The World as a Ball

All About Balls is a website that is basically all about, um, balls. Balls, you say? Balls, in deed. As a random illustration, we take from the first and last listings on their page "All Balls A-Z": abacus balls, aeolipile, Akuballs, animal balls, animal pellets, antenna balls, art balls, Atomium, ball and chain, ball art, ball avalanches, ball baths, ball bombardment, ball cannon, ball chairs, ball clocks, ball games, ball garlands, ball gloves, ball icons, ball jokes, ball kites...udang sapudi, Uncle Joe's Mint Balls, unihockey balls, vomit balls, waterpolo balls, wax balls, wind balls, workout balls, yoga balls, Zip-n-Hit balls, zorb balls, Zwetschkenknödel

What, for example, you might blamelessly ask, is an "aeolipile?" Interestingly enough, it is the first working steam engine, made, obviously, "of a metal ball mounted on a sealed pot (boiler) by an axial shaft, having two curved outlet tubes to produce a rotary motion from the escaping steam."

Stumbling across the James Burke-ian collection of all things ball, was for me almost exacerbatingly fortuitous after having spent an hour with Mick Greene of Streetplay playing most therapeutic game of Fivebox in a Nashville parking lot with his puzzlingly underappreciated Spaldeen of wonderful bounce and pop.


Thanks for the find Presurfer