My roommate and I carpooled to Paris today. En route, we discussed improv and clowning. Some students at our school want to be clowns. Others want to be actors or performers of a different stripe.
This school teaches pleasure-finding and pleasure-sharing. That’s it. Everything else is downstream.
Lately, I’ve had much less ability to share pleasure. Since around July, something’s been off. It’s not that I’m more self-conscious (I’m not). It’s not that I feel less pleasure (I don’t). It’s that my ability to give it—my pleasure-sharing skill—has dipped from where it recently was.
At an alumni gathering for my university, people asked what I do. I told them I’m in clown school. They asked what I plan to do with it. I had simple, light conversations. Most of it felt uninteresting. Like I had no ability to use the skills I had just learned to find and share pleasure.
Why was it so hard? Where does this difficulty come from?
One: a cough. I’ve been sick the last few days.
Two: a fractured foot. Not exactly peak performance mode.
¿Three: the weird-ass mental state this school induces?
¿Four: just not doing this thing well?
Five: [redacted, personal]
—
Last night, I went to a cabaret, watched friends perform, and talked with them afterward. We discussed clowning and performance. We connected easily. Pleasantly. Full of spark. Despite having trouble with this the last few weeks. With the same people, no less.
Why does this turn on and off without my permission? This ability to connect with others—to care, to be curious, to find pleasure and give it back?
It’s odd.
It feels, currently, out of my control.
I guess that’s why I’m studying it. To gain control of giving light.
All three teachers agree: I should not attend the second half of this course.
That’s nice.
I wasn’t enjoying Neutral Mask. I wasn’t looking forward to Greek Tragedy. Friends have commented worries about my emotional health and about whether the school’s pedagogy implements brainwashing tactics. Perhaps it will be nice to have time off.
One of the main teachers says I analyze too much. Instead of analyzing, they say, I should “sit in the feedback.”
I’m not so sure.
When I sit in feedback, I misread it. When they told me my costume looked like “vomited broccoli,” I thought they were literally insulting the outfit. A friend later suggested it was meant to get under my skin — a non-literal pedagogical tactic.
But how am I supposed to incorporate something non-literal without analyzing it?
If literal doesn’t mean literal, then…?
And anyway, who wants to sit in vomit?
—
The head teacher asked me a question today. I wasn’t performing on account of my fractured foot, so another student took my slot. She looked at me and asked:
“Was your replacement excellent, or could you have done better?”
I said, “I don’t want to answer.”
The class booed.
I felt confused.
I asked her to repeat the question. She did. I said, “I don’t think it was excellent, but I don’t think I could have done better.” Then I named two specific weak points in the scene.
She said, “It’s good to know your level.”
And I agree. I wasn’t being self-pitying or self-judging — just honest about where I’m currently at.
I’ve had trouble with complexity here. A few days ago, we had three mistakes to resolve, and when I chose one hug, one kiss, and one Swedish handshake, I sensed tension as though people thought I was trying to be unnecessarily cute. And that’s literally 1+1+1=3. Complexity seems to be frowned upon. So what do I do when I’m tasked with following the fun, and sometimes find complexity fun?
At coffee today, a classmate realized Los Angeles is on the west coast rather than the east, and mentioned she formerly thought Africa was the world’s biggest country. She’s also had much more success than I have in recent class sessions.
Maybe I’m expecting something different from these clowns than they have to give. I’ve watched people forget a promise five minutes after making it. I’ve watched them make complete 180s in real time. Perhaps an excellent clown is so right-brained they exist only in the present moment.
Regardless, they’re great clowns.
I’m gonna miss them. 🤡
—
I’m excited to have some time away.
In January, a friend arrives to the school. That’ll be nice. We’ll take a course together. Probably live together. It’s good to bring a friend. 😀
I asked the assistant about switching classes; she said it’d be good for them administratively. So I might as well try it for one course: Melodrama. After that comes Bouffon, then Vaudeville. A change of pace. And if it’s still rough, I’ll know it’s not the section.
As for the newsletter: I was supposed to be on winter break from clown school for six weeks (Dec 13–Jan 25). Now it’s nine weeks. I’ll continue writing daily for two reasons:
In which Our Hero wonders what specific problem is afoot.
