Wordgrove Post & Review

Quoted in The Grove:

Atlas isn’t carrying the world on his shoulders, no giant muscular hulk with a sense of responsibility; the world is balanced on a pyramid of clowns, and they are always tooting horns and wobbling and goosing each other.
~Dean Koontz

Making eye contact with adults while dressed as a clown is risky.
~Douglas Coupland

It seems so absurd to get really mad with a cartoonist over a comic strip. It’s sort of like getting in a fight with a circus clown outside your house. It’s not going to end well.
~Stephan Pastis

EndQuote:
We are in the same tent as the clowns and the freaks – that’s show business.
~Edward R Murrow

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Exercise Prompt for 01/17:  shirt

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Being a funny person does an awful lot of things to you. You feel that you mustn’t get serious with people. They don’t expect it from you, and they don’t want to see it. You’re not entitled to be serious, you’re a clown.
~Fanny Brice

Only comedians can talk about death, life, God and Virgin Mary. If I was a tragic actor, I couldn’t allow myself. But with this accent I can do it. I can talk with death in person because I am a clown. Yes. And I am proud to be a clown – very much.
~Roberto Benigni

Laughter is a celebration of our failings. That’s what clowns are for. And that’s what I am.
~Emma Thompson

I am a clown…and I collect moments.
~Heinrich Böll

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No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that, everyone’s had enough of me to last a month.
~Anne Frank

I’ve said this before, that, when you’re in school and you’re the class clown, men are really good at making fun at other people and women are really good at making fun of themselves.
~Amy Poehler

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Posted from the Grove

I’m one of the more pessimistic cats on the planet. I make Van Gogh look like a rodeo clown.
~Dennis Miller

If people are a little nervous about approaching you at the market, it’s good. I’m not Chuckles The Clown. Or Bozo. I don’t cut the ribbon at the opening of markets. I don’t stand next to the mayor. Hit your baseball into my yard, and you’ll never see it again.
~Tom Waits

People like eccentrics. Therefore they will leave me alone, saying that I am a mad clown.
~Vaslav Nijinsky

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As a clown, you’re letting go of all of your bullshit.
~Caitlin Rose

I’m obsessed with clowns and what they represent and the idea that clowns are supposed to make you laugh, but inevitably they’re hiding something. That’s how I look at my life.
~Madonna Ciccone

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~Go Project Films:  Laugh Clown Laugh   (7:43)   a day in the life
https://vimeo.com/60202790

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~Vincent Urban: In Russia   (6:37)   forget the politics: real people live here, in real beauty
https://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/480867318

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I know what I look like – a weird, sad clown puppet. I’m fine with that.
~Rainn Wilson

I suppose that I’m fairly comfortable with the clown hat on.
~Nick Rhodes

I am a clown, just without the painted smile.
~Chevy Chase

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A wise man can play the part of a clown, but a clown can’t play the part of a wise man.
~Malcolm X

I remember in the circus learning that the clown was the prince, the high prince. I always thought that the high prince was the lion or the magician, but the clown is the most important.
~Roberto Benigni

The cleverest character in comedy is the clown, for he who would make people take him for a fool, must not be one.
~Miguel de Cervantes

Who are a little wise the best fools be.
~Dr John Donne

The wisest people are the clowns, like Harpo Marx, who would not speak. If I could have anything I want I would like God to listen to what Harpo was not saying, and understand why Harpo would not talk.
~Philip K Dick

The art of the clown is more profound than we think. It is the comic mirror of tragedy, and the tragic mirror of comedy.
~Andre Suares

There is no better role to play among the great than that of jester.
~Denis Diderot

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VIDEO:

God’s children and their happiness are my reasons for being.
~Red Skelton

I am prouder of my title ‘The Children’s Friend’ than if I were to be called ‘The King of the World’.
~P T Barnum

A Clown is an angel with a red nose.
~J T “Bubba” Sykes

Be. Here. NOW. Don’t forget to breathe. When all else fails, grab a clown nose.
~Tom Bergeron

