Clowning is important. I know that to be true, to be the world I live in. Nihilist, cynic, (if you are reading), it is probably not the world you live in. But that’s all the justification I’m going to give. Maybe as the year goes on I will be able to come up with a stronger defence of my silliness but for now I am simply declaring my intention to be silly. I start clown school in a week and a day. A week ago, I arrived here for the indefinite future. An indefinite amount of time and because it’s scary scary the future. So let’s tell stories instead !
There was, last year, a flood at the museum of witchcraft and magic down the Cornwall. The museum is only small and runs on a shoestring, but it has many magical oddities and objects lining their shelves with paper tags telling you the magical properties of what appears to be a lump of crumbling clay or a twig or a shoe or something. When it flooded, they say, the hardest part was digging through the slurry, the muddy debris and working out what was twigs and clay and shoes washed through the place by the flood waters and what was twigs and clay and shoes that were once the exhibits.
So, I’m at clown school and the pandemic is still raging and I liked that story. I think, what is left in my life that is magic and creative, and what genuine debris have I brought with me? They say you come here, L'École Phillippe Gaulier, to be broken down to be build back up, bigger stronger, funnier and probably knowing a bit clearer what your magic talismans are and what is just a bloated, muddy frog.
So, Nihilist, here we begin. Let there be great successes ! Let there be nonsense !
“In a dream you saw a way to survive and you were full of joy.” - Jenny Holtzer
