Funny Peculiar
Clowns are terrifying. They're okay from a distance, but at the circus we all, adults and children, are thinking, "please don't let him come near me." I think they're an embodiment of what I call our primal clown. That's the part of us that reminds us that deep down we're really jackasses. No matter how lofty and important a person, this inner clown is there, constantly letting the air out of their overinflated ego. In medieval times the court jester was the personification of the primal clown, the only person allowed to needle the king with the reminder that he was a buffoon. It's no accident that in Shakespeare's King Lear the character of the fool disappears from the play without explanation when Lear descends into madness, as his last vestige of sanity flickers out. We need our clowns, but a part of us hates them because they can't let us forget how damningly human we are.
posted by John M Crowther @ 7:47 AM
6 Comments:
How odd that the Weekend Australian Magazine has just run an article about this very thing. It seems that a great many comedians pay for the joy and amusement they bring us by secretly suffering from depression and various personality disorders. It {apparently) seems to go hand in hand with the gift of being funny. Another one of life's tragic ironies!
Mimes scare me more than clowns. The metallic skin. the measured movements. Brrr Roger
It is true that comedians suffer from a strange form of Melancholia, but let’s not forget the fringe benefits so well documented by Mr. Cole Porter in his song “Be A Clown”:
Be a crazy buffoon
And the demoiselles'll all swoon.
Be a crack jackanapes
And they'll imitate you like apes.
Be a poor silly ass
And you'll always travel first-class,
I don’t know where else to post this other than under the comments belonging to John’s drawing of a clown; perhaps because we are apparently becoming a nation of them. This week the newspapers reported that in January Hillary Clinton’s election campaign committee spent $11,000 on pizzas alone. $11,000! My advice to her is that if she intends to beat Obama in Texas, she better cut out the pepperoni.
When asked about that very thing by Tim Russert on Meet The Press, Ralph Nader said, "We're not going to be spending the people's donations on an unhealthy Italian snack, and we're accepting no money whatsoever from special corporate interests like Pizza Hut."
As a born-again Italian I am deeply offended by Nader’s accusation that pizza is “an unhealthy snack.” Far from it! The basis of the true pie (pizza in Italian) is wood-oven baked bread and tomato sauce, and on occasion some mozzarella cheese made from the milk of a buffalo. That others have decided to corrupt that with extra ingredients –-be they artichoke hearts, mushrooms, eggplant, olives, onions, spinach; pepperoni, salami, hot Italian sausage, ham, bacon, ground beef, chicken, anchovies, tuna, shrimp; jalapeños and even pineapple – is no reason to under-estimate the life giving-properties of the original. All things in moderation, I say, including what you put on your pizza. Yes, Hillary’s people have gone too far in their toppings, and I believe that is why young America is turning out for Obama. In corpo sano, in corpo politico!
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