss diabolo behind you while skipping rope with the string and catching it blind behind you), he'd buy them a beer. Freak juggler Matt Hall landed it on the second try... I saw it... but nobody else believed it.

After all the diabolos had been herded back into prop bags, Matt, Lisa, Bill, Donald and I went back across the street to the bistro for lunch. Turns out Donald's headed to Frankfurt for a new Cirque show, and he gave us some stories of his performance life and the people he's met. I'm not a huge diabolo nut but it was a great way to spend lunch.

Back to the gym to pass clubs and try not to pay attention to the election results. I'm sure Yvette has already posted the final numbers, so you folks already know that the Open Board were seated without much fanfare.

The first board meeting was at 5 p.m. I have to say that I'm very pleased to find that Norm and Paul are looking to be good board members. Paul in particular has experience as a facilitator, and his skills were quickly put into service. He was quickly elected board chairman and we started to work on our jobs immediately. Mostly, it was agreed that we needed to list and prioritize our tasks before we tackle them, and do what we can to get the enthusiasm of the members that want to help harnessed before the end of the festival.

We also started to talk to Stan Allen about JUGGLE magazine, and we ended our meeting at 6 p.m. as agreed. We will meet again tomorrow and nail down a few more things before we head off home again. I'm sure you will hear more via meeting minutes soon, either through the Insider or the Forum web page, so I'm not going into details here. But I'm encouraged that this group is going to work well together.

A celebratory beer was in order after this, and I headed back over to the bistro again with Stan. Bill and Martin joined us, and after we'd filled up, we headed back to the gym. Most of the festival folks had headed to the youth show, but I had decided not to buy a ticket to it this year. There were movies after, too, and I was just lame and missed those also. Anyone want to catch us up on these?

After some juggling in the gym (Robert Nelson's kid, Kolman, came over and played clubs with me, while Ben oversaw the numbers preliminaries in the back of the gym.

The competition prelims had been going on all day. There were nearly 20 individuals competing, though only five teams and a few more juniors. Joel Heidtman, who had been roped into being a prelim judge, collapsed into a chair next to me at the competitions table (dunno why I was hanging out there, but I was) looking slightly glazed after sitting through nearly 30 performances. I was lame again and didn't write down the finalists, but I'll post 'em tomorrow.

And here I saw Joel get a chance to exhibit some real class... after sitting in that room all day, and then debating with the other judges about who should make it into finals, he managed to find the courtesy and professionalism to sit down with one of the individuals that didn't make the finals and explain to him why he wasn't on that final cut. I know it was hard to deliver that kind of information to that juggler, but I also know that it was important to his development as a competitor in the future. So here's a quick tip of the hat to Joel and his compatriots for their patience and skills... your time invested now will pay off in another great crop of competitors next year.

It turned out that seven individuals were chosen, along with all five teams and six juniors... it's going to be a long show tomorrow night. MC Jack Kalvan arrived... he's got his work cut out for him.

Quite a few folks wanted to bend my ear about board business, so I tried to listen carefully even though I'd had a bellyful of the board already. Martin Mall was doing three diabolo tricks and gathering quite a crowd while his younger brother (whose name escaped me) delighted some folks with magic tricks. The gym cleared out slowly again, this time in preparation for the Renegade show.

I hadn't gone last night, but I'd heard great stuff.... it was crowded, a good show, especially a young Ukrainian girl contact juggler and Jane Barnes/Justin McCoy doing the Lindy Hop. So I decided to forget about the board for a while and watch the Renegade show.

It was a blast. There was standing-room only on the main floor, and we only just snagged some seats up in the overhanging balcony at Faste Fou, the bar and grill that had agreed to hold the show. Tom Renegade presided while a couple of fellows industriously played fiddle and drum celticy-type tunes. Butterfly Man appeared on the scene and at about 12:15 a.m., the show got underway.

I'm being extra-lame for you folks today, and I didn't take notes at this show. Hmm, highlights: Matt Hall doing the tennis-ball-can-and-three-balls routine he's been working on with Tim Kelly and Dan Holzman; Paul somebody from San Francisco doing a fan-magic dance, a hilarious rope illusion, and a long bit with Butterfly involving a deck of cards and a whip. We also had some dude who not only played the dijeridoo, but did that Tibetan monk throat tuva bitonal singing thing. It's pretty creepy-sounding, and so we are going to be treated to a workshop on how to do it ourselves on Friday.

