Tag: Philosophy

Clown School Day 18: You Must Play the Game

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In which Our Hero misquotes Shakespeare.

“This above all: to thine own game be true.” —Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 3.

It’s very easy to forget the game.

But the game is the most important thing.

Some performance is only game. Tennis, for instance, is only game: and look how much money that earns.

The Rehearsal

My scene partner and I rehearsed today. We lacked pleasure because we had forgotten the game.

The original game was simple: I make my partner lick a thing. Like when children find a bug and dare each other to eat it.

It wasn’t fun anymore. We knew it was coming. We knew he would do it. There was no tension, no conflict.

So we changed it.

Now, we begin with a eulogy for a piece of the space: “We are gathered here today to say goodbye to the power outlet.”

Then we play rock-paper-scissors.

The loser, as a ritual of farewell, must lick it.

As the scene escalates, so do the lickables. The floor. The bottom of a shoe. The teacher.

We didn’t have a game. Now we have a game.

The game? Rock-paper-scissors.

But with stakes!

The Farce

In Improv class, I realized the rule applies to everything.

We played a farce: a train compartment. One person enters, perfectly normal except for one grotesque tic. They repeat it. Then a second person enters, takes pleasure from that game, and — after a long time enjoying their tic (longer than you think) — adds their own tic, heightening the first. Then a third person. Then a fourth.

The game is simple: take the game from the person before you, heighten it through your play, and pass it on.

Simple is nice.

Simple is hard.

You have to feel the scene. Is it falling down? Are you talking over the game with “train compartment” nonsense? Are you heightening or dominating or smothering?

When everyone played the game, the farce appeared by itself.

When someone forgot, everything froze.

The game makes the show. Always has. Always will.

The Handstand

This morning, I flipped upside-down.

My first handstand (wall-assisted), then onto a peer’s back, who rolled me forward, turning us both into a ball.

A new game: gravity as partner.

I’d forgotten the joy of inversion.

The Father

My father arrived in Étampes today. He wants more than anything to see a class.

I’d love to have him: to share my play space. The school forbids it.

No visitors, no cameras, no phones. We even sign a “no recording” oath, like monks taking vows.

Why so strict?

Because clowning is vulnerable.

I’ve seen people bare grief. I’ve seen them make absolute fools of themselves (and not the good kind).

Once, a student scraped his false teeth along the floor before popping them back in. The room gasped. Disgust and horror.

Once, I yelled at the teacher. Their instruction felt like trash; maybe provoking me was the point.

This isn’t for YouTube. This is for us.

The school protects its game.

It keeps the outside world out, so the play inside can live.

The Lesson

The game is everything: the lick, the tic, the flip, the secret room.

When you forget the game, everything dies.

When you play it, life appears.

Protect the space so you can play the game.

Then find the game.

Release all else.

Play the game.

And when you lose it, start again.

That’s what makes it a play.

Clown School Day 17: The LeBron of Tic Tac Toe

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In which Our Hero learns that leadership means getting the simple things right.

THE SETUP

The game is simple: tic-tac-toe.

The complication: teammates.

Two teams of 11 players, across a ten-foot-by-ten-foot tic-tac-toe board. Each team has three handkerchiefs of their team color. At the sound of the drum, the first player sprints to a spot on the board, drops their handkerchief, and sprints back to tag the next player.

When all three of your handkerchiefs are placed, your move is to move one of your handkerchiefs instead of placing a new one.

At three in a row, you win the point.

THE ESCALATION

How is this so hard?

First, foot faults. Were both of your feet inside the square where you dropped the kerchief? If not, your placement doesn’t count. (More than one clown kicked the game board itself, forcing a complete game stop and reset.)

Second, speed. Your next teammate goes when your previous teammate tags them. If you dawdle, the opponents may get two moves to your team’s one: a death knell in tic tac toe.

Third, skill errors. Can you picture the board as it currently is, and how you would like it to be after your play? Can you balance both your team’s desire for three in a row with the importance of blocking the other team?

