Ed Goldman: Clowns are overtaking Cuba (real clowns)
If things keep up at the present rate, Cuba’s government may have to send out the clowns.
According to an article in The Economist, “clowning is a growth industry in Cuba.” Clowns turn up at everything from street raves to dignitary receptions to children’s birthday parties. The state employs many of these clowns (notice my restraint: I did not add, “as a state will”) and pays them around $30 a month. This is why so many clowns also moonlight, since they can make that much at just one freelance gig.
The magazine indicates that around 50 percent of the working “payasos” —people with painted faces but not for cosmetic purposes — are graduates of the National School of Circus, which was founded by that noted laugh riot Fidel Castro about 40 years ago. The school is “staffed largely by clowns trained in the Soviet Union.” (More restraint: I didn’t say, “Much like Vladimir Putin.”)
Clowns who haven’t attended the school are self-taught. Among them, the article mentions “a doctor, a former priest and a postal worker” (these must be the new “scary clowns” everyone’s talking about). “Clowns with proper credentials do not appreciate the competition,” the article says, quoting an apparently credentialed one who told a reporter, “The amateur are like bad weeds.”
With a surplus of clowns there is, of course, a shortage of clown accessories.
“With rubber noses and floppy shoes in short supply at home, clowns buy them when they or friends go abroad,” The Economist says. I find this very unfortunate. For while many of us will ask friends to bring us back a knickknack or keepsake when they go on vacation, we never ask them to bring back work supplies: “Hey, while you’re in Japan, could you pick up a new laptop for me?”
There’s a definite connection between the popularity of clowning and the persistent destitution in Cuba, which somehow our normalizing relations with won’t reverse overnight, if ever. People with troubles need to laugh. It’s the entire basis of Jewish humor and other cultures that historically have been downtrodden. I realize this doesn’t explain the existence of comical mimes in the comparatively solvent French culture — but honestly, who finds them funny?
Originally Posted by Ron Paul
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That last one makes me giggle
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