Some kid doing kick-ass yoyo. Really, the show was Butterfly and his interactions with Steve "Yoyoman" from Madison. These two were having a great time riling each other up with whips, a black dildo, marshmallows, and pointed verbal barbs. Well worth wading through the crowds...

Sean McKinney is juggling big red balls in his trademark style outside on the sidewalk, and Jay Gilligan is walking around him holding a tiny camcorder, not only recording Sean but the crowd and their reactions. I wonder if this is a statement in itself, or if Jay is merely recording footage to use in some way for his competitions piece.

The walk home was long, it's 3 a.m. and I know this has been a lame report. I'm operating on very little sleep, and am looking forward to getting unconscious as soon as I can... but I knew if I didn't slam this down right away, I'd never get back to it.

Time to go to bed now. More tomorrow...

Montreal Diary, Day Four

The mouse on my laptop has been slowly going dead for the last few days, and tonight it's gone all the way. So I'm not going to make this a very long installment, I think... it's just too much work to try to edit and clean up by arrow keys. Please forgive me in advance for the sloppy journaling I am about to commit.

So after I got all my journal done last night for you dear folks, it was after 3:30 p.m. My roommates were still out partying (fieldball, volleyball, and combat were the sports of choice, I was later given to understand). I came to at noon and realized with a start that I had to be ready for my second board meeting in less than two hours. Man, that was hard... I just wanted to go back to sleep for another couple hours but it was not to be. Bill very kindly started to make bacon and eggs while I got dressed and fetched some milk and OJ from the cafe below.

Rick and Qarin were summoned by the scent of bacon and coffee, and so we increased our production of breakfast materials. Q decided to hang out in the room a while longer while Bill and Rick and I started the journey to the fest, about a 10 minute walk. It turns out that 10 minutes is adequately sufficient time to thoroughly soak even the most hunched and adroit walkers. Yes, it was raining and yes, I was drenched.

I dashed into the gym and changed into my fest shirt, which I'd stuffed into my prop bag for such an emergency (along with a Lodi festival shirt that I planned to give to Albert Lucas, since Andrew Conway had given one to Anthony Gatto a few months before). Oh, by the way, the attendence was closer to 510, not 700 as I erroneously reported before... bad information source, sorry gang. Anyway, I walked over to the meeting room with Ben, and we did the meeting thing for an hour (I've already written up the minutes, but the lack of a printer has required me to do it the old fashioned way -- paper and pen -- and I don't know when it will hit the website. Soon, though, I promise).

It was a positive and upbeat meeting, though this group is still going to have to practice staying on task. I think an agenda will help, and we just need to get one started.

We broke for an hour, and I met the fellow who is producing the Daily Balls, an little page of meet-the-jugglers that is replacing the daily newsy handout that Jerry Martin used to do. I thought the new edition was lacking a bit of the humor and wickedness of its predecessor, and so I stopped by to try to spice it up with a little gossip here, a little rumor there. The best thing I had was a handout from the Carmine Street Irregulars: a betting pool for tonight's Competitions shows with things like how many vests worn, how many French jokes, how many skateboards, etc. Well, my sense of humor did not mesh at all with this poor fellow's... he looked at me like I was offering to serve him a plate of diced chipmunks or something. I put the sheet away and instead wrote up a nice dry little thing about the IJA election and who won. He looked a lot happier about this scoop, and took it to type it in.

I sighed and turned to look at the new Kaskade, which features Vis Versa on the cover... in the nude. Albert Lucas walked by and saw me, rushed over and gave me a nice big hug, which made me feel good... we've talked on the phone quite a bit but I wasn't sure if he'd remember what I looked like -- we only met in person at the Portland Juggling Festival, and while he did let me braid his hair there, he was also a little tipsy from the afterglow party. It was nice to be remembered.

After Albert left, I was still holding the copy of Kaskade from the pile on the table. It turned out that Lais, one of Kaskade's editors, was standing right there, too. We sat down and had a great discussion about graphic limits in publications and so forth. Stan Allen joined us, and it was quite an interesting conversation until the new CAO, Bob Mahler, poked me and said "It's 4:15." I smacked myself in the head, excused myself from the circle, and dashed in late to the 4 p.m. board meeting. Fortunately I wasn't the only one, but it was still none too bright.