Fourth, panic. If you’re not sure where to place the handkerchief, you may find yourself overwhelmed by the twenty clowns yelling at you.

THE CHAOS

If this sounds intense, that’s because it is. It’s the most competitive I’ve seen clowns in four weeks of class. One clown classmate commented to me: “Usually you and I are the only two trying to win. In this game, everyone is.”

And the best part: it’s tic tac toe.

You know, the game that even a monkey can play.

When I played this same game in the summer course, I was dubbed “the LeBron of tic tac toe” by a Boston-accented TikTok star who’d gained school-wide notoriety for roasting himself in a Trump impression.

This time, my team came out to a strong start. 2-0 in the lead.

Their team called a time out.

From across the board, I could see one member of their team — a former death row attorney now turned stand up comedian — giving an impassioned speech.

Members of my team jeered at him. I thought of strategic elements I wanted to share — if unsure, play the middle or corners, not the sides; run back quickly to tag your teammate — but kept them to myself, unsure how to make them land. I didn’t want to come off as the pushy, out-for-victory teammate.

The game restarted. Their team came out on a tear. They won three of the next four points, and ultimately took the match 11-9.

All game I mused to myself: What had he said? They started to coordinate so well. What strategies did he share? How did he inspire them to listen to his suggestions without coming off as pushy?

THE REVELATION

At lunch, I asked him. I complimented him on his success, then I asked what he had said.

“Oh, that? Some of our team didn’t understand the game. I just explained the rules.”

There’s a Polish expression I enjoy that translates to “Not my circus, not my monkeys”.

Unfortunately, this is my circus.

And unfortunately, it is not populated with monkeys.

Clown School Day 16: Crying Beautifully

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In which Our Hero is the Major

It’s nice to be celebrated for crying.

The exercise is simple: receive the ball from your friend → thank your friend → declare with the vigor of a leading actor, “[Loved one], look at me: I’m the major!”

Most people fail for being too small: instantly kicked off, banished forever, like too-polite ghosts. In the summer course, I had been one of those, kicked off after one word.

Not wanting to befall this fate, I powered hard in the other direction.

After receiving the ball and thanking my friend, I turned to the audience, pulled out all the stops, and loosed a booming “YAYAAAAA!!!”

Students flinched in fear.

Head Teacher provided me lines to repeat back:

  • “I’m sorry, Yaya, for frightening you with my shouting.”

Then, Head Teacher dialed me in:

  • Softer
  • More open
  • Gentler
  • Less pushing
  • More subtle

When I had all the mechanics correct but was still missing joie de vivre, Head Teacher asked me who in the class I would want to kiss me. I chose a girl in the front row. Head Teacher asked, “Do you want another?” I said no, one is enough.

Then, whenever I spoke the text with all the mechanics correct but insufficient relaxed openness, Head Teacher signaled this classmate to kiss me on the neck. Later, classmates told me the kiss had opened me up: It stopped me from pushing so hard. I was, perhaps, trying to be liked. If I just sit back and show people who I am, it turns out they find me beautiful.

Eventually, as I opened up, tears began to fall. Not just mine. I saw tears in at least one audience member’s eyes.

What is this releasing? Is it a sadness or a joy or a wonder or a beauty? Is it the physical manifestation of pain being shared?

It reminded me of two events:

  • One, crying in my parents’ shower seven years ago. I had just ended the most significant relationship of my life and was scouring my gut with steel wool, knocking off barnacles attached from that pain.
  • Two, at Burning Man around that same time. Watching the Temple burn, I mourned the end of that relationship and grieved the pain it had caused me.

The first happened in private. The second happened in public. And bawling at Burning Man, surrounded by fifty thousand people, the funniest thing happened:

Everybody kept trying to help. Some offered a tissue; others provided a shushing noise. Well-meaning people, but they were soothing their own discomfort, not mine. Mine wasn’t discomfort. Mine was comfort for the first time in a decade. My tears were the powerful release of pain. And others, in wanting to help, tried to pull me back into their pool of internalized pain.

