I don’t think we have mentioned clowns, clowning, or clownery in a while. Or maybe I mentioned it as recently as last year. I guess what I want you to know is that clowns are never far from our minds — but it’s not a sickness. I’m telling you it’s not a sickness before you see this overindulgent self portrait for this month that, upon completion, seemed to maybe not send exactly the message I was going for.

Rather than making this a whole post a desperate sounding disclaimer where I appear to be protesting too much, I would rather tell you about one of my holiday gifts from the winter holiday season: a little book called The Clown Egg Register.

According to that link to Amazon dot com, it is a Funny Book, Book About Clowns, Quirky Books — one of the finest literary genres!

Dollissa and Manny gave me this book, and some full eggs painted like clowns/luchadores. Dollissa broke the back of her egg somehow and I accidentally dropped the one Manny made right on the carpet of my office floor, providing the world with these tiny Instax camera artwork masterpieces which I will share with you now.

The gift also led to the overindulgent self-portrait of today. Originally, we were to be surrounded by our friends dressed in tuxedos. But then my art program crashed and I lost every bit of my work. It is because fate and destiny work mysteriously. I then Knew that I should instead go for clowns, real historical clowns. However, since I was working off of eggs, I had to make up their outfits and heights. In fact, we can just pretend that Dollissa and I hired male models to dress in clownface for this official portrait piece.

But I will honor them, and I will honor your natural tendency towards curiosity, by telling you who these clowns even are.

Taffy – a British clown born in 1930 that did a lot of charity work.
Actually A Made-Up Clown – but I wouldn’t mind an Art Deco Mime hanging around.
Jo-Jo – no description in this book. He was just part of a clown egg collection page.
Zaz – is still alive and living in Brighton, England, as of the publication of this book. Go see him at his own little circus called Circus Pazaz.
Mr Woo – no actual details of his human life are part of the short paragraph about Mr Woo but he was Clowns International Benevolent Officer for some years.
Paul Jung – no mention of when he was born but he was found murdered by a drug addict in 1965.
Julius – no description in this book. He was also part of a four egg page. He was right under Chunky Russell, seen in the next segment.

Frankie Saluto – born in 1906 and only 3’10” tall, nowhere does it explain why he chose such terrifying face paint.
Roly – born in 1954, a triplet and an ordained priest in the Church of England. This clown could save souls which is unlike a usual sort of clown.
Clown Fottit – I made him standing uncomfortably near me because his name made me laugh aloud. Born in 1864 and died in 1921 with lots of acrobatic antics in between.
Tom Fun – a still-alive Welsh clown who sounds awfully sad and looks very un-fun, but I still really like his name
Chunky Russell – no description in this book! He looks so close to just A Normal, Loudly Dressed Man.
Ivo – a Dorset clown that sounds like he just fell into clowning due to being part of social clubs — he’s also a dairy manager at times of his life.
Buttons – A gigantic 6’7″ clown born in the year 1943, he had a children’s show in Chicago.