After this meeting wrapped up, I joined Bill, Matt and Lisa for yet another visit to our little bistro across the way. I gave Bill my order and dashed over to the competitions stage, because I'd just remembered that I'd promised to braid Heather's hair for the teams. It was an hour before the competitions were to start, and there was already a line starting to form. I wriggled in and did a quick search for her, but no luck. It wasn't a total loss, though, because I got to see Patrick McGuire warming up for his run. Well worth the walk from the bistro!

Back to the restaurant, I gobbled the burger and we headed back to the theatre. I was evil and cut into line with some pals. We killed time in the long line and then I spotted Heather grinning from one side. She and I ran up to the green room and fixed her long hair up all pretty (and that thing was sturdy... Jane Barnes gave me a handful of bobby pins, and we used 'em all). I managed to snag some primo seats, right behind the Finnigans and next to the judges.

This year, the judging panel consisted of: Rick Rubenstein, Fran Favorini, Todd Smith, Peter Panic, Ben Jennings, David Cain, Linda Peck and Dave Deeble. Jack Kalvan was the emcee, natty in a blue tuxedo jacket, and lovely Peggy Reuss was signing again (but her dress was way too long... we couldn't see her cool juggling tattoo).

Chris Cioppini was the first junior onstage, and he just rocked. He jetted in on a skateboard and did a high energy routine, fast and strong and few drops. Red sparkly shirt, jazzy Vegas-style gestures... sorry, his description is lame because I wasn't going to take notes and changed my mind right after his act. What, you're gonna fire me?

Sam Hartford followed Chris, and while Chris was a hard act to follow, poor Sam just didn't have a good night. He had the slowest, least enthusiastic music of the entire evening... but he did have two really cool moves that probably helped him get into the finals: he did three clubs in a cascade but in helicopters; and he did four clubs, two in one hand regular and two with reverse spins in the other hand at the same time -- seen from the side, it looked amazing.

Jonathan Brady was a powerful 11 year old doing a Mission Impossible act. He listened to a tape telling him to do the act, then burned it (and the smoke later covered his face). Things I remembered from his act include a kickup from three ball Mill's Mess into four ball MM, five balls with tons of tricks, 6 and 7 ball flashes, a very low 5 ball bounce, and five clubs with an under-the-leg throw. My god, this is an ELEVEN year old?!?

15 year old Josiah Jones bobbled coming into his act, and he never really got back on top of it -- he dropped pretty consistently throughout his act. He did have some strong tricks, including a chin balance with a headroll with clubs, five club singles, pirouette under five balls, five balls with one hand reaching behind his back (yes, five balls!), dropping a ball from his head to go from four to five ball Mill's Mess, seven with a pirouette under four, and ball spinning a football... and an 8 ball flash, and 9 on the second try.

It was clear that the judges were going to have a rough time sorting this crowd out, and the next two acts didn't make their jobs any easier. Dorothy Finnigan, a 16-year-old dynamo with the brightest smile in the province took the stage next, as a 1956 wallflower who decided to make the most of it. She started a three ball routine with these big silver balls that looked great against her pink polkadotted dress and long dark hair. I think she did some sort of tennis with five balls, one going over the top of four, which looked unreal. She got her six and seven ball flashes on her first try, but she just had a ton of drops in her club act. Her brother Ben turned around at the end of the act and told us why: she'd accidentally knocked out a contact lens during her three-ball routine, and was flying one-eyed through the rest. We just ached for her, but there wasn't any help for it. She'd done her best and the chips were gonna lie there no matter what.

Nate Siefeld sported the first vest of the evening, and turned in a great routine. He used a few magic tricks -- making his shades disappear and some balls appear from nowhere -- but it was his juggling that rocked. He dashed from three to five clubs, five singles, some ball bouncing and rolling, a funny bit mixing silicones and beanbags, seven balls, rings with some nice color-changing effects, six with pulldown, 7 on his second try, 8 ball flash on his first try.