I’ve had a philosophy since that experience: people who are grieving should be allowed to lead. Sit with them; offer them your kind presence; maybe a hand to hold if they want to. But let them lead. Even that hand-holding is more likely to be top-down controlling than actually helpful and kind. Let them take care of themselves. You are there to serve.

Here, on stage, it was nice to finally be rewarded for my raw, open emotion. To show that rawness and have it accepted. Not just any rawness: it had to be loving (directed at Yaya) and relaxedly pleasurable (from the kiss). But still, a context in which to share my experience. To share my feelings. To share my pain.

If you have deep pain, we’ll accept that here — so long as you offer it as a light, open gift.

Four minutes on stage. One of three people who cried during the exercise. Described as a “breakthrough” by a fellow student.

It’s intoxicating.

Satisfying.

Nice to be alive.

And delightful

to be celebrated

for being myself.

—

Yaya, today, I was the major.

Clown School Weekend 3.2: This Place is Run by Clowns

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In which Our Hero concludes that brilliance is no match for a red nose.

About once every other day, someone at clown school does something spectacularly disorganized. I sigh and say, “This place is run by clowns.”

And it is.

—

Clowns are not, by their nature, particularly intelligent.

It’s not that they’re stupid.

It’s that intelligence and clowning live on different axes.

An intelligent person may learn the craft faster. But the desire to clown, the joy of it, might even be anti-correlated with intelligence.

Smart people tend to want control. Clowns surrender it.

Smart people tend to want power. Clowns seek to be laughed at.

And yet, in my March course, three of the 30 Americans were Yale graduates.

Plus a single from Stanford.

Just enough prestige to make the chaos feel ironic.

Of course, it helps to be rich enough to spend a year falling on your face.

Still, it’s a funny sight I observed in Thursday’s class:

eight clowns silently arranging themselves in order of intelligence.

The clown they insisted should be at the bottom later thought this was hilarious as he has a master’s degree.

—

Clowning is a craft.

Most work is a craft.

Hell, even medicine is a craft.

And mastery in a craft depends less on general intelligence than on dedication —

and on cultivating the right skills: openness, affability, lightness.

—

This is the first social hierarchy I’ve been in where people organize by skill in a single, very specific craft.

In college, you could be successful at any number of things — academics, theater, sports, journalism.

In elementary school, the options were fewer but still broad: maybe good at math, worse at English, class clown, or owned the good video games.

Here, clowns arrange by everyday charisma.

And charisma in life is decently correlated with charisma on stage.

Add to that: we’re learning charisma.

And the social life becomes pretty interesting.

It’s like a schoolyard where the only question is: how fun are you at play?

Clown School Weekend 3.1: Simple Precision

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In which Our Hero consumes a couple clowns

Last night I watched two excellent clowns on YouTube.

The first attempted to climb a staircase: first with one foot, then two, then using a harpoon as a pole vault, then trying a taller staircase. Always slipping backward, performing a kind of “moon-crawl,” moving backward while pretending to move forward.

The second performed built visual jokes around pop songs: a blend of clown, prop comedy, and puppetry.

Both chose a single simple game, then repeated it in increasingly heightened variations. With tight physical control, that was enough.

Stand-ups need new jokes to stay fresh. Musicians can live forever off one hit.

Clowns might belong to that latter category — one beautiful idiocy, endlessly re-played. Not note-for-note as a musician would, but a single comedic insight will take you far.

That said, if your art requires physical presence, your reach is finite.

Clown School Day 15: The Honest Audience

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In which Our Hero is too tired to pretend.

One nice part about clowning is that the audience is honest.

By some biological necessity, they can’t fake it.

If the player is light, open, with pleasure — they’ll laugh.

Even if they’d hate you in real life, they’ll like you on stage.

That’s a comfort for those of us who don’t easily make friends:

who click with one in every thousand people we meet,

one in a hundred even here at clown school.

My second goal here is to make friends.

My first — learning the craft — is easier.

It has less randomness.

