In which Our Hero manages his emotions (and plays poker because, with a broken foot, what else are you going to do?)
If clowning is about managing your emotions in service of giving pleasure, then poker might actually train part of that muscle. The emotional management is enormous.
Earlier today I lost three spots in a row. One I misplayed slightly. Two were just unlucky.
I assumed my strategy wasn’t working.
But it was.
I do this in clowning, too: I try a thing, it doesn’t land, and I immediately abandon it. But that’s rarely the answer. Sometimes you need to push the thing farther. Sometimes you pivot to a different game. But the one thing you don’t need to do is collapse inward and quit. You don’t just give up and take your ball and go home.
Instead, check your fundamentals.
In poker: Is this still a good game? Am I playing well? In clowning: Have I found the game? Am I playing it?
Yet the two arts couldn’t be more opposite.
Poker is about hiding. Showing nothing. No emotion, no tells, no generosity.
Clowning is the opposite: openness, earnestness, authenticity, giving.
Poker is selfishness. Clowning is generosity.
At one point today I was down $650. I kept playing because I was playing well—and because, in theory, I’d been winning the whole time.
That’s another key difference: poker has theory. Clowning has only practice.
Poker’s truth reveals itself over hundreds of thousands of hands. Clowning’s truth reveals itself instantly.
If everyone’s laughing at you at the poker table, you’re the fish. If everyone’s laughing with you on stage, you’re the clown.
In which Our Hero demonstrates he visited a casino today.
“The person on your left determines how much fun you have.”
A friend said this about playing poker at a casino.
In poker, the player on your left acts after you. So in marginal spots—hands that could go either way—they get to decide how much intensity to apply. They can re-raise you (the aggressive choice) or fold (the friendly one). Since the spot is marginal, it doesn’t meaningfully affect their win rate; it just affects your experience.
Improv works the same way. Your job is to give gifts to your partner. “Pimping them out” (putting them in a tough or absurd situation) is the aggressive choice. Establishing clear relationships, objects, or stakes is the friendly one.
Does clowning have a similar dynamic?
Maybe the parallel is playing at versus playing with. Playing at your partner is fun for you, but it’s not oriented toward maximizing their pleasure.
And in clowning, the audience is a partner, too. That’s one of the big surprises of clown school: realizing that you play with the audience just as much as you play with the other performers.
In clown, maybe the major determines how much fun everyone gets to have. Can the major establish a clear, joyful game? That’s their job. The minor can always destroy the game, of course, but it’s hard for a minor to create a bigger game than the major has already laid down, at least not without stepping on the major’s toes.
So in clowning, just like in poker, the person on your left might still determine how much fun you have. The difference is that in clown school, you might actually enjoy being the sucker getting hosed for everyone else’s amusement.
In which Our Hero chuckles that no one is coming to explain anything.
Clown school gives no guideposts. No emotional map. No “You’ll feel terrible during Neutral Mask, but it gets better during Melodrama.” Not even a simple “We beat you down because it makes you better.”
Instead, they teach. And we endure.
I’m not the first person to go through this course. This version of the school has existed for 25 years; Gaulier has been teaching for 50+. There must be a method behind the madness. So here are my hunches:
1. Presence as pedagogy
Clowning is about now, not before or after. Emotional signposts would implicitly validate the idea that your current feeling matters, or that suffering is part of some arc. But in clowning, only the present matters. You aren’t promised redemption later; you just have to deal with what is. “I don’t care what else is going on. Find pleasure and share it.”
2. Stress inoculation
Clowning demands emotional manipulation—of yourself and the audience—under pressure. If you can’t do that while confused, scared, or humiliated, how will you manage when there are thousands (or millions) watching? Not knowing why you’re doing something is part of the training: you have to stay open and playful even when you’re lost. “You’re lost and confused? Time to clown!”
3. A filter, not a cushion
It’s a weeder course. If you’re not meant for this world, or if the suffering feels unjustifiable, you’ll remove yourself. Not with an official expulsion—but with exhaustion, frustration, or indifference. The lack of emotional guidance is part of the sieve. “I don’t like how intense school is.” “And you think professional theater is for the faint of heart?”
