Clown Passage of the Day

[Bleak&Icy]

Sacred Clowning

It is well known that the shaman encompasses many different roles--such as that of trickster, sacred clown, healer, mediator and sorcerer. It is one thing to know of these different facets, but quite another to actually assume them in a practical situation. This requires not only confidence, insight and empathy, but also some kind of acquired skill in knowing how to present and project yourself in different roles.

I think that my first awareness of not knowing what to do with my hands came to me during one of my first attempts at public speaking. They were suddenly transformed from manipulators of tools to inconvenient things which, no matter what I did with them, didn’t make me feel very comfortable. It was only when I began to look at how stage performers used their hands--in either emphasising speech or giving out another message entirely, that I began to realise the potential and power of mime and gesture. Being able to mime messages is a useful skill, which is very much part of the shamanic repertoire, used by tricksters, sacred clowns and performers in every age and culture. For example, a man sits cross-legged, eyes closed and face impassive. A woman approaches carefully, exaggerating her movements. Squatting beside him, she appears to be carefully extracting something wormlike from the mans ear--he grimaces with pain, while all her movements suggest that the worm (if such it is) is resisting her efforts to withdraw it. Finally, with a flourish, she yanks it out, and as the man relaxes, she rubs her hands together, as though cleaning something slimy from herself. Now depending on the circumstances, this scene could be a comedy acted out for amusement, or the description could equally well apply to a shamanka healing a client by extracting a bad spirit. The point I’m making is that while we can use mime while clowning or communicating, it's also an important part of other magick, such as healing or wrestling with spirits.

From Walking Between the Worlds: Techniques of Modern Shamanism, Volume One and Two by Phil Hine

[Bleak&Icy]

In a Bohemian village near Koniggratz on Whit-Monday the children play the king’s game, at which a king and queen march about under a canopy, the queen wearing a garland, and the youngest girl carrying two wreaths on a plate behind them. They are attended by boys and girls called groomsmen and bridesmaids, and they go from house to house collecting gifts. A regular feature in the popular celebration of Whitsuntide in Silesia used to be, and to some extent still is, the contest for the kingship. This contest took various forms, but the mark or goal was generally the May-tree or May-pole. Sometimes the youth who succeeded in climbing the smooth pole and bringing down the prize was proclaimed the Whitsuntide King and his sweetheart the Whitsuntide Bride. Afterwards the king, carrying the May-bush, repaired with the rest of the company to the alehouse, where a dance and a feast ended the merry-making. Often the young farmers and labourers raced on horseback to the May-pole, which was adorned with flowers, ribbons, and a crown. He who first reached the pole was the Whitsuntide King, and the rest had to obey his orders for that day. The worst rider became the clown. At the May-tree all dismounted and hoisted the king on their shoulders. He nimbly swarmed up the pole and brought down the May-bush and the crown, which had been fastened to the top. Meanwhile the clown hurried to the alehouse and proceeded to bolt thirty rolls of bread and to swig four quart bottles of brandy with the utmost possible despatch. He was followed by the king, who bore the May-bush and crown at the head of the company. If on their arrival the clown had already disposed of the rolls and the brandy, and greeted the king with a speech and a glass of beer, his score was paid by the king; otherwise he had to settle it himself. After church time the stately procession wound through the village. At the head of it rode the king, decked with flowers and carrying the May-bush. Next came the clown with his clothes turned inside out, a great flaxen beard on his chain, and the Whitsuntide crown on his head. Two riders disguised as guards followed. The procession drew up before every farmyard; the two guards dismounted, shut the clown into the house, and claimed a contribution from the housewife to buy soap with which to wash the clown’s beard. Custom allowed them to carry off any victuals which were not under lock and key. Last of all they came to the house in which the king’s sweetheart lived. She was greeted as Whitsuntide Queen and received suitable presents—to wit, a many-coloured sash, a cloth, and an apron. The king got as a prize, a vest, a neck-cloth, and so forth, and had the right of setting up the May-bush or Whitsuntide-tree before his master’s yard, where it remained as an honourable token till the same day next year. Finally the procession took its way to the tavern, where the king and queen opened the dance. Sometimes the Whitsuntide King and Queen succeeded to office in a different way. A man of straw, as large as life and crowned with a red cap, was conveyed in a cart, between two men armed and disguised as guards, to a place where a mock court was waiting to try him. A great crowd followed the cart. After a formal trial the straw man was condemned to death and fastened to a stake on the execution ground. The young men with bandaged eyes tried to stab him with a spear. He who succeeded became king and his sweetheart queen. The straw man was known as the Goliath.