A good clown should be able to open themselves

and bring pleasure regardless of who’s watching.

That’s what makes it challenging.

That’s what makes it a job.

At the start of sophomore year of high school, I realized I had no friends.

Uncoincidentally, around the same time, I began to find women attractive and desirable.

I reasoned that I could either change the world or change myself.

Changing the world to fit one’s taste is the path of a supervillain

(and takes far more energy),

so I decided to learn how to be a friend.

If you try to be funny, you’ll never be funny.

If you try to be a friend, you’ll never be a friend.

Instead, to clown, you simply have to open yourself:

be kind, generous, caring.

The same is perhaps true

for friendship itself.

But what if you open yourself and discover you’re… kind of a jerk?

“Open” seems to increase attention paid to you. Charisma, one could say.

The others are the ones that keep them coming back for more.

When I’m sick, I hate everything.

My body hurts, my brain shuts down,

and I want to crawl inside the dark and stay there.

And yet, something happens on stage.

The power of giving,

the act of offering pleasure to the audience,

somehow overcomes the weakness of the flesh.

Bam! Pow! Beauty.

So now, I feel lonely, surrounded by clowns.

I’ll probably feel better in a few days,

with zinc and tea.

And then…

who knows.

Who knows.

Who knows.

If you don’t like yourself,

how can you let others love you?

Clown School Day 14: Some Days Ya Don’t Got It

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In which Our Hero fails honestly.

That’s three days in a row I’ve wanted to skip clown school.

And three days I’ve gone anyway.

Three days of long, heavy sleep:

11 hours, 9 hours, nearly 10 last night.

Three mornings waking early, wishing I could stay in bed forever.

What’s up with that?

I’m tired in a way that’s not physical.

It’s the exhaustion that comes from being seen — again and again — and still not finding what works.

The ache of caring too much about doing well, and not quite getting there.

Maybe it’s just the part of me that resists growth.

The part that wants to avoid the flop.

The part that whispers: stay safe, stay small.

But the show goes on.

So I go too.

In which two pairs of clowns succeed

I have a hypothesis about clowning: there are only two good moves.

The first is doing something good.

The second is doing something bad, and admitting it.

The second is just a version of the first: both are open, honest sharings of self.

Maybe that’s what makes someone funny: the willingness to be seen, and to be laughed at.

Open, but not grasping. Honest, but not pleading.

Just human: the funny little wriggly worm that we are.

Today, I failed.

I got exactly one reasonable-sized laugh, when I shrugged and said, “Some days ya don’t got it”.

It was the opposite of calculated, and therefore perfect.

My scene partner, though, was charming. I’m not good at charming a crowd.

One person, sure: I find what they care about and give them that.

But a crowd? That feels like crafting myself into someone they’ll love…

and that’s never been my thing.

Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to bouffon: the grotesque outcast who refuses charm, making you laugh by breaking the mold.

I don’t know how to play “charming” without feeling false.

Tall, handsome, strong, masculine — all that bland, moral ideal.

Heroes just seem so… plain.

My favorite sex-work writer once said something like, “When I do the girlfriend experience, I just give guys all the parts of a date they want, and none of the parts they don’t.”

It’s the same trick as charm: shave off the edges until only the pleasant remains.

The two American clowns who are alumni from this school that I’ve seen succeed are masters of the flop (one linked here).

They do things that don’t work, then admit it, again and again.

It’s delightful. Comic. But not powerful.

The most successful recent student, though — a Norwegian — is the opposite:

he does good things, and they work.

Maybe that’s cultural.

Maybe Americans prefer the flop because it’s relatable.

Maybe our comedy is just collective self-recognition in failure.

That’s probably why I’d rather play the fool, or the villain, than the flawless hero.

Today, two pairs performed brilliantly.

One was a seasoned clown with a German partner.

The clown failed, over and over, and acknowledged it.

The German played strong, stalwart, beautiful.

We laughed at one, cheered for the other.

Together they danced between laughter and awe:

Comic and Beauty, alternating in rhythm.