My roommate asked if I’m on the spectrum.
He teaches improv to autistic kids professionally, so the question wasn’t random. He even offered some lightly camouflaged feedback he gives his students:
They find the game and play it very hard, but ignore the pleasure of the people around them.
They approach situations with a kind of childlike openness, but the moment someone comments on them, they build a thick, impenetrable shield.
I asked him if he is on the spectrum. He said no.
I’m grateful for his attempt to help. I’m also aware his description fits me in class. What I’m still missing are the “what” and “how” of changing it.
–
I’ve only worked in one real office. I was 19, a sophomore in college, with a summer job at a NYC marketing agency. They paid me $16/hr to make the same repeated mouse clicks, transferring digital assets from one system to another. I downloaded a mouse-recording tool and automated my job. Then automated the interns’ jobs. Then automated my direct superior’s job.
And nobody liked me.
I was there to work. To do the task. To be effective. Clock in, clock out, $16/hr. Promotion was not on the menu. Mostly, they just wanted me swept quietly under the rug.
The connection between that summer and here isn’t skill: I’m far worse at clowning than I was at automating workflows. The connection is the feeling in the room. The details are different, but the emotional texture is uncannily similar. There, as here, I tried to make friends. There, as here, people were cordial but uninterested.
To me, clown school feels like a coworking space. Others have formed friendships; I’m batting maybe 2-for-10 on hangout invitations, with no successful follow-ups/second hangs from the two. Eventually you give up, videochat friends from home, and read a book.
It makes it harder that I’m not enjoying the classes. Nor am I learning well. It’s just terrifically challenging.
Maybe that’s intentional: the hardest class comes after the fundamentals. Or maybe I’m unraveling. I keep wondering whether the problems I had back in April/May were different ones. I was in a completely different psycho-emotional state then.
–
After class today, a teacher asked what I planned to do with my broken foot.
I told them I’m of two minds:
Take it as a sign from the gods and get the fuck out of here, returning in January.
Stay and see whether this new, legless constraint allows for new growth.
–
Last night a friend told me I only ever talk about myself. Sure. My pleasure is in the game. And it is vast. But it doesn’t seem to be in the sharing. More autistic people become computer programmers than clowns. Perhaps I’m less naturally equipped. Maybe my version of sharing the game is the multiple clowns who I helped with visa applications. Maybe it’s in the creation of a clown house so people aren’t stuck with individual roomshares. Maybe it’s cleverness or intellect. Those play poorly on this stage.
High achievers share one trait: grit. Do I want to grit through this? Do I even want to be a clown?
At the beginning, my clown school goals were 80% spiritual and 20% tangible. The tangible ones were:
Learn the practice.
Learn the theory.
Make friends.
Right now:
I’m injured.
People keep telling me they don’t connect with me (and act like it).
Peers are also sharing their suffering.
–
One performer friend says the physical restriction might actually help my clowning. Another says being forced to “not try so hard” might help me be better at clowning and enjoy myself more.
Personally, I’m unconvinced the foot bone is connected to the trying bone. Or that either one attaches to the funny bone.
Meanwhile I spent six hours crying on Tuesday. Cried three more times today. And feel like I’m banging my head against a wall. (This feels like a particularly intense few weeks, not my new permanent state.)
With my foot injury, I even lost morning movement class, which I liked more than afternoon improv.
Ugh.
Today in class I performed one of the “substances”: Chloric Acid. I struggled because I didn’t know what specific acid she meant. She said it was something used to unclog drains, so I did drano. She said my rhythm was too slow. My later googling suggests chloric acid can have a fast, popping rhythm—but it is definitely not a drain cleaner. Maybe she meant hydrochloric acid? If this is my problem at clown school, maybe I’m better suited to be a chemist. (Tomorrow, I hope they ask me to play Barium Disodium.)
When it came time for “cream,” I sat out. Then I lied down on the floor so I could elevate my fractured foot above my heart. Which my roommate later said indicated to him I was autistic.
What’s next?
Ugh. Time for more searching. The searching is the practice, I guess.
In which Our Hero gently invites his classmates to find pleasure in their fear.
