[1] #2: Training for Barnum and Bailey

There is a bewildering percentage of the North American population that suffers from a fear of circus clowns.  Irrational though it may seem to those of us whose personal interaction with the cheerfully clad actors of buffoonery and jest have been pleasant and calm, I understand that in the world of dark film there has been a twist in the expressions of these characters -- a perversion of their charm into something cruel and cold. This need not be the legacy of the professional jokester. Can we please bring it back to pie-in-the-faceing and the squirting floral boutonnieres of ages past? Here's you're balloon of ridiculous length.

Thanks to YouTube, my good friend Messa and I spent an afternoon learning how to inflate these balloon-animal-baloons with nothing but the hot air of out own lungs (and a little "Karate!" which, in this context, means a body-shuddering umph). Unfortunately, we listened to this guy and never saw this guy's video at all. (Gotta love contradicting advice?) Ahh well.

By the end of the time, both of us had twisted two colourful quadrupeds and caused a few fatalities. Lessons learned: there are ways to half-cheat at this if you need to, both of us are very easily amused, and a hole in one leg of a balloon animal plays out more like amputation than explosion if you've twisted it right. I will also add that Willow (the thirteen-year-old girl I was working with at the time) was very impressed with my new skills, and commissioned a latex Barbie house and a hoop-target for them to jump through.

Now, that wasn't so scary, was it? But then, the make up I was wearing was fairly conservative. Perhaps for our week of celebrations at Camp this summer, I will don a more dramatic look and play the birthday-clown for a day. I will need a little more practice for that role though... and let's be honest, an air pump.