The teams were up next, and it was a mixed bag this year. We started with two of the Jugheads, a team called the Propellerheads, marching in to Spybreak! by the Propellerheads (you'll recognize it as the lobby music from the movie Matrix). Dan Berman and Peter Frye turned in a nice performance, nothing too terribly technically challenging but showing good teamwork, a few really great saves, and some nice moves. I hope they stay together, they really have potential to do some cool things.

Scott, Kelly and Andrew (didn't get last names) were We're Not Clowns, even though at least one of them was. They had a comedy routine involving a financial demonstration of how they managed their wealth; it was good-natured, upbeat and spirited, but really not all that terribly technically challenging. They finished with a Bruno's Nightmare pattern that they kept dropping, which was too bad.

Two women with unpronounceable names (and who am I to talk?) did some sort of enigmatic dance number to some Windham-Hillish piano music. One of them did some nice contact juggling moves while the other stalked around the stage (contact juggler was in a black slinky dress, stalker was white). I didn't get it but I suppose it lent some class to the evening somehow.

Aha. Now I was going to get to see my braid! Redefining Gravity hit the stage hard and kept running. Heather Hackett and Darin Marriot reprised their Primm pairing, in hot pink shirts and sparkly vests. They looked great, and stayed strong through the whole thing (though they probably had more drops than they would have liked). They did lots of acrobatic moves together, which would sound strange if I tried to explain them so you'll just have to believe me that they were cool. The ended up with her on his shoulders, him on a rola bola, and both juggling 3 clubs. 7, 8, a long run of 9, and 10 clubs followed, and the audience cheered them long and hard. It was pretty clear who was gonna get the teams gold tonight.

After intermission, the individuals competition started up again with Jason Garfield onstage first. Hmm, didn't he just win the gold at Primm? Some folks had been wondering whether he should be put back into the competition so soon... they quit that quickly. It was definitely the funniest routine of the night, and it's the reason you have to get hold of the competitions tape when it comes out. Jason stalked out in black leather pants and a black and silver muscle shirt, and immediately began to lambast the judges and audience. He didn't quit the entire time he did his act, which showed off his mastery of the props. When he did drop, the audience did the "awww" thing, and he promptly yelled at us to quit it. I'd tell you some of the lines, but a) they'll be funnier when you hear them in context and b) I think I'd rather not get Jason pissed at me. He finished, growled "Now give me the goddamn medal! I'm outta here" and stomped off... while the audience leapt to its feet for a standing ovation.

(cripes, it's four a.m... i'm going to try to finish this off soon... sorry to the competitors for not giving better descriptions of your routines, but maybe some magazine will cover it better than i did)

Alex Chimal from Mexico did a gorgeous number, a flamenco dance to some sort of African/Celtic music. I know that sounds batty but that's what it was. He did double and triple spins with clubs that were blindingly beautiful, and a bounce routine... all while dancing the whole time.

Jay Gilligan. What can I say? If you were there, you saw it. I have no idea if the video is going to be able to catch the overall effect of this thing. Jesus, can I even take a stab at it? OK, let's just toss out the elements. A kid playing nintendo at high volume. Slide projector flashing strip mall scenes. Ochen Kaylin crouched over working the mix. Some dude dashing through the audience with a glowing ball, slapping stickers on random victims and periodically taking flash pictures of the stage. Three toy trains. Two funky 60s lamps. Flashing red diodes. A voice-over that ranged from the etymology of body parts to Bill Gates to more etymology, this time on chess. Oh, yeah, and Jay was in the middle of this all, at first working with a staff and ball combo and then three balls. I dunno why the stalking girl was part of a team routine and nintendo boy was only a prop, but that's how it worked out.

Sergey Something (Parapaletzky?) from the Ukraine was all white with sparkley shoulders, pretty blue balls, and sadly lots and lots of drops. 3-7 balls, and a cool "juggle" of face-balanced clubs, between nose, chin and forehead. He also had a very pretty and long run of five club singles, but not much else that really stood out.

Red Ryder from Austin did a great set of combo routines. This guy was obviously having a great time up there, and he ran through one particular set of moves with a hat, a ball, and a cane, dropless, that just had us goggling. Another goofier trick had him swinging a plane around his head, padiddling a tray, and spinning a stool; and a head bounce with jumprope. His actual juggling wasn't really all that snazzy, though; while he had the style points, I doubted he was going to get enough technical credit to place. Too bad, though... he was really entertaining.

