clown nameless a clown was sitting in the park. he looked very sad and had tears in his eyes. so a little boy came and asked him -"why are you crying=( "? -"im not crying-im just resting." 000117 ... Puff Daddy why did the chicken cross the road? he didn't *clown holds up dead rubber chicken* i stopped him... with my Porsche that is... 000626 ... Byronic Clown Hi there, kiddies clown will kill you I'm your friend, Zombo the Clown, and I love you. clown will eat you No, really. I do. Don't be scared. clown will kill you clown will eat you clown will kill you clown will eat you clown will kill you clown will eat you clown will kill you clown will eat you No. You're right. Be scared. BE VERY SCARED. 001230 ... silentbob ima fraid 001230 ... cheeze don't be scared silentbob... clowns are nice... not... clowns are evil... want a balloon kid... they float.. they all float down here... 010311 ... mikey IT 010311 ... twiggie i'm scared of clowns :( 010311 ... nocturnal me too. never been to the circus though. I don't ever want to go, either. so many reasons, I prefer to not list them here. but the clown thing is one. not only are they scary, they're annoying as all hell. 010311 ... mikey always wondered why someone would fear a CLOWN! 010311 ... cheeze because they never smile on the job they just have painted smiles on their face it is just a cover up of their real feelings 010312 ... nocturnal no, no that's not it. at least not for me. I don't actually know why to tell you the truth. they just seem so creepy to me somehow. 010312 ... clowns rock i am a professional clown and work very hard at it. most of these responses are typical and understandable, yet you will never truly understand the inexpressionable joy to have the greatest profession in the world unless you actually are a clown. i have hundreds of experiences that will awaken you to the possibility that you can one day love a clown. if you are interested, e-mail me. why did the hot dog put on a coat? because he was a chili dog. 010313 ... cheeze that was a good joke. 010315 ... silentbob One winter while my brother and i were out hiking, we found a dead clown under a pile of old tarpaper. We thought it might be the same clown we found the summer before, but it was so shriveled up we couldn't tell. Then i remembered that the clown from the summer before had a tattoo of a rose on his left arm. When i lifted upthe arm to look, it snapped off like an old dried-up tree branch. We broke off the other arm and both the legs and stacked them off to the side. Then we found a piece of cardboard and made a sign that said, "BUILD YOUR OWN CLOWN." It was late in the fall when my dad told us we couldn't keep the dead clown in the tool shed any longer. My brother and i simply didn't have the heart to throw it away....it had brought us such joy since the day we found it. So we bought a ladies wig at the second hand store and spray painted it red. We put the wig on the clown and took it downtown to the mcdonalds and left him in one of the booths. When my dad read about it in the paper the next day, he put us on restriction for a whole month. It was worth it though. that dead clown was the funniest thing ever. 010422 ... from the files of max cannon red_meat 010422 ... like rain. laughter drifting from the mouths of children over facepaint and blurry movement that leads you to believe that it's all one big joke. painted smiles, painted smiles. i wonder if clowns suffer from chronic depression. 010515 ... jojo When I was about 8 years old, there was a clown at a party going around shaking everyone's hand at the end of his performance. I continued to hold on to the clowns hand for a few seconds longer than the other kids did. Everyone laughed more hysterically at this than they did his entire performance. Afterwards, the clown told me that I needed to learn some manners. I thought clowns were supposed to make the audience laugh. Oh well. I guess he needed to learn his profession of making people laugh. 010813 ... little wonder bingo. bingo the CLOWNO. 020303 ... PEACELOVESHEEP ironic how laughter, from a man with a red nose can be frightening. i hate clowns. 020628 ... Sailor Jupiter My roommate and best friend of 9 years is terrified of clowns. She keeps a flashlight that she turns on in the middle of the night when she gets scared. She's made me get up and go through our closets in the dark to make sure no one's in them. I'd find it more amusing if I didn't lose sleep over it. 020628 ... john Fuck me, I am just a red nosed bastard 021101 ... no People are so fucking impressionable... IT was a clown, so was John Wayne Gacy... so? If every clown was like that, we'd all be dead, so fuck off... 030117 ... BiZzY I don't like clowns, but I think that is my fault. When I was younger I wasn't scared of clowns at all, but I remember thinking "I wonder what it's like to be scared of clowns". I was only young. So i started to act scared of them. I created reasons to be scared of them until I actually convinced myself that they were scary. My brother got a cuddly clown toy, and I hated it. I told my parents I hated it but they refused to put it in a cupboard whilst I slept. It was in a different room, but it had legs so it could walk to my room. Then one day it disappeared no one knows where it went. Now I can't sleep. All this agro because I convinced myself that clowns were evil just to "see what it's like to be scared of clowns"!!! 