I must report a disturbance in the order of things. A clown without costume is no clown at all — and yet here stands Banana Boy (that is what he insisted I call him), painted and painted only. Face like carnival, body like… well, body like nothing but itself.
Read MoreI’ve come across another one. She appeared years ago, painted by A. Clown’s own hand, and yet she never belonged to him. She was already her own invention — a woman with flowers on her tongue and fumes in her lungs. They call her Miss Misprint, though nothing about her feels like a mistake.
Read MoreCitizens of the tent, not all clowns kept to American soil. One in particular slipped south, carving a life among music, mercados, and concrete. He is remembered in whispers as El Eco—some say because he turned every sound into another sound, others say because he could never escape the echo of his own painted mouth.
Read MoreI’ve kept this recording in a drawer for far too long. It was never meant to see daylight, but lately there’s been a swelling interest in the origins of A. Clown — where he came from, what he is, what he hides. I know better than most that he cannot be trusted. I thought you, the audience, should finally hear for yourself. What follows is a phone interview conducted many years ago. The line crackled, the connection faded, but the words remain clear enough. You’ll notice how slippery he is. How unwilling. How he laughs when cornered.
Read MoreIt began, as most things in the Inland Empire do, with the heat.
Too hot for greasepaint, too hot for laughter. But in a corner lot behind an abandoned swap meet in Rialto, he appeared: Lágrimas de Uva, the Clown Who Cannot Stop Crying.
ATTENTION, citizens of the tent. What follows has been pulled from the archives, long concealed and seldom spoken of. The first of the new ones appeared not on our watch but in a record smudged and nearly lost to time. He came forth sticky, streaked, and unmistakably BLUE.
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