[I wrote this earlier today, before a long and insightful conversation with my roommate. By the vacillations of clown school, I’m not sure how much I still endorse or will endorse tomorrow. How’s that for a cop-out? 🤡]
Another shit day at clown school. I should frighten other students more.
Listen:
Earlier today we were playing dodgeball. Someone on the opposing team had the ball and motioned toward me. I ran away, bumped into a teammate, and she let out a startled little yelp, plus an admonishment along the lines of “come on guys, it’s a game.”
Later in that same match, I leapt to grab a ball, robbing the opposing team of a catch, like stealing a home run but dodgeball-style. A player said, “Chill out.” The first person would probably call themselves unathletic. The second, not very competitive.
Okay.
Sure.
What of it?
Sidebar: clown school is populated far more by theatre nerds than athletes. I’m probably the best all-around athlete in my class—not the strongest or tallest, just the one with the most hunger to win and the actual ability to put that into reality. So why is it not showing up?
After her yelp, I shrank back. I became smaller, gentler, duller. I had less fun.
But realistically? A little bump between teammates in dodgeball is not a big deal. No one fell. No one got hurt. It was a collision between two moving bodies in a game whose entire premise is hurling projectiles at each other.
The recent American neurosis of “don’t cause anyone fear ever” does not help me here. Hurting people would be bad. Frightening them? Not inherently. If two people bump into each other while playing dodgeball, the appropriate move is some sort of affectionate “eh, no worries love”.
But I’ve been avoiding frightening people. And it’s getting in the way of my clowning.
The first time I truly succeeded on stage was when I FINALLY LET LOOSE. A demon burst out of my sternum and shat poop-colored rainbows across the stage.
The teacher told me to tone it down, apologize, and bring the same energy with more sensitivity.
The second time I started from a light, airy emotional place: gentle by nature, and the power followed.
Today the feedback is that I lack impulse. And the truth is: I felt it. In the afternoon class, I wasn’t powering with impulse at all. I was stuck in my head, nitpicking the pedagogy (correctly, but uselessly). I couldn’t find pleasure in anything.
I hate being in this oscillation space.
My roommate disagrees with my whole “frighten them more” instinct. He thinks I’m conflating playing intensely with playing to win (and that playing to win will necessarily not maximize group pleasure). He says I lack a lightness—a tiny joke kept in the back of my mind.
And maybe he’s right. On stage today, I lost the game. I forgot the game. I played it well for a few minutes. Then I forgot it.
Never forget the game.
Look.
When I do have impulse, people get scared. That’s the truth. I’m intense. When I try to win at dodgeball, people get quiet and the light, floaty vibe evaporates. Today I had the ball, and an opponent squared up. I pump-faked twice. Then I whammed him.
During that exchange, the room went silent. The airy part of the game vanished.
Did it become another kind of fun?
Is it not fun to watch two gladiators square off? To see combatants toy with another in a spirit of agreed-upon play? Isn’t that a form of respect—acknowledging we both have power and we’re choosing to use it?
Maybe the audience wasn’t laughing. Maybe they were leaning in. I don’t know. Maybe I’m justifying.
Maybe I should scale it: go hard against the skilled players, soften against the less-skilled. A consent-based approach to dodgeball. (Unless I’m the last one alive. Then it’s win, win, win.)
I don’t know whether it was pleasant to watch me whang that guy. I imagine it was.
I’m six feet tall, bearded, and frequently voracious. Of course people are scared of me. Underneath any coverings I add (silliness, friendliness, gentleness), they may always feel some amount of fear.
But maybe their fear isn’t a reason for me to shrink.
Maybe their fear is something they get to deal with.
Because otherwise, I become small and boring. I lose my impulse. And that is absolutely not fun for me.
Fear without safety is fear. Fear with safety is exhilaration.
I guess I need to give people that safety.
To clearly show this is a joke. This whole thing is silly. Show them in a way that’s obvious to them: I’m not taking myself too seriously: the thing I’m doing is a joke. And that way, when you fear me, you also feel safe around me. And that way, even though you fear me; even though you respect me and my intensity, you love me.
Would you rather I be too much or too little?