030924 ... evil smiley hahah iam that clown and im under the bed. waiting for my chance to strike! im a very mean little doll whos pissed off! 040518 ... Dosquatch Clown, Homie the "Homie don't play that." 040518 ... Canticle Days strung together in a crap necklace, bringing only longing and frustration. Dressing for the ball and staying at home. 040518 ... tr red nose... maybe the clown just had too much alcohol again... 040603 ... tr red nose... maybe the clown just had too much alcohol again... 040603 ... tr red nose... maybe the clown just had too much alcohol again... 040603 ... hsg it takes a clown to master_all_tricky_trades please wipe your feat on me. well come to practice well. practice going through the door. once you have gone so far there may be no turning back. 050706 ... misstree i was neutral about clowns for many years, neither liking nor disliking. i have a chest burster plush toy, things like IT and Gacy are as likely to be endearing as anything else. but when i worked at the magic shop, i started getting... not phobic or fearful, and not dislike per se, but the clowns that came in there were... odd. many of them were fairly shy, and oddly slow, not witty as one would expect. there was a lot of pressure placed on doing makeup exactly right according to these codified standards, and a lot of peer pressure to conform. i couldn't grok them, couldn't see who or what they were in either guise, so they inspire in me the same reaction as birds and snakes; not aversion, but not trust. let me be clear, though: not all clowns are that way. there were two wringling brothers clowns in that town as well, who were gregarious and fearless and crass and insane, like clowns should be. out here there's an anarchist clown house full of lovely and utterly amazing folk, a far cry from the iowan conformists. and i'll end with quoting someone's blathe further up for my own reasons, "i have hundreds of experiences that will awaken you to the possibility that you can one day love a clown." i wouldn't have believed it a week ago. 070403 ... hsg http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/7746/BraidedWheel/SacredClown.html [Lady Sheherazahde's Wiccan Ways : The Braided Wheel Tradition Home Page] Send comments or complaints to sheherazahde@yahoo.com This page created 12/08/03 last updated 12/08/03 Introduction to the Sacred Clown [Notes from a 2001 Starwood Workshop] An introduction to the concept of the Sacred Clown with a brief overview of world religions that embrace or exemplify the concept. This workshop, lead by a Wiccan Priestess with a BA in Religion and Social Change (sociology), will focus on the manifestations of the Sacred Clown in our own community (e.g. the Church of the Subgenius and the Discordians) and the social function these movements fulfill. Recommended for people who feel guilty for enjoying them so much. - Lady Sheherazahde Fools and Clown from around the world and throughout time * Chapayekas- votive clown society - Mexico * Tsaviyo and Abuelos of the Pueblo Indians * Koshare Keresan tribe * Koyemshi Zuni mud men * Heyoka Dakota tribe * Haduhi of the Iroquois False Face societies. * "Boogers" of the Cherokee * Madzub the wandering Sufi madman or madwoman, drunk on the ecstasy of God * Gleemen (and Glee Maidens) Saxon England. Known as "wise fools", they wandered from town to town singing, telling fortunes. Ancesters of the college Glee Club. (Capital Steps- satirical singers.) * Traditional European Fool well established by the 1300's with the typical motly, horned hat and staff. * Mummer's plays and Morris Dancers. 1800's * Feast of Fools predating the fools of Europe. Celibration of new year. Minor clergy would mock their superiors. Ended in 1600s Dwarves, Monsters and Madmen * Monster from L monstum- omen, monster, fr. monere to warn * Monitor from L one that warns, overseer, from monitus pp of monere to warn * Mental from L monere to remind, warn from meminisse to remember GK mnasthai, mimneskesthai, to remember, menos spirit * Divine Madness: Touched by madness touched by god Boundary -Transgression and Deviance * Berdash, Cross dressing, Drag Queens, Two-Spirits, Shamanic border crossing * Breaking taboo. Sexual play. Fools * The Tarot. Innocence as the beginning of wisdom. * Nonsense as the path to wisdom * Taoism- the uncarved block * Sufi wise fools * Zen Koans Tricksters and Shape Changers * Trickster gods- Coyote, Loki, Eris * Magicians as tricksters and shape changers -Jokers- Puka * The Devil in the folklore of Ireland and the American South * "The Devil went down to Georgia" Devil's Fiddling contest. * "Mean Jake and the Devil" Jesters The Fool in Shakespeare. King Lear's fool told him the truth when no one else would. Social Satire and Comedians Humor as social commentary Powers of the Clown * Cross boundaries - sex, class, reality * Ridicule the sacred and powerful * Speak truth to power * Heal though laughter * Change shape * Recite Poetry and song Types of clowns * Comedians, * Jugglers, * Magicians, * Poets, rhymers, * Singers- Musicians * Dwarves and Monsters * Madmen * Cross Dressers * Shape changers - Disguise * Contortionists "Man, Myth & Magic: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Mythology, Religion and the Unknown." New York: Marshall Cavendish,1995 Quotes from the entry "Fool" by Gertrude Kurath. "The privileged position of the fool, the clown and the jester allows him a wide latitude for satirical comment on sacred institution. By provoking laughter and bringing suppressed anxieties to the surface, he often plays a therapeutic role." p 933 "Shrewd men of all times and places have pretended folly or madness as license for social satire: the fool of ritual, court and stage, whatever his type, is no fool." p. 933 "Man, Myth & Magic" "Taboos and repressions find vicarious outlet in the phallic play of fools." p 935 "The chthonic or underworld function is related to the reverse behavior, the backwards actions and speech, the progression contrary to the customary circuit, as in death rites." P 935 "By inducing laughter [fools] may avert any violent expressions of indignation and anxiety in their audience." p 936 "Encyclopedia of Native American Religions, Updated Edition" New York: Facts on File, 2000. "Clowns make people observe and think about things in new ways. By causing people to laugh, they clear worry from people's minds and permit them to see higher truths. They teach by "bad" example. They mock the order of the ritual, prayers, song, holy beings, and sacred objects. They joke, satirize, and behave contrarily. They do things that are forbidden and unspeakable within a ritual framework. They create imbalance and disorder in the world in the midst of ritualized social order. Without the clown's disorder, order would not be so obvious and so justified." Christen, Kimberly A., "Clowns & Tricksters: An Encyclopedia of Tradition and Culture." Denver: ABC-CLIO, 1998. "Some fools' robes were one color on one side and another on the opposoite side to denote their character as having one foot in the real world and one in the imaginary." "Not only were fools funny, but they further added to their popularity by being a voice of social commentary." "Trickster as Transmitter of Mystical Teaching" by Arifa Goodman first apeared in the Spring 1989 issue of Emergence and as the Afterword in the novel "Trickster's Touch" by Zohra Greenhalgh "In fact, it is the Trickster who can bring us face to face with the triths which the mystics and prophets describe. Trickster embodies an understanding which is beyond words or explainations or logical thinking, and so the reality of the ineffable comes to us direct." "By not resisting or scorning Trickster's tricks, we loosen up the cement of the towering walls we have constructed of How Things Are Supposed To Be, and open ourselves to a larger vision of life, above and beyond the field of our self-interest and self-conception." Bruce Stirling "Preface" To Burning Crome a collection of short stories by William Gibson. 1986 "We are the Wise Fools who can leap, caper, utter prophecies, and scratch ourselves in public. We can play with Big Ideas because the garish motley of our pulp origins makes us seem harmless." Bibliography Christen, Kimberly A., "Clowns & Tricksters: An Encyclopedia of Tradition and Culture." Denver: ABC-CLIO, 1998. Goodman, Arifa. "Trickster as Transmitter of Mystical Teaching" first apeared in the Spring 1989 issue of Emerigence and as the Afterword in the novel "Trickster's Touch" by Zohra Greenhalgh. New York: Ace, 1989 Stirling, Bruce. "Preface" To Burning Crome a collection of short stories by William Gibson. New York: Ace, 1986 "Encyclopedia of Native American Religions, Updated Edition" New York: Facts on File, 2000. "Man, Myth & Magic: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Mythology, Religion and the Unknown." New York: Marshall Cavendish,1995 081110 ... hsg "In fact, it is the Trickster who can bring us face to face with the triths which the mystics and prophets describe. Trickster embodies an understanding which is beyond words or explainations or logical thinking, and so the reality of the ineffable comes to us direct." "By not resisting or scorning Trickster's tricks, we loosen up the cement of the towering walls we have constructed of How Things Are Supposed To Be, and open ourselves to a larger vision of life, above and beyond the field of our self-interest and self-conception." Bruce Stirling "Preface" To Burning Crome a collection of short stories by William Gibson. 1986 see: the_oughts i'm just pointing to the juggling_suns 090113 ... z my clown is on fire - lounge lizards 090113 ... In_Bloom The Trickster is akin to the salesman Always closing Which means always attempting and always asking Just one more time It only takes one Yes to break a smile 090113 ... hsg some_eye_alls can be fragile; you_never_know when one can break open. 100430 what's it to you? who go blather from