Mike Price, the '96 juniors silver medalist, returned to claim the stage tonight. In sparkly suspenders, he exploded onto the stage with a great techno music track (as good as poor Sam's was bad). Frantic and hot, he jammed through his ball routine, including penguins with five, and seven with an under-leg throw. He definitely had the best three-club routine of the night, with a deliciously suspenseful bit with three... dropping one from a head balance behind him, and kicking it back over his head into a cascade... then (I almost can't believe it even though I know I saw it) he did it again into a 5 club cascade! He had us totally rooting for him at this point. He freemounted a giraffe unicycle did 5 clubs up there (oops, droppy)... and then (we're not done yet!) he pulls out four glowballs that are running from red to blue and back in some pattern, the lights go down and he's at it again. Then five and seven strobing glowballs that were just gorgeous. Amazing. He got the second standing O of the evening, and he deserved it.

Patrick McGuire finished off the competitions with a reprise of the act that he did in Isla Vista: Patco and his Liberation of the Working Stiff. It was much cleaner and tighter than before, and it was definitely a crowd pleaser (I'm not going to rewrite it, but it involved padiddling, twitching, Kraftwerk, silicones, and lots of fast and accurate bouncing). He did change one thing, though: at the end, the lights fade to dark and he's left under blacklight bouncing seven balls, and then he lowers to about to hip level.

Time for bed. Oh, yeah, you probably want to know who won. Well, we had to sit through some stuff so I'm going to make you, too.

After the IJA (via Dave Finnigan) gave out two awards of appreciation to Rob Peck and Dina Scharnhorst, he followed up with the Excellence in Education award. It was stipulated at the inception of the award, ten years ago, that this year the benefactor would be revealed. It turns out that Laura Green has been sponsoring the award all these years, and this year's recipient, Paul Arneberg, was quite happy about receiving it.

Some dancing, some Jack Kalvan-killing-time stuff, and we got the results:

Juniors: Bronze - Dorothy. Silver - Nate. Gold - Chris.

Teams: Bronze - Propellerheads. Silver - We're Not Clowns. Gold - Redefining Gravity

Individuals: Bronze - Pat McGuire. Silver - Jason Garfield (who came out talking on his cell phone, said a few rude things to Jack, and left before the gold was presented). Gold - Mike.

Not much other odd stuff, absolutely no diabolo, devil sticks or cigar boxes, and just one unicycle, one guy with hat tricks... too bad. Maybe in Madison we'll see some more of those variety arts again. Tonight, I had to come back to my hotel room and write up the board minutes. Then, dear friends, instead of taking the shower and sleep I so badly needed, I spent a couple of hours slamming this in. Let me know if you liked it, because right now i'm thinking I'm a bit of a nutter staying up so late to do this each night. Is anyone reading this far?

Well, in any event, that's done for now. Time to tuck in... whoof, maybe better take that shower first anyway.

Montreal Diary, Day 5

The mouse clicker is officially dead. There are an amazing number of things you can do from the keyboard of a laptop, though, and if I can figure out enough of them to get this posted, I'll be a happy camper.

Didn't get to sleep until after the sun came up, something like 6:30 a.m. Woke up around 1 and got into the gym a little after 2, after a slice of rye with salmon cream cheese and a cup of coffee (we have a well-stocked fridge... gotta eat all this stuff before we go tomorrow!). The feeling is definitely subdued; though nobody wants to admit it, I think everyone is getting slightly sick of each other and ready to go home. But it's still a juggling festival and there was plenty'o'juggling still going on.

My first task was to xerox all the minutes I'd written up last night... about eight handwritten pages, surprisingly legible, for each director; plus the festival survey and member response form. Well, it turned out that the gal in charge of the offices was about ready to take off, and wasn't happy about having me show up with things to copy. I tried to get out of there as quick as I could, but a pissed French Canadian chick hanging over my shoulder was too much. I did the minutes and surveys and skedaddled. Martin took the last project off of my hands and I was quite glad he did.

In the gym, I sat down with Alan from JUGGLE for a bit... to my surprise, he actually had an assignment for me: interview Mike Price, the Individuals gold medal winner. I thought I could handle it, and took the mission. Mike's grandfather was hanging with Mark Hayward over at the Madison table, so it was easy to track down my subject and make plans for later.... it turns out that he was going to meet with the JUGGLE photographer at 10 p.m and I could have him when the shoot was done.