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Wearing underwear on the outside of your clothes can turn a tedious trip to the store for a forgotten carton of milk into an amusement park romp.
~Patch Adams

You’ve got to realize that when all goes well, and everything is beautiful, you have no comedy. It’s when somebody steps on the bride’s train, or belches during the ceremony that you’ve got comedy!”
~Phyllis Diller

I’ve seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful.”
~Bob Hope

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~Omeleto:  Today’s the Day   (14:08)   a musical short
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=today%27s+the+day

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~Omeleto:  Step Right Up   (9:16)   warm, unfunny love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qr3mrTt3vw

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~Omeleto:  Clown Face   (10:26)   bad dad, daughter and a mirror
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQKhjNotAfY

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~Roshan Murthy:  Clown   (8:44)   the very sad, sad clown
https://vimeo.com/5832044

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I’m divorced and I’ve been to the circus and seen the clowns. This ain’t my first rodeo.
~Naomi Judd

Love is a pig dressed as a clown sitting in a bath full of beans: pretty much amazing, once you get over the shock.
~Craig Stone

Love may make the world go around, but laughter keeps us from getting dizzy.
~Donald Zockert

Is that love? It seems like a pale word, too easily tossed about by people who don’t know the meaning of it, who twist it for their own ends. I’m afraid of it now, right up there with clowns, close spaces, and open flames.
~Ann Aguirre

Clowning is a trick to get love close. I can hug 99 percent of people in the first second of contact if I’m in my clown character. The clown assumes your humanity. It assumes that, whatever trauma you’ve had, you can still love yourself.
~Patch Adams

Humor is something that strives between a person’s aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth.
~Victor Borge

True humor springs more from the heart than from the head; it is not contempt, its essence is love.
~Thomas Carlyle

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MUSIC:

I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad.
~William Shakespeare

It is meat and drink to me to see a clown.
~William Shakespeare

A smile is the light
on the window of your face
that tells others
that your heart is at home.
~Philip D Noble

Anyone who can make people laugh has the greatest gift God can give a man.
~Al Ross

The person who can bring the spirit of laughter into a room is indeed blessed.
~Bennett Cerf

Humor – The sunshine of the mind.
~Bulwer-Lytton Good

Good humor is goodness and wisdom combined.
~Owen Meredith

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The human race has only one really effective weapon, and that’s laughter. The moment it arises, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.
~Mark Twain

Make a man laugh a good hearty laugh, and you have paved the way for friendship. When a man laughs with you, he to some extent likes you.
~Dale Carnegie

Humor is the foundation of reconciliation.
~St Francis de Sales

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.
~Victor Borge

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Judy Collins: Send in the Clowns

~Dame Judi Dench   (4:50)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvZex3Qf7QQ

-or-

~Glenn Close:   (4:12)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vufO2FZY6XQ

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~Cole Porter ( from movie: The Pirate)  Be A Clown   (3:53)   classic comedy pizzaz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-MrAo8-1jw

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~Roy Orbison:  Candy Colored Clown, feat. The Frolic King   (2:48)   lip sync
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g_tRJ0Hb5I

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~Everly Brothers:  Cathy’s Clown, feat. Reba McEntire   (3:07)   western soap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYVKQW-RORs

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~Bobby Goldsboro:  Funny Little Clown   (3:23)   international heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8tzHS9n3f4

~~

A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world will come to an end: to the general applause of wits who believe it’s a joke.
~Soren Kierkegaard

When the whole world turns clown, and paints itself red with its own hearts blood instead of vermilion, it is something else than comic.
~John Ruskin

These Macedonians,” said he, “are a rude and clownish people, that call a spade a spade.
~Plutarch.