After five minutes, our teacher smiled and said, “Thank you for sharing your joy.”

I wondered how long the German had been performing — possibly decades.

And the seasoned clown has ten years under his belt, with awards to show for it.

I was glad to see them.

It helped to see the two paths clearly:

the clown who fails and admits it,

and the one who succeeds by doing good things.

Maybe both are forms of giving.

Maybe both are beautiful.

Maybe the German’s beauty wasn’t in his poise,

but in his openness — his unpushed caring,

his gentle invitation:

“I’m here. This is me. Go ahead: laugh at me.”

Clown School Day 13: Who’s The Laugh For?

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In which Our Hero learns to give himself away.

Is giving giving?

We created a mob on stage. One leader, fifteen followers. The leader was in Major: loud, powerful, commanding, tall. The followers were in Minor: following along with the Major’s game.

The leader’s task: move for the group. Then, if successful, speak for the group.

Here’s the kicker:

We — the audience — could easily see when the leader was playing for others and when they were playing for themselves. Too delighted by your own words? Too much for yourself. Too fast, too slow, too complicated, too boring? All of it = no good.

It was fucking cool.

It wasn’t just obvious when a leader played for themselves: we could even separate which parts they did for themselves. Some moved for themselves but spoke for the group. Others spoke for themselves but moved for the group.

Me? I moved for the group until I started speaking. Then I spoke for the group but failed to move for them.

The magnetism of a Major doing for others was inescapable. It drew us in — as the audience — as though they were playing for us, too.

I keep wondering what “giving” really is. Is it enough that someone is giving to someone? Or must they somehow give to each person? The latter seems impossible: no one can give individually to a 3,000-person crowd. But you can give, and keep giving, and keep giving…

—

I thought about that today when I found myself in a spat with a friend. They argued — accurately — that I’d been laughing for myself, not for them. And they found that objectionable.

At a minimum, they were fair (jury’s still out on them being right ;). Maybe I’ve found too few people laughing for me, so I learned to laugh for myself. Whatever the reason, it’s unhelpful — on stage and in friendship alike.

That’s why I’m here at clown school:

because I’m a guarded, frightened, closed, selfish, winning-focused person

trying to open up.

—

It’s hard to give and share and open and keep giving in this ever-present openness.

First-year classes are often “weeder” classes — designed to weed out those who aren’t a fit. In college, I lasted one day in Theater 101 before switching to philosophy. Theater 101 was dry history; philosophy had rigor and use.

I wonder if theater students who truly love it endure that drudgery because they care so much about reaching the next level — the acting classes, the real thing.

Here, too, I’m pushing through the bullshit, the trials, the endless tests: chasing skill.

The teachers keep throwing more at you, more and more, just to see who will break.

Those who break aren’t meant to be clowns.

And maybe I’m not meant to be one either.

So I’ll grab what I can from this pressure cooker,

gather the small diamonds I find,

and fuse them with other gold I’ve picked up along the way,

to form

my own

crown of jewels.

Clown School Day 12: If Only You Knew What Makes Me Laugh?

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In which Our Hero is a total grumpypants.

You only want some of my joy. You don’t want all of it.

Not the part that finds fascination in injuries at the Olympics.

Not the part that laughs when someone fumbles at a task they’ve been doing for months.

Not the part that goes for blood in silly games.

You only want some parts.

—

School is cultural honing: a repeated sheening and shearing and shaping of an impressionable child into the kind of person we want.

Graduate school is self-imposed honing.

Clown school is emotional honing.

—

Half of this school is calibration: make it light, make it pleasant, make it generous.

Half is tactical: learn the mechanics and try them out.

And the final half (yes, I know) is experience: stage time with a real audience who loves this peculiar art.

But what if I don’t want to be calibrated?

What if I like my joy?

What if I’d miss the parts of it you call cruel?

—

A friend recently said something that ruined my joy at watching this video (includes a severe gymnastics injury). I used to find it fascinating. Now I can hardly watch.

