Clowns

When I was little I seem to have described some grownup (not to her face, at least) as having "a face like a clown." Kids can be brutally honest!

Several years ago I saw the documentary Capturing the Friedmans, about a father and son convicted of child sexual abuse in a fairly dubious trial.  Anyway, the most interesting person in it was a brother who worked as a clown for hire.

I read somewhere that clowns have an honour code that keeps them from plagiarizing other clowns' acts.  Think of that--honour among clowns!  I've also heard there's a clown college in Florida or somewhere.

I think the word "clown" comes from "colony."  It goes back to Rome 2000 years ago when the longstanding residents made fun of the new arrivals from the empire's colonies for being less sophisticated, much like hillbillies and Newfies today. So the word came to connote silliness.

Two centuries ago in London there was a famous circus clown called Joseph Grimaldi.  That's why the circus nickname for clowns is Joeys! (When I have few memories about something, I pad with useless information...)

Some real people get seen as clowns.  Dan Quayle comes to mind, when he was U.S. vice-president a generation ago. And back in the '70s Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was seen as a sort of clown. (It didn't seem so funny to people who actually lived there, of course.) And some people even saw Hitler as a clown, before he took power...