Jesters do often prove prophets.
~William Shakespeare

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I’m not sure how a world leader reacts to the work of a clown.
~Darrell Hammond

Men without dignity are like clowns without an audience, pathetic and lost.
~Rubin Carter

I remain just one thing, and one thing only — and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.
~Charlie Chaplin

A clown can get away with murder.
~John Wayne Gacy

A circus! 100 clowns of injustice have climbed out of the tiny clown car of this court room.
~Ellen DeGeneres

Sometimes evil is in the form of a malignant clown, and sometimes evil is in the form of policy and legislators, and sometimes it’s a grinning death mask and it has something more viscerally terrifying about it.
~Karyn Kusama

A God who is trying to convince people that He is a God is not a God! He is just a clown disguised as a God! No supreme power can be in need of convincing men!
~Mehmet Murat Ildan

If there had been a charismatic figure in the United States who could mobilize fears, anger, racism, a sense of loss of the future that belongs to us, this country could be in real danger. We’re lucky that there never has been an honest, charismatic figure. McCarthy was too much of a thug, you know? Nixon was too crooked. Trump, I think, is too much of a clown. So, we’ve been lucky.
~Noam Chomsky

The highest of renown
Are the surest stricken down;
But the stupid and the clown
They remain.
~Eugene Fitch Ware

Clowns and elephants are the pegs on which the circus is hung.
~P T Barnum

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Across the street, a clown picked up a ladder, turned, knocked the clown behind him into a bucket of water, then turned again to see what the commotion was, thus sending his rising victim into the bucket again with a surprising parping noise. The crowd watched silently. If it were funny, clowns wouldn’t be doing it.
~Terry Pratchett,

No clowns were funny. That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable.
~Terry Pratchett

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Life is a series of ups and clowns. Make it worth your wild!
~Richard Branson

I had a friend who was a clown. When he died, all his friends went to the funeral in one car.
~Steven Wright

When fighting clowns, always go for the juggler.
~Rawi Hage

Is it true that cannibals don’t eat clowns because they taste funny?
~Steven Wright

When all the people covered in tattoos turn about 70 years old, they’re going to look like a strange race of melting clowns.
~Dana Gould

There’s nothing like a clown with a boner to remind you that you’re having a nightmare.
~Dana Gould

When I see professional clowns, mimes, or people who makes balloon animals, I think of their relatives and how disappointed they must be.
~Jimmy Fallon

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Everyone knows there’s only one thing less welcome on a stage than a mime, and that’s a clown, because everyone knows that clowns eat people.
~Laurie Notaro

I hate clowns. You can’t see what they’re thinking.
~Geraldine McCaughrean

Clowns are always creepy!
~Kate Bush

The child’s laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown.
~Angela Carter

You have to be kind of alerted to the fact that clowns are scary and then you can’t look at them the same way again. There’s something very sinister about them… There’s something very tragic about them as well. The last thing they are is funny.
~Reece Shearsmith

I don’t even like clowns. Clowns are not normal people.
~Barbara Park

Death’s gruesome face taunts: soulless eyes, crimson grimace. I really hate clowns.
~Katherine Applegate

“Everyone hates clowns,” Otis said. “Even other clowns hate clowns.
~Rick Riordan

Clowns are vicious – they’re all nefarious grins – and if you hung out with a bunch of clowns in a bar, pretty soon it would turn into a horror movie. Nefarious means evil. It’s nothing to do with Rastas.
~Jenni Fagan

Nobody likes a clown at midnight
~Stephen King

I hate clowns. I’ve mentioned that, right?
~D J MacHale

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If you look at photographs of clowns when they’re just being ordinary men, they’ve got quite sad faces.
~Enid Blyton

Clowns drink to blot out the ravages of terrifying children for a living.
~Douglas Coupland

You turn into this desperate dude looking for a shred of attention when you just had so much. It’s like, “I’m just lonely and all I really want is a hug, but I gotta capture that in something real gross.” You start to understand why circus clowns are alcoholics.
~Babatunde Adebimpe

You never have a comedian who hasn’t got a very deep strain of sadness within him or her. Every great clown has been very near to tragedy.
~Margaret Rutherford