--The Golden Bough (1922) by Sir James Frazier

[Bleak&Icy]

Alfred Adler’s theories were doubtless not without their influence, too, on the questions Freud was asking himself at this time, even if he felt that Adler underestimated the importance of unconscious processes, and wrote to Jung on March 3, 1911: ‘‘I would never have expected a psychoanalyst to be so taken in by the ego. In reality the ego is like the clown in the circus, who is always putting in his oar to make the audience think that whatever happens is his doing’’ (Freud/Jung Letters, p. 400).

INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS (DICTIONNAIRE INTERNATIONAL DE LA PSYCHANALYSE)
ALAIN DE MIJOLLA
EDITOR IN CHIEF

[Bleak&Icy]

According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, "The clown of circus and pantomime, in his baggy costume, whitened face, grotesque red lips and odd tuft of black hair is probably a relic of the Devil as he appeared in medieval miracle plays. He is the descendant of many court fools and jesters." I had previously assumed that the clown figure predated Christianity, or rather, that his origins were pagan, but no doubt the trickster manifests himself in most cultures. Odd that I find myself automatically using the masculine pronoun when I write about clowns. Female clowns? Can anyone think of a female representation of the clown figure, in literature or art? For some reason (which I don't care to investigate too deeply) the idea of a female clown makes icy lizards of fear zigzag up my spine. Christ, I hope nobody finds a female clown.

[G. S. Carnivals]

Quote Originally Posted by Bleak&Icy

Odd that I find myself automatically using the masculine pronoun when I write about clowns. Female clowns? Can anyone think of a female representation of the clown figure, in literature or art? For some reason (which I don't care to investigate too deeply) the idea of a female clown makes icy lizards of fear zigzag up my spine. Christ, I hope nobody finds a female clown.

Enmity - THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK

[G. S. Carnivals]

"I spent the rest of the day devising a very special costume and the appropriate face to go with it. I easily shabbied up my overcoat with a torn pocket or two and a complete set of stains. Combined with blue jeans and a pair of rather scuffed-up shoes, I had a passable costume for a derelict. The face, however, was more difficult, for I had to experiment from memory. Conjuring a mental image of the screaming pierrot in that painting (The Scream, I now recall), helped me quite a bit. At nightfall I exited the hotel by the back stairway.

It was strange to walk down the crowded street in this gruesome disguise. Though I thought I would feel conspicuous, the actual experience was very close, I imagined, to one of complete invisibility. No one looked at me as I strolled by, or as they strolled by, or as we strolled by each other. I was a phantom - perhaps the ghost of festivals past, or those yet to come."

Thomas Ligotti - "The Last Feast of Harlequin"

[Daisy]

Quote Originally Posted by Bleak&Icy

Christ, I hope nobody finds a female clown.

I found one for you! In an interview concerning his film La Strada, Federico Fellini had said that his wife, Giulietta Masina, "seemed . . . to be an actress born to express the astonishment, dismay, frenzied gaiety and comical gloom of a clown. There you have it, Giulietta is really an actress-clown, a true female clown. This definition, so illustrious to me, irritates actors who perhaps view it as something reductive, undignified, even coarse. They are incorrect: the clownish artistry of an actor, in my opinion, is his most precious quality, the sign of an aristocratic calling to dramatic art" (quoted on the website www.moviediva.com).

[Dr. Bantham]

Quote Originally Posted by bendk

I have no idea how I ended up posting the same Youtube video twice, and I can't seem to edit it out.

The glitch has been stitched.

[Neurospaston]

Bleak&Icy, I know what you're scared of... she's called Cindy Sherman, she's an American photographer and she has done a whole series of "repulsive" self portraits disguised as a clown...
she has also done some interesting series with dolls (weird too). Quite a scary girl indeed.





I was lucky enough to attend this retrospective exhibition last summer...

[Bleak&Icy]

Quote Originally Posted by Neurospaston

Bleak&Icy, I know what you're scared of...

Well, this neurotic alcoholic will be sleeping with the lights on tonight. Neurospaston, that is one creepy creepy photo. What is it about female clowns that freaks me out? Perhaps it is this (following the crooked pathways of my brain): the white paint worn by a male clown seems to mask only nastiness and possibly brutality, but the paint worn by a female clown seems to mask insanity. Perhaps this is why Sherman felt compelled to create these creepy images: to expose the sexist view held by certain men throughout history that women are unstable, hysterical and emotionally chaotic. (My mother, I might point out, suffered from a form of Dissociative Identity Disorder; she went untreated, or rather, went improperly treated, and my childhood was marked by continual terror: the anticipation of a mask falling from her face, and the fear that she would select a particularly fearsome one from her gallery of faces.) Enough of that...

A number of years ago I attended an exhibition of Sherman's photography, which was held in a gallery near Sydney University. I don't remember any clown images, though (thank the Soft Black Stars!).