4. An accidental design flaw (or feature)
The teachers are clowns, not pedagogy nerds. They’re masters at teaching clowning, but not necessarily at building meta-frameworks or emotional scaffolding. Signposting requires stepping outside the art to label its structure— which is the opposite of presence. So maybe the absence of guideposts is deliberate. Or maybe it’s just what happens when clowns teach. “🤡”
5. A disrespect for logic
One of the teachers has told me to stop analyzing. They said it’s not doing me any favors. That analysis will not lead me to better clowning. If that’s true… whoops. <Cue the banana peel>
For what it’s worth, the course is structured brilliantly: Le Jeu → Neutral Mask; Simon Says for weeks; harsh critique without directions. Are the missing signposts a bug or a feature? I suspect it doesn’t matter. Not-knowing is part of the training.
A friend says my attending clown school is selfish.
A second friend concurs.
The second friend, at least, says it without judgment. They think it’s a selfish act, but not necessarily a bad one. (I didn’t ask the first whether “selfish” = “bad,” so I can’t report on their view.)
The second friend is a professional poker player. I asked if studying poker is selfish. They said no. I asked why. They gave reasons like: “it keeps my mind sharp,” “it teaches me skills I use in other areas.” I pointed out that clowning does the same. Just swap “understanding randomness and variance” for “learning to connect with others and bring them pleasure.”
I’m surprised people find clown school selfish. I don’t find it more selfish than acting school, sales training, or learning accounting. Maybe slightly more selfish than learning to be a plumber. Definitely less selfish than being a momentum trader or a poker player.
I get that performers are self-involved. Sometimes self-obsessed. But selfish?
The job of a clown is to bring people pleasure. Joy. Happiness. Are the best in the profession—Jim Carrey, Sacha Baron Cohen, Robin Williams—selfish? That seems unfair.
So what do people actually mean when they say “clown school is selfish”?
They might mean something like:
“Clowning doesn’t contribute much to other people.”
“Julian will get more personal joy out of clown school than he’ll generate for others.”
“Clown school isn’t contributory (either because clowning isn’t, or because clown school won’t lead to clowning).”
“Clown school interferes with more contributory things you could be doing.”
Here’s how these land:
1. “Clowning doesn’t contribute much.”
I’m dismissing this outright as a misunderstanding of what this school teaches. This school teaches how to find pleasure in order to share it. You can believe pleasure is unimportant, but if you believe it matters, clowning is clearly contributory.
2. “You’ll get more out of this than others will.”
This becomes a comment about skill. If I will always be a bad clown, then yes: clown school would be more self-pleasure than other-pleasure. But that assumes failure as destiny. I’m earnestly trying to learn these skills. I want to be good at play, connection, and generosity. Multiple people—people with no incentive to flatter me—have said clowning seems like a particularly great fit for me. I think so too.
3. “Clown school won’t lead to clowning.”
This is the critique I take most seriously.
My goal isn’t to become a professional clown per se: it’s to become a better performer, a better player, a better connector. I want to learn charisma. I want to learn to bring joy not just onstage but in everyday life. I want to learn to play for the sake of fun rather than optimization. I want to play well with my nephew. I want to play well with future kids of my own.
If I’m truly seeking personal enrichment more than professional clowning, then yes, one could call that “selfish.” But personal enrichment that increases one’s capacity to love, play, and be present seems… not exactly a moral failing.
4. “Is clown school the best use of your time?”
Honestly? I don’t know. A year is long. (Well, seven months of actual school.) But I’m not locked in. Students drop in and out. There’s one course in March I’m particularly excited about. For the rest, I’m open: if more-contributory opportunities appear, I’ll take them. If someone offered me a full-time job tomorrow, I’d consider it. (And, notably, I applied to one recently.)
At the moment, my time is quite unoccupied. I’m writing for one company, and that leaves plenty of space. So: clown school.
I want a family someday. I want kids. Cultivating lightness and play feels deeply aligned with the values I want to bring into a home. And I’m at a turning point: many friends are settling down. If not now, then when would I ever have the time to go to clown school? When else would learning to stay light during stress be so valuable?
I was bumming around the U.S. in a van. I was working half-time, sometimes quarter-time, vaguely searching for more. Given that reality, filling the time with something joyful and growth-oriented seems… pretty reasonable.