We are the zanies of sorrow. We are clowns whose hearts are broken.
~Oscar Wilde

The artist, like the idiot or clown, sits on the edge of the world, and a push may send him over it.
~Osbert Sitwell

So even in hell, there are clowns.
~Vernor Vinge

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Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, “Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.” Man bursts into tears. Says, “But doctor…I am Pagliacci.
~Alan Moore”

I mean, a clown’s got it all. He never has to hold back: He can do as he pleases. The mouth and the eyes are painted on. So if you wanta cry, you can go right ahead. The makeup won’t smear. You’ll still be smiling. . .
~Red Skelton

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@Writers Platform

Writing is for men who can think and feel, not mindless sensation seekers out of nightclubs and bars. But these are bad times. We are condemned to work with upstarts, clowns who no doubt got their training in a circus and then turned to journalism as the appropriate place to display their tricks.
~Naguib Mahfouz

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.
~John Steinbeck

Vulgarity is a necessary part of a complete author’s equipment; and the clown is sometimes the best part of the circus.
~George Bernard Shaw

The writer’s job is the job of a clown …the clown who also talks about sorrow.
~Kenzaburo Oe

Truth be told, when you start your career out as a clown, you don’t consider yourself a writer.
~Lizz Winstead

In the cycle of a great civilization, the artist begins as priest, and ends as a clown or buffoon.
~Malcolm Muggeridge

I should think that many of our poets, the honest ones, will confess to having no manifesto. It is a painful confession but the art of poetry carries its own powers without having to break them down into critical listings. I do not mean that poetry should be raffish and irresponsible clown tossing off words into the void. But the very feeling of a good poem carries its own reason for being… Art is its own excuse, and it’s either Art or it’s something else. It’s either a poem or a piece of cheese.
~Charles Bukowski

When you write, you can hide behind your words. When you talk, you are up front, like the clown in the midway booth; and passersby can bean you with a ball.
~Willard R Espy

READ! Books can be as delicious as hot-fudge sundaes, as funny as clowns, as exciting as a baseball game that’s tied in the 9th inning, and as beautiful as the best sunset you ever saw.
~Judith Viorst

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Uncertain whose the narrowest span,- the clown unread, or half-read gentleman.
~John Dryden

Better a witty fool then a foolish wit.
~William Shakespeare

Never underestimate a clown with a book.
~Rawi Hage

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Glass Table:  Contest Entry

~susanszy:  The Ice Mermaid

It was a dark and stormy night. Really.

The pirates aboard the Royal Fortune were making their way through the raging seas after having looted and pillaged Port Arthur.

The captain, Black Bart, had had too much rum but insisted on manning the helm. It was a bad, bad idea thought Billy Bones, the deaf first mate. But nothing could dissuade the captain. Yes, Billy Bones was indeed deaf, but he could read lips very well. No one on board even suspected he couldn’t hear.

Meanwhile, a golden mermaid had spotted the ship and was following its struggle in the gale and terrifying waves. Perfect. She glided gleefully to a nearby dark island.

The mermaid carefully chose a spot atop a craggy hill, where sharp rocks were exposed below. She cast her gaze upon the ship in the storm, and began her eerie song. Her voice carried through the strong winds and torrential rain where it assailed the captain’s ears.

Black Bart was immediately mesmerized by the siren song. The rest of the crew went below deck and fell asleep, as if they were enchanted. And indeed they were. Black Bart, drawn by a strong dark magic, turned the Royal Fortune toward the sound – and right for the dangerous rocks.

Billy Bones was not affected by the siren song. He was horrified to see that the captain was heading right for the sharp rocks which were clearly seen during each lightning flash. What was wrong with the captain? Billy Bones tried arguing with the captain, but to no avail – so he tried brute force. The captain, who seemed to have the strength of ten men, tried to throw Billy Bones overboard. But Billy had a death grip on the captain, so overboard they BOTH went.