Right now, at school, too much. They can work with too much. Too little just gets kicked off.
In which Our Hero sleeps, sins, and seeks salvation.
At the end of this week, I’m a quarter of the way through this program. That’s wild. Three times as much left as what I’ve already done. No wonder it feels like I’ve lived six different emotional lifetimes.
I told my sister today about our daily Simon Says game. It’s brilliantly constructed. It’s also deranged.
Here’s how it works: when you make a mistake, you must seek absolution. You get to choose your method of redemption. The menu:
Hug
Kiss
Swedish handshake
Nothing
Or… torture
If you choose “nothing,” nothing happens. If you choose “torture,” one of the teachers (or a friend, if you prefer) faux-tortures you in front of the class. If you choose one of the other options, you turn to a peer and ask, “Can I have a [hug/kiss/handshake]?”
If they say “yes,” you receive absolution.
If they say anything else—literally anything: “yep” is interpreted as “go to hell”—you get tortured.
My sister was horrified. Honestly, same. The first time we played, I felt like I’d accidentally joined a cult that prioritizes whimsy over human rights. And yet…it works. The faux-torture weirdly brings us together. There’s something intimate about placing your fate in someone else’s hands and trusting they’ll either help you or throw you to the wolves. (And, sometimes we just choose the torture directly: our Assistant Teacher is an exquisite tickler.)
My sister asked why people don’t always say “yes.” Partially because we’re learning how to ask and receive asks well. So if you ask poorly (not loud enough; emotionally closed; selfish), your odds plummet. And partially because, well, that’s the game.
—
Last night, for the first time in ages, I slept well. Deeply. My room traps CO₂, so I’ve been sleeping poorly. Last night I cracked open both the window and the shutters. Oxygen: acquired. Primitive problem, elegant solution.
I don’t have much to write about today. My energy feels softer, steadier.
One woman in class has been struggling to find a lower, more powerful voice. Our assistant teacher stood behind her and performed a kind of gentle, low Heimlich maneuver while she screamed “FUCK YOU, [Head Teacher]!” at full volume. It helped. Theatre is strange medicine.
We also explored two new “substances”: oil/petrol/gasoline and superglue. I’m tired of this exercise. Some classmates love it; I don’t. Maybe that’s the point: finding joy in an approach I don’t naturally love. I can learn it. I just don’t yet.
—
I found a partner for Friday’s scene. The task: play contrasting characters who always agree. Hot, fast, smoky oil in perfect harmony with gentle, falling snow: two beings that shouldn’t coexist and yet do.
It might be funny. It might be a disaster. That’s clown school.
—
My goal this week is simple and impossible: be sensitive, be open, be gentle: with my partners, with the audience, with myself. I’ll do the exercises, but the real work is internal.
Do I have pleasure? If so, am I sharing it with the audience? If so, am I sharing it with my partner? Am I playing together, or am I playing alone?
Clown school is hard. But at least I slept. And maybe—just maybe—I’ve solved my CO₂ problem.
For weeks I’ve been trying to reverse-engineer what we’re actually doing in clown school.
There are moments in class when something works—a laugh, a tiny eruption of joy—and the teacher says, “Yes, that.” And then there are moments when the entire room goes still and we all collectively realize the joy has petered out.
Our teachers keep highlighting the importance of the game. I kept wishing there were actual rules. Not to restrict play—but to name what’s already happening.
So I wrote them.
This document is the clearest articulation I’ve managed so far of how the “game” of clowning works in the Gaulier school of thought: the goal, the metrics, the tactics, the traps, the physics of pleasure, the difference between Major and Minor, how to avoid killing your own play, why dignity matters, why heaviness kills the audience, and the one rule that seems to underlie everything: maximize total pleasure without harming yourself.
If you’re in clown training, or theatre, or comedy, or anything requiring presence and sensitivity, you may find this helpful. Or validating. Or confusing in a way that becomes helpful later. That’s typically how this school works.
Here is the full writeup. Comments are enabled in case you’re curious or want to poke at any element:
How to avoid hurting yourself—physically, emotionally, professionally
If you’re not a clown and don’t plan to be one, it still might interest you. Clown logic rhymes with life logic more than we admit: be sensitive, be generous, be open, don’t force things, play the game that’s actually happening instead of the one in your head.