Is that a loss? Once I received a fascinated joy. Now that joy is covered with a patina of sadness and pity.

Why do we do that to each other: sand the edges off one another’s laughter? Isn’t there a terrible beauty in the Olympian moment: a lifetime’s work undone in one leap? It’s comic, in the oldest sense: man plans and God laughs.

The funniest part, perhaps, is the commitment to the bit. This athlete may never walk again. That’s deathly serious. But he hurt himself with flips and spins, in a contrived game, for which the prize is mainly collective fiction (a title, which brings fame and glory). Is that not fundamentally comic? For me, it’s the same humor I saw in the nod of a hotel receptionist in Bentonville, Arkansas. I commented that the front page of their local newspaper was about high school football. She nodded solemnly, explaining, “It’s very important.”

No, it isn’t.

And yes, it is.

With the receptionist, I let her continue her joy.

While my Olympic joy is now covered with dry rot.

Now, when I rewatch, I can barely locate that joy. It’s smaller now, covered in a “But you shouldn’t…”

—

We choose the games we play. I’ve chosen clown school.

And yet, when peers see me on the street, when they ask what video I’m watching on my phone, I hide. I make a joke. I assume they’ll hurt me if I’m honest.

It’s hard to be honest and open.

So hard. Since it’s been so aggressively sanded away.

That’s why I’m here.

Because people don’t generally value openness, or honesty, or play.

We value these in contained scenarios. But an intensely raw emotion, honestly expressed? Best put a lid on that, missy!

—

I generally don’t find the world a nice place. I don’t think openness is generally rewarded. People can be vicious outside the boundaries of their games. That’s why games exist: to make behavior safe.

Within a game (religion, law, sport), there’s form. There’s play. Simplicity. Meaning.

Outside, there’s a new game:

The honest negotiation between what we’re told to laugh at

and what still makes us laugh.

I’d like to laugh at you when you’re being an idiot.

I’d like to laugh at me when I’m being an idiot.

Have you considered joining me?

It’s funnier over here.

And if not,

I’ll take

my ball

and go home.

—

“The child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth” —African proverb.

Clown School Day 11: The Joy of Gibberish

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In which Our Hero finally speaks his native tongue

I did it! I clowned! Wahoo!!! !!!! !!!!

Here’s the sitch:

Our head teacher asks for five people who don’t speak Chinese. I step forward. She plays a Chinese song and we’re told to mime along. Then she turns down the music and says: keep going. Continue the song, in this language we do not speak.

I have been preparing for this my whole life.

I’ve always loved imitating sounds. Not faces, not gestures, sounds. The cadence of languages, sirens, shower water hitting my rubber duck. It’s always been a private delight.

Today I let it out. I imitated the music of a language I don’t know, and loved it. The audience loved it too.

It gets better.

On Friday I asked our teacher how to tell when something works. She said: you have to look at the audience and see.

I already knew that, but I needed to hear it from her.

So today I looked. I saw the joy light up their faces. One woman — the same who’d argued with me on Thursday — beamed with glee. My roommate was glowing, proud to see me not only succeed but to know I was succeeding.

And so I kept playing. Kept singing. Kept sharing that joy.

Good news: I have a skill people love.

Bad news: in America, this skill is considered offensive.

Five years ago at a rodeo in Wyoming, I was doing a southern accent for fun. My travel partner told me it was unacceptable. She thought I was mocking. Maybe she was right; maybe she wasn’t. Either way, I stopped.

Now, at last, I’ve found a place where the same instinct — my delight in sound and voices — brings laughter and connection instead of tension and fear.

Sometimes I wander around the house doing silly voices. Usually, people shut this down. But in clown, it’s beautiful.

Or maybe it’s always been beautiful, I just need the right place to perform.

🤡

[My travel buddy of the last two years would like to add this note about me: “I’ve also noticed when traveling that you [Julian] pick up the accent and speech pattern of folks you chat with. I often worry that folks will find it offensive, but, tbh, I think they don’t usually notice and seem to like it.”]