Clowns and the Law
Oh dear. The good thing about Marmalade meeting the Policeman is that she didn’t lose her sense of humour – although he didn’t seem amused.
In this issue: When I animated stories about Pierrot, Marmalade and then Agnes. I found that each clown character had its own presence and didn’t want to move over for the other clown. Some nights the show was hilarious and other nights, well, performing sent me into a downward spin and I fell off the clown cliff. I felt picked up by Kolonel Klepto who is a humanitarian clown that does political activism. In Wolseley, as Mrs. Lipton’s fame grew, people did spy maneuvers to find out the ingredients in her specials.
Marmalade and the Policeman
I was Marmalade the clown, finishing a fun day of clowning around with everybody at the Forks Market, enjoying the Festival of Fools. I hopped into my car in full gear and drove onto Main Street through the underpass. I was in a hurry to get home and drive my husband to the airport to catch a plane. Behind me came a police car with flashing lights, so as I rounded the corner, I pulled over to the side of the road to let them pass. They didn’t pass. They pulled up behind me.
The policeman came over to the car. I rolled down the window and flashed my best clown smile. I laughed. It felt kind of funny to be a clown talking to a policeman. I’m not sure if he smiled.
“You don’t have any insurance,” he informed me.
“Yes I do!” I answered.
“No you don’t!” he said.
“Yes I do!” I replied. “I wouldn’t drive without insurance.”
“May I see your license?” he demanded. He took my license back to his car. I sat stunned, but couldn’t get over the feeling that it was all very funny.
He came back to the car.
“There is no insurance on your car. It expired two months ago. Could you please get out of your car. You cannot drive it any further. It will have to be towed and there will be a $700 fine.”
I don’t know why, but I thought this was hilarious. A $700 fine. As it turned out it was true. We had missed the date for renewing the insurance. Only my husband could renew it and he was leaving on the plane for Vancouver within the hour. The policeman kindly allowed me to use his cell phone to tell my husband that he needed to take a taxi to the airport and then the Policeman and Marmalade waited for the tow truck. The Policeman and Marmalade the clown stood on the boulevard watching the cars pass.
Eventually the tow truck pulled up. The driver was choking back a chuckle. Feeling humiliated and bereft of her own transportation, Marmalade was thrilled to ride in a tow truck. Laughing and joking with the driver, who did have a sense of humour, it still seemed like a hilarious situation. The car ended up being parked in my niece’s back yard to stay until the fine was paid. She was glad to do her clown relative a favour.
However, all the clown props were still in the car, so I had to borrow her stroller to get the few blocks to my house. Loaded with striped suitcases and puppets Marmalade strolled along Westminster Avenue. Joggers jogged by and cars passed but no-one seemed to crack a smile. I felt a hysterical gurgling in my stomach. It was the funniest day.
The next day Marmalade was back at the Festival of Fools. I told the organizer Hélène, do I have a funny story for you… She said, “I know, we passed Marmalade standing on the boulevard with the Policeman.”
Popcorn Philosophy – Kolonel Klepto Leads the Way
Kolonel Klepto is another kind of clown who steps into a political/social arena. Klepto seems to have a deep understanding of “political activism that brings together the ancient art of clowning and the more recent practice of non-violent direct action” (407). He uses the clown not only for active political intervention, but also for “the inner work of personal healing” for the political activists themselves (407). He works with paradox, contradiction, and inversion to reflect the truth of the situation: “The clown soldiers that make up CIRCA embody life’s contradictions, they are both fearsome and innocent, wise and stupid, entertainers and dissenters, healers and laughing stocks, scapegoats and subversives” (407). The clowns become even more ridiculous than the authorities, as they take the joke on themselves and thus show how the active political framework of the authorities is truly ridiculous.
Wolseley Tales – Doctor’s Orders
Harvest Collective, the first natural foods Collective in Winnipeg was close by on Westminster Avenue. A server would go to Harvest on Saturdays at closing time to pick up all the vegetables that wouldn’t last until they reopened on Tuesday. These vegies were the content of Mrs. Lipton’s original vegie burgers. This was before the time that you could buy packaged frozen vegie burgers. If you were a vegetarian, which was becoming popular, there was little available in restaurant fare or packaged foods. If you wanted to eat only vegetarian foods, you had to spend a lot of time cooking. The vegie burgers became very popular.
Some customers were desperate to find out what the ingredients were for the vegie burgers. They tried all kinds of tricks but Mrs. Lipton would not give out her secret ingredients. One time the woman phoned from the Emergency Room at the hospital, saying that she had had an allergic reaction to the vegie burgers and they had to find out what was in them. It took Karen a few moments before she laughed and realized it was a sham. They never did find out what was in those burgers.
Karen started making pitas after she made bread. Many customers had never seen a pita before. You couldn’t buy them in the stores in Wolseley. Soon the community was eating delicious hot vegie pitas and curried meat pitas.
The milkshakes were always made with fresh fruit, whole milk and ice cream. They would throw in real bananas, frozen strawberries – one of the favorites was peanut butter milkshakes. One woman who was expecting a baby, would drive miles to satisfy her craving for a peanut butter milkshake.
What was it about Mrs. Lipton’s that was so special? The food? The atmosphere? It was like being in a big kitchen together. It was a perpetual party in the hub of Wolseley. There was movement all the time as people came and went. It was like there was an invisible light above the outside door that said, “Come now!” There would be no one in the restaurant and suddenly the door would open and droves of customers would come in, and the staff would be running. Other days it would be so slow that they would all get so relaxed it would be hard for them to stop talking and make a sandwich.
Odds & Ends – Falling Off the Clown Cliff
From my notes for “Under the Nose: Memoirs of a Clown”, July 31, 2011:
I am struggling between script and plan and doing the show for this audience at this time. I am constantly negotiating the cracks in between. The clowns refuse to do things the same way twice. If I don’t have the feeling in my chest that this is what I need to say, then I don’t say it. If the clown isn’t with me, I am playing myself. My mouth opens and I am describing things that I haven’t thought of in years. Although I spend time with the script—I change the script so that I’ve written things that I’ve said—I still play it differently. I try to repeat getting my foot stuck and I can’t do it, it seems impossible, so I follow the moment, weaving threads, trying to find the clowns. When I do, when the clowns shine, everyone feels the joy—the divinity of the moment. I have to rip the costume off and feel naked—bereft. I can’t think, I know that there is something that I must do.
References
Klepto, Kolonel. “Making War With Love: the CIRCA”. City Vol. 8, No. 3, 1998.
Proctor, Sue. The Archetypal Role of the Clown as a Catalyst for Individual and Societal Transformation. https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/977096/
Old Photos
Marmalade at the Forks Market, from The Prime Times, Winnipeg. June 10, 2010. Issue 11. Photograph by Ken Gigliotti, Free Press Archives.