Shannon wondered: Was it possible to marry the physics of these two styles? Could you capture, in one motion, the fluidity of toss juggling and the efficiency of bounce juggling? In practical terms: If you were dangling by your feet, could you toss balls in the air, let gravity do the work of bringing the balls down to earth, and then catch them again? Both the inquiry and the method were vintage Shannon: whimsical, indifferent to practicalities, and originating in an activity that typical professors might have dubbed unserious, but which Shannon, a tenured member of the MIT faculty, found amusing enough to merit scholarly time and attention.