Feeling Down? Read About a Clown!
Saturday, April 11, 2015 at 03:48PM 
So, well, I'm not really afraid of clowns per se, but I've never really been comfortable around them. No particular reason, no formative incident buried in my childhood memories, hell, the father of one of my friends growing up was a professional clown with Barnum & Bailey, and he was hilarious (when I was six).
I've read articles citing everything from the uncanny valley, to the fact clowns model socially transgressive behaviors, to the lingering shadow of John Wayne Gacy on the popular consciousness, and yet, I feel like there's something more primal. Evil Clowns have been around for centuries, Grimaldi from Dickens' Pickwick Papers, being the first I came across (if there are earlier evil clowns I'm excited to hear about them). Really, I feel it's trying so hard to be loved that makes clowns just a little bit monstrous.
Maybe that's why clowns still have a place. Like an old, rickety roller coaster they shudder and screech, rattling through our imaginations in a blur of mismatched clothes and wide, feverish grins. Clowns represent the outsider in every way that counts--their dress, their high voices, the casual violence of slapstick--there's an element of schadenfreude in every performance.
Why do clowns make me uncomfortable? I don't think I’ll ever know, but, like most things that scare me, I find them absolutely fascinating. So understandably, I leapt at the chance to plumb the depths of my unease in in prose. Better yet, the wonderful editors at Unlikely Story enjoyed my work enough to publish it in their Coulrophobia: Remix anthology.
Right now, it's still in kickstarter stages, but looks pretty set to meet the funding goal, which is great. I'd be shilling one of the $50 rewards (a story critique by yours truly), if someone hadn't already snapped it up. In any case, knowing the quality of the authors I managed to squeeze into this anthology clown car with, I'm excited as hell to see the thing in print.
Don't be scared. Or better yet, be a little scared, it'll make show more fun.
Reader Comments (2)
Donated!
Can't wait to read it!