I wandered over to the Serious Juggling table, and watched the teams numbers competition for a while... no big surprises yet. I spotted Sky King passing clubs with Javier, and asked her if she was playing with her Dube Renegade clones. She loaned me a set and I joined in. I can say that they feel very Renegade-like, and were quite easy to drive in the pattern. Unfortunately for me, the wedding I am to perform in on Sunday requires me to use these very pretty but squirrelly Henrys clubs... and if there's wind, we're sunk.

Sky was wearing one of her Carmine Street Irregulars shirts, and I decided to go ahead and get one. Turned out she happened to have one in my size on hand, lucky me.

I noticed that the numbers competition had started to gather quite a crowd, and wandered over: Jack Kalvan and Scott and David Cain were working on their club passing runs, done in a line. Next up were Heather, Darin and Peter, who I remembered had been doing great runs with 15 just the other day... they do it in a V shaped pattern. So I stayed to watch their run.

Boy, am I glad I did! I felt like I was watching some serious history being laid down. When it was over, this team now held the world records in both 14 clubs (sorry, I didn't get the exact number... I think it was something like 138) AND 15 clubs (113 catches!). It was incredible to see them hit it, and I wondered if Albert was going to do his 14 ring flash anytime that I would be able to see it.

The next three hours were spent in a board meeting. We got quite a bit plowed through, and if you care, the minutes will be posted on the website soon (still gotta type 'em in). One thing that we announced that we felt was particularly important was the official declaration of No Gag Rule. It felt good to get that one out of the way.

At 7 p.m., I realized I was absolutely starving... it had been a long time since that piece of bread. I snagged Bill off the gym floor and we started to walk down to Rue St. Denis (which looks like Saint Dennis but really sounds like San D'Nee). Bill told me about the narrowly-averted disaster earlier. Remember the big bungee things for diabolos? Well, one of the soldered joints gave way, and the whole thing collapsed. One person apparently got knocked on the leg but there were no serious injuries, despite the potential catapult situation. Whew.

We found this delightful little cafe with a back porch full of flagstone and flowerboxes, with stone stairs leading up to another street level on the other side. We had some crepes and cafe au laits and some fantastic puffy pastry things -- Bill's was hazelnut and mine raspberry. It was hard to leave but the call of the gym was strong, and back we came.

As I walked into the gym, I was pleased to see that many folks had been taking the time to fill out both the board response and festival survey forms. Bob Nickerson was looking for the PA, but no security or staff were to be seen. I dug around under the info table and lo and behold, there was a mic... we fooled with it for a while, and voila! he was able to announce his heckler workshop at last.

I wandered over to chat with Ben for a while, and then saw JUGGLE photographer Tom Kinsman setting up his shoot with Mike. I tried to talk with Mike in between shots, but was soon put to work helping with meters and reflectors and such. Still, I did get a bit of a chance to chat with Mike, and I can report that he's a genuinely nice guy who is seriously passionate about juggling. He also has a gorgeous girlfriend, a devoted grandpa, and an almost creepy way of nailing that kick-over-the-head move over and over. In the course of the shoot, he had to do it about 30 times... and I think he botched it a total of 1 time.

Unfortunately, the shoot took far longer than we'd expected, and we had to ditch the interview for now. We rescheduled to try for breakfast at noon tomorrow, and I set off for the last Renegade show. Bill was performing in it tonight, and he'd headed over an hour earlier to try to save me a seat. Sure enough, he had a great spot (marked Mr. Biggles, Bill's Invisible Friend). It was hard to leave the gym, though... Jason Garfield and Jay Gilligan were trading five club tricks in one corner.

Robert Nelson was already warming up the crowd. He was past his stock emcee gags now and was freestyling standup audience abuse in his classic manner. The place was absolutely jammed, smoky and jovial and loud and rank with the scent of hundreds of unwashed jugglers. We were ripe for a real Renegade...

I'd missed the show the night before, which had been emceed by the adorable Emil Carrey. Apparently the big event of the night before was Sean McKinney's run-in with the local fuzz (or Canadian Bacon). He didn't actually get arrested, but came close. Would've been an IJA first, I believe. He's also involved in another controversy: seems that some folks were mightily ticked that Sean didn't clear the preliminaries of the competitions, but another competitor who had been allowed to prelim by video had made it in.