But if someone wants to hire me for something more productive, I’m here for it!
(Finally: when pressed, the poker friend admitted he couldn’t clearly articulate what he meant by “selfish.” He guessed it was closest to number 3, but also said his inability to articulate the position probably means it’s weakly held. That’s reassuring. I thought this assessment was more associational than well-considered. Still, it’s good to check.)
[P.s. I’ll share this write-up with the first friend, too. They might have a whole different analysis of how the selfishness works, in which case I’ll jot up a part 2 🤓]
In which Our Hero demonstrates the void is optional.
Today I managed to manufacture—or maybe discover—some pleasure.
After a generally empty day (and I hate empty days), I was riding in the car feeling mildly dissatisfied when it hit me: I could change this. And the moment I realized that, I actually did. Suddenly I wasn’t dissatisfied anymore. I wasn’t stuck in that void of nothingness. I felt…pleasure. And that was nice.
Clown school is teaching some real skills! 😀
I was driving with a friend who kept trying to play with me. I rejected the first three or so times. Playing with other people is still hard, especially when I’m dissatisfied. It’s so much easier to play alone.
Which is unfortunate, considering I can’t play games alone until at least January 7th.
(I made a self-binding bet before I broke my foot. And now…well, here we are.)
So therefore:
Time for me to find new occupations for my ample free time whilst my foot heals.
(Or should I say “heels”?)
It’s nice that bored dissatisfaction isn’t mandatory, even if you’re bored.
It’s nice the game is still in me.
Perhaps some day I will learn to share it with others.
In which Our Hero muses on the interaction of these forces.
The question came up at dinner: What’s the relationship between play and depression? Is play the antidote? Is the lack of play the cause? Or are they simply two dancers who keep stepping on each other’s toes?
My take:
I love Play. Play is enlivening and delightful and deeply satisfying.
Play is a sign of a healthy environment: one that nurtures the growth and expression of its members.
Some environments don’t require play or can’t support it, especially high-stress or high-stakes ones in intense moments.
If you lack play long enough, you will feel like crap.
If you can’t play with people, you won’t feel good around those people.
Blockers to play:
Lack of safety. If you can’t experiment or express, you shrink. The body contracts. The options narrow. The world gets small.
I often think of depression as a kind of flatness. A greying-out of inner movement. And a lot of what prevents play, at least in my own experience, is fear/anxiety. So the loop becomes: fear/anxiety → no play → depression. It’s not the only description of the loop, but it’s a fair one.
Another view:
Maybe depression is fundamentally the lack of experienced pleasure.
If that’s true, then you can find pleasure through play. But also through other avenues, including observation and appreciation.
In that framing, play is one antidote, but not the only one. (And it may not be the proper antidote for a specific situation, nor a permanent fix.)
Still, I think social play is necessary for social satisfaction. It’s a treadmill you have to keep running on—just enough—for the system to stay stable. Stop for too long, and you get flung off the end, cascading into a wall of lonesomeness. Start running again, and the world comes back into color.
However, you can’t force play. You can only create the context for it to naturally emerge. Even if you’re a player? Even if you’re the game.
Friend: “We’re looking for ladyfingers” Grocery store employee: “What are those?” Me: “They’re like chicken fingers but made out of women.” Employee: “I can’t stand men, but that’s a good one.”
A friend told me I’m funnier now than before clown school—that I tell jokes for other people more than I used to.
That’s nice.
I do feel myself joining other people’s worlds more readily. It feels more comfortable, somehow safer. Like I’m less afraid of being hurt by them. Like I’ve internalized the fact that the pain of rejection is both temporary and unreal.
And I am still unquestionably afraid. But the fear is now useful. It’s a companion. A friend. I just need to embrace it, befriend it, and place it properly so it doesn’t own me.
At dinner, my dad asked me to do an impression I’ve done before: one of the teachers from my Le Jeu course this summer. I did it, and it was fun. The fact that sharing pleasure is more important than the impression’s accuracy put me at ease. Historically, I’ve refused in spots like this. Maybe because doing someone else’s game felt uncomfortable. But why? Who cares? Might as well give pleasure. Spread joy.
I was more open and comfortable and relaxed in general.
And noticing the spots when I wasn’t. And releasing them.
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:
Julian Wise 