And share your pleasure. People open to you when you do.
In which Our Hero explains how to tiptoe text ‘top the tulips.
I spoke today with a close friend who reads my blog religiously. He told me he was this close to calling and saying:
“Dude, maybe you should take clown school less seriously.”
But then, he said, he was relieved to see I’d arrived there myself this week.
I taught him something I learned: put the text on top of the game. (Don’t let the text strangle the game.)
He’s a musician, so here’s the analogy I used:
When you play a song on piano, you can think: C major, F, G, C-flat. Technical, correct, literal.
Or—you can visualize a volcano erupting. Or summon some vivid, private memory.
The game is that image/memory/emotional source. The text is the notes—or the words.
If you play the game and let the text sit lightly on top of it, the audience receives two tracks at once. We receive both the notes and something of the image.
A common mistake is to use the game to “underline” the text.
If you’re imagining Jesus while playing a hymn about Jesus, the audience gets the same information twice. It’s flat.But if you’re imagining a volcano erupting while playing a hymn about Jesus, the audience receives two different tracks. It becomes richer, stranger, more alive. They can’t necessarily name the image, but they can feel its charge. It evokes something personal in them.
Everyone received a mark of zero today. Every. Single. Student. A new record. Some people earned three zeroes; some two; some only one. I loved it.
The teacher says I sometimes laugh when no one else does. “When Julian laugh, he is alone.” Fair enough. Sometimes I’m not laughing at the thing itself, but at what the thing makes me think of. Like a few weeks ago: a group tried to play a game where they became “scared” whenever someone said a word with the sound boo in it. The game was stupid; the play was bad; and the gap between the silliness of the idea and the flatness of the execution made me laugh. It was like watching someone throw themselves at the ground and miss. Delightful.
I received a zero today. I enjoyed it. I don’t care about their grade. That’s just part of the game. I’m glad I succeeded in doing some new things well.
I had one moment onstage—maybe half a second—where it all clicked. Holding my hands in perfect blades (as I was a stick insect), I tried to open a soda bottle. I was having so much fun; I looked ridiculous in my all-gray outfit; the audience laughed. Then one of my partners stole the bottle away, stealing the game from me and thereby ending it.
During the summer course, I heard the head clown teacher say something like “You have found a problem. That is a very special thing for a clown. If you solve it, you will need to find a new problem and that is not always so easy.”
Still, for that instant, I succeeded. 😀
During talkbacks, Head Teacher said: “And this guy [me]. At least he is finally covering his legs.” (I usually wear shorts.) So I raised one pant leg—just a small, innocent reveal. She laughed and looked away, maybe a little embarrassed. I did the same with the other leg. She laughed again. Light, gentle, generous, giving. Success! You’re not only performing when you’re on stage. You’re always performing. [And, well, I was still standing on the stage.]
Today I took the whole class as a joke. A game. A silly thing we’re all doing together. That shift alone made everything feel lighter. It made me more receptive and open.
I found the fun and the games in her comments. I felt lightness all the way through. (Except for the time when she said I laugh alone. I felt hurt and sad and lonely for a moment there. And then I found the lightness and pleasure again 🙂
Monday was my most painful Clown School day yet. On Tuesday, I started to recover. Today, I find the whole exercise funny. Our teacher literally started class with vocal exercises of her pronouncing the word “zero”. After people performed, she sometimes said “[X person] had a good entrance…” and sometimes said “[Y person was a] total catastrophe” yet still gave everyone in that group the same mark: zero. A farcical grading system! A curve with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of also zero! Only needing one number card to hold up! How droll. What a deeply silly ritual.
One student had a few little flashes of something—tiny moments, not the whole piece—and I told her after the show. She lit up, said it was nice of me to say (and said it in the way that people do when they’re authentically touched). We’re all in this together, and a glimpse of success counts.
Somehow, when we’re in rough waters, I find the pleasure more easily than when we’re sailing smooth seas. On Monday, right after everyone’s big triumphs of last Friday, I was the lowest of the low. Perhaps this is part of why I laugh alone. I suppose there’s fun in that discrepancy too.