Our emcee for tonight was the lovely Mr. Mark Faje, who marched up and did the Bobby May trick on his second try. What a freak. Matt Hall opened the show with cigar boxes and diabolo, and while his boxes were a little droppy he did great with his diabolos. Word up to my homey!

Mark tried to do a kendama trick, but even though he had many repeated attempts, he never did nail it during the whole show. D'oh! Butterfly pasted a dildo to his pate and had fun with a whole dickhead riff.

We were tortured far too long by a bellydancer who didn't hear either the audiences' or Mark's undelicate hints to quit already. We also were treated to a nice club swinging routine by Sky and one of the kids she works with, and Martin Mall from Germany came up quick and did a three-diabolo-up pirouette. Unreal.

One of the bits between acts was Mark forcing Steve Brown (who had been on hand all evening) to lie on his back on a bed of broken glass, hold a casaba melon on his belly, and sit still while Mark swung a samurai sword through the air and the melon and thankfully not through Steve... while flailing on a unicycle. Dr. Stardust had a hard time with a head-bounce/jumprope routine, and poor Bill had an even tougher time with his lit-diabolo performance. His one-diabolo was OK, but two just wasn't working tonight. He did get a laugh from his "OOPS!" on our Skyliner that Dorothy was holding for him, just in case.

This rockin' devilstick dude got up there and started with running two sticks, one in each hand. He finished up with a sparkler devilstick that turned into a fiery barbwire ring when it was going at top speed. Another dude lit his ass on fire, and we had more fire with Mark's famous flaming bowling balls.

Bob Nickerson got up and pummeled us with puns, and Mark Hayward closed up the evening by balancing a giant wooden top on his forehead while dropping his pants. Oh, wait, Faje kicked up a flaming bowling ball with steak knives in the holes onto the side of his head as a farewell gesture.

Most folks took off, but we hung out a bit longer. It was worth it, because Faje stepped back onstage and tried the kendama trick one more time... and got it. Butterfly started goofing off again, and eventually was cowering behind the stage curtain with Mark, Steve and his own son Kolman snapping whips at him. Bill and I smoked the celebratory cigar we brought in case I won a board seat, but the tip started to shred and we had to give up trying to blow smoke rings. On the way out, I stopped to say hi and thanks to Tom and Iman Renegade... they were both still pretty jazzed from the show.

Joel Heidtman came up with Karl-Heinz Zeithen, who reprised his yodeling from the closing night in Denny's at Niagara a year ago. Iman joined in, and while they chorused on, I had a talk with Joel about the board's presence on the newsgroup.

Both the Francofolies and Gay Pride Week were in full swing, the prostitutes and cops were out in force, and the streets were jammed... at 2 a.m. when I left the Renegade bar. Down in the gym, a group of board members were looking through the surveys... no big huge surprises here so far. I imagine we'll have some sort of accounting of them sometime, maybe in the Insider?

Tired and sore, I decided to head back. It was 3 a.m. and even though the street I had to walk back on was mostly deserted, I felt pretty safe. Two guys came up to me just half a block away from my hotel, but they didn't seem at all threatening. "Parlais vous Anglais?" one asked hopefully, and both of them brightened considerably when I answered that English was all I could speak.

Poor kids were lost... they were about five blocks from their hotel, which they couldn't remember the whole name or street of. I happened to have one of the tourist maps in my bag, and we were able to figure out where it was. I drew the path on the map and gave it to them with my blessing (my hotel has tons more, if I should need it). They gratefully accepted my beat-up map and set off for home. They were a little beery... hope they made it OK.

Well, that's pretty much it. I'll be in the gym for only an hour or two tomorrow, and most of that will be spent interviewing Mike. I have to catch a plane tomorrow afternoon, so I'm going to have to ask if anyone else would be so kind as to finish up the last day of the fest for me. Joel? Ben? Don? Anyone?

I'm really sorry I'm going to miss the closing show, but I can get the tape, I suppose. The sun is up now, it's five thirty a.m., and I've got to check out by noon. Time to send this last installment on its way and get ready to say au revoir to Montreal.