rushing the turnstiles

happy together

favorite hunky clown

just ordinary commuters

DIY nose jobs

but hard to miss

I knew pretty much what to expect. I was told a horde of clowns would be descending onto a subway platform in Union Square at 5 o'clock this afternoon where they would squeeze into the L train heading into Williamsburg. I thought, "clowns"! How wonderful! And then I saw the pictures of pie fights on the website, and I thought of traditional scenes of eratic behavior, sadism including lots of let's-pretend violence and the the cutting-up-little-babies illusions. Real clowns don't come conveniently packaged for innocent amusement, and they never did. But that's precisely the secret of their universal and historic appeal. I went with this particular, merely mildly-scary bunch only to the Bedford Street stop and then a few blocks further down the street.

They were on their way to the Brick Theater, where the NY Clown Theatre Festival will be headquartered for the next three weeks. If New York is lucky these clowns won't confine themselves to the building at 575 Metropolitan Avenue.

We're told this is New York's first clown festival in twenty years. That probably goes a long way toward explaining why some things have been so messed up around here in the last couple of decades: Some folks need a little constructive provocation to stay in line, and New Yorkers could certainly use a regular extra-strength antidote for the common humbug.

But I'll own up to my own cowardice this evening: I never believed the baby stuff, but I'm still afraid of pie fights.