The mermaid saw Billy Bones and Captain Black Bart enter the water. She then raised her arms. At that gesture, the swirling water turned to icy crags. Billy Bones and Black Bart froze immediately, and the Royal Fortune crashed into the sharp icy floes. The ship foundered, then sank beneath the ice.

The mermaid, also known as the Ice Mermaid, ceased her siren song. The ice in the sea melted. The golden Ice Mermaid swam away, watching for the next ship, which was sure to come soon. She was ready.

~~

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
~e e cummings

To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain and play with it!
~Charlie Chaplin

If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.
~Jimmy Buffet

Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food, but God has given us wit, and flavor, and brightness, and laughter to enliven the days of man’s pilgrimage, and to charm his pained steps over the burning marble.
~Sydney Smith

Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone.
~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Humor is like food. You have to have it every day.”
~Sid Caesar

We don’t stop laughing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop laughing.
~George Bernard Shaw

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Exercise Prompt:   clown

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A good laugh heals a lot of hurts.
~Madeleine L’Engle

A clown is like aspirin, only he works twice as fast
~Groucho Marx

Grim care, moroseness, anxiety — all this rust of life ought to be scoured off by the oil of mirth. Mirth is God’s medicine.
~Henry Ward Beecher

The role of a clown and a physician are the same it’s to elevate the possible and to relieve suffering.
~Patch Adams

The arrival of a good clown exercises a more beneficial influence upon the health of a town than twenty asses laden with drugs.
~Thomas Sydenham

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The Exercise:

~BarTalk:

the circus

less than tragic more than sad
oxymoron, clown in love
recently registered irregular heartbeat
decently decorated threadbare coat sleeve
fickle volatile smiles upside down
puppet love would-be, misbehaving frown

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Epiphany

Visited epiphany
This day of infamy
Tricked out clown
Full-blown insanity
Seditions, seductions
Treasonous atrocities
Grab ’em by the putsch
See, watch it wriggle free
Curséd day called Epiphany

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course revision

callow students
hallowed teachers
sacred clowns
from holy fools
rethink the future
nature of schools
two steps up
from the iron rule
do unto others
before they do unto you
a golden thought
for the art of living
’stead of push and pull
gifted hearts
full of giving

~

5-7-5 x 4

death no longer news
passing strange this passage, time
god Clown flips a coin

~

3 lines 3 times

clown, vain little man
supposed himself greater than
the clubhouse he ran
~
clown in the mirror
irrelevant, petulant
unrequited vote
~
ham it up, loser
politics, clowning around
ain’t funny no more

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I don’t know what happiness is. I don’t know what sweet caress is. Still, I’m always laughing like a clown.
~Bob Marley

I was just school class clown and that was it. Someday I’ll get a job as a cab driver or whatever.
~John Leguizamo

Sure, I could of done it different… put my clown in a closet and dressed up in straight clothing. I could of compromised my essence, and swallowed my soul.
~Wavy Gravy

Everyone who goes to a job he doesn’t like is a lot weirder than I am.
~Patch Adams

Part of positive psychology is about being positive, but sometimes laughter and clowns are not appropriate. Some people don’t want to be happy, and that’s okay. They want meaningful lives, and those are not always the same as happy lives.
~Eric Weiner

The person who knows how to laugh at himself will never cease to be amused.
~Shirley MacLaine

I’m the clown you take out of the box and wind up when you need a good laugh. And then, when you’re done with me, I go back in my box.
~Richard Simmons

I’ma be here for a while. None of these clowns can hurt me.
~J Cole

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Quotes harvested from:  https://azquotes.com, http://www.brainyquote.com, https://dailypnut.com, https://famousclowns.org/famous-clowns/clown-quotes-famous-sayings-clowns/,  https://goodreads.com, https://www.inspiringquotes.us/, http://www.quotegarden.com, https://wiseoldsayings.com

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Video Harvest: https://vimeo.com , https://youtube.com

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