“What’s funny about suffering?” you may ask.
What isn’t?
—
I think we’re being trained to find pleasure under duress. A clown’s job is to bring pleasure to the audience, they have to mine that pleasure from their own world, and share it. And the world isn’t always gentle: political trouble, personal strife, illness, rough crowds. If I can find pleasure when things go well and also when things go poorly: that’s a kind of success.
They’re training us to be successful clowns. If you’re going to be a truly successful clown, you need more than one safe trick. One peak of pleasure isn’t enough. To find higher peaks and fill your bag with more tricks, you have to explore: try things, fail, fall into valleys, climb out again. Failure is how you map where the fun actually lives. The teachers are training us to fail well so we can explore more freely. The more I flop, the more terrain I get to see. And I better entertain the audience along the way.
Right now, this stick insect finds more pleasure during the poor times.
What a funny thing to be.
P.S. I watched the second-year clown students today. They were also harangued more aggressively than usual. I’m almost certain this is intentional. I approve. When something works, push it to the extreme.
In which Our Hero becomes a stickbug and briefly a rooster.
My b-b-b-boring dance
Yesterday’s boring dance left me with two lingering side effects:
I am now wearing gray facepaint and an all-gray outfit for camouflage purposes.
I am suddenly much more interested in doing dumb things for others’ pleasure—which, conveniently, is exactly what clown school is for. (“Paint my face gray so it matches my outfit because I’m a stickbug? Absolutely.”) [Reader: “But stickbugs aren’t gray.” Me: “It’s for camouflage. Have you ever seen a gray stick bug?” Reader: “No” Me: “So it’s working!”]
A friend asked me today: “What exactly is Neutral Mask?” Good question.
Neutral Mask – the course I’m currently taking – is a theater exercise using literal plastic masks—blank, expressionless, un-opinionated. We use them because:
With the face hidden, you naturally grimace less. (“Grimace” = any habitual expression or tic that blocks the actor from sharing themselves with us.)
You’re forced to communicate with your whole body.
A typical Neutral Mask sequence:
Put on the mask.
Channel some external entity—this week: animals (reptiles, savannah, big cats, barnyard creatures). Last week: elements (fire, water, earth, air, snow). The instruction is always: Find the fun of the image.
Midway, the teacher bangs her drum: “Fixed point!” Students from the audience remove the performers’ masks.
Performers continue and are called on one by one to give voice to their creature.
If there’s not enough pleasure, you’re kicked off.
If you pass, you slowly stand, taking that pleasure “inside,” transforming the creature into a character.
Perform that character, always keeping the fun alive, whether through movement, worldview, or physical logic. This fun must not be ideas nor the concept of fun: it must be actual fun.
My creature: the stickbug
The stickbug mostly sits still, scanning the horizon for predators. When bothered, it:
drops to the ground, or
throws off a limb.
When it moves, it scurries, antennae twitching, always on alert.
My character: Simon Schticklington
Simon is entirely gray: outfit, face, and demeanor. When frightened, he collapses from sudden “heart trouble.” He also has severe imaginary arthritis: elbows locked at 90°, hips straight, fingers in rigid blade-positions forever.
He lends himself to a few games:
Motor incompetence. Want a soda bottle opened? Simon will attempt it with profound sincerity and fail with even more sincerity.
Fear-collapse. When scared, he drops—and because of the elbow/hip rules, he cannot stand without the heroic assistance of classmates.
Projectile panic. Startle him while he’s holding something and he throws it. Today I brought a baguette specifically so I could chuck it at a friend guilt-free.
He also just looks silly. Which is good. Yesterday’s boring-dance taught me the deep wisdom of looking stupid on purpose. It’s liberating.
Today’s unexpected triumph
Today I had my biggest solo success. I entered inspired by a rooster: chest puffed, arms akimbo-ish, each step ceremonial and deliberate. They laughed. I kept the pleasure. I preened (like a gym bro). They laughed again.
I lost the balance shortly after—but for a glorious five seconds, I was clowning.
It’s good to remember that I’m b-b-b-boring. It’s good to remember that I do dumb things. People like people who admit such things about themselves.
Julian Wise 