Showing posts with label Pagliacci. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pagliacci. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

The face in the middle: or, am I clowns?




This picture reminded me of a certain non-joke I kept hearing a few years ago, mainly because I heard it wrong. The original was quite poignant, but it was hashed or rehashed in one of those dystopia/sci-fi movie things that I hate so much, the Watchmen or something.

After Robin Williams died, it became apparent to most people that this sad-clown joke kind of explained the whole thing. To paraphrase it badly:

Doctor, Doctor, I have this unbearable existential pain. 
Then go see this fantastic clown, he will cheer you up. 
But I AM this fantastic clown! 

This was supposed to explain the death of Robin Williams.




Robin Williams died because he had something called Lewy Body Dementia which is far worse than Alzheimers and slowly eats its victims alive. He was a wraith, a shell of himself, and his "suicide" was his way of taking a final bow after his life had already come to a close. Could he have gone on? There was no "on" to go to. People have chosen physician-assisted suicide for less.

Though his Parkinson's disease is very rarely mentioned, no one ever says anything about the Lewy Body because it came out in the autopsy results a few weeks later. By that time, everyone had lost interest. He was a tragic clown, that's what he was, it was all settled, and besides, what the hell is all this Lewy Body stuff? He was romanticized as a tragic victim of Hollywood and his own excesses. The truth is, he died of a horrible disease.

Thus, yet another opportunity for the public to learn something landed in the sewer.




The famous picture of Chaplin and Einstein at the top of this post surfaced today as I perused the Weekly World News - oops, I mean The Vintage News, my current favorite source of internet comedy. There was a caption featuring a supposed conversation they had. Something like this:

Einstein: Must be nice to have the whole world love you when you never say a goddamn thing.

Chaplin: Nobody knows what the hell you're talking about, so would you please shut up?

I am sure they never had this conversation! I am making it up out of whole cloth.  But I did find many, many versions of it in many languages on internet memes with photos of the two of them together, two stuffed shirts, one the Stuffed Shirt of Physics and the other the Stuffed Shirt of Silent Comedy. So I guess it brought back the clown thing, the bad joke endlessly replicated and memed to death.

But that's not why I'm posting this.




As usual, the comments section in The Vintage News is the best part (especially that guy who always strenuously defends Hitler. His Facebook page has all sorts of war medals and shit on it.) There were the expected comments about what beloved figures Chaplin and Einstein were, along with people telling each other to fuck off (for no reason at all except that they could), and then someone said, "wait. What is that creepy face in the middle?"  

Can you see it? It seems to be peeping over Chaplin's shoulder.

Good question! Secret Service? I wondered. These guys may or may not have been wearing bulletproof vests under their tuxes. But maybe not! Einstein kept trying to work out how he could make himself into a time traveller, while Chaplin wanted to dominate whatever time he had here and now. Meantime, here is this guy! This mysterious figure - in dark glasses, is it? And on the left, you see more shadowy figures. I keep thinking I see Don Corleone of The Godfather.

These are either beings from another dimension, or - time travellers. 




I also want to set something straight that everyone gets wrong. The joke about the clown - they always call him Pagliacci. That means "clowns". So the punch line is, "but Doctor, I AM clowns." Unless you're making one of those wretched unfunny jokes about "schizophrenia", it makes no sense. "Pagliaccio" would be closer, but it means "Clown". "I am clown". The main character in the opera Pagliacci is called Canio, but no one would say, "I am Canio". Sounds like a dog or something. 

Another thing. I don't know how many times I've heard Leoncavallo's opera called I Pagliacci.
That means something like "I clowns", which is worse than "I am clowns". I'm not sure where this got started, but there are even excerpts from the opera posted on YouTube labelled WRONG, and it  just pisses me off. 

The aria posted above isn't from Pagliacci and it isn't by anyone alive. But it is my favorite aria, and by one of my favorite singers, who did not survive long enough to prove his true greatness. As a tenor, his voice would have bloomed some time in his late 40s, so he had all his best years ahead of him.







nza died suddenly the morning of October
,

, whenhe was justthirty-eight years old. The particular physicalcatastrophe responsible for silencing forever a voice judged“black and warm and dead on pitch,”
1p249
“a voice such as isheard only once in a hundred years,”
1p20
will never be known.What remains of Lanza’s medical record is far too meager toreveal the secret of his premature death, and an autopsy wasnot performed. All we know for certain is that his health wasalready unraveling when he entered the Valle Giulia Clinic onSeptember

,

, to rest and lose weight. The day beforehe died he was fit enough to sing “E lucevan le stelle” from
Tosca
for the clinic staff, and the next morning to conversewith his wife and his agent on the telephone. Shortly after thetelephone calls, he was found “reclining on the divan [in hisroom], motionless, extremely pale and with his head bent to

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Oh rapture!: New Images of Milky the Clown



It's not every day I find a  new image (new to ME, I mean - these were likely taken 50 years ago) of the source of my childhood nightmares, Milky the Clown. Milky was the surreal symbol of Twin Pines Dairy, sponsor of Milky's Party Time and other lactitious Detroit children's programs.

This one I haven't seen before. Like a nun's habit, Milky's costume covers everything but his face, which is thickly plastered with white greasepaint like something from a movie made in 1917. And his hat. . . his hat isn't like any other clown's hat, unless you look back about 100 years.

Milky wasn't a clown of his times. This was why he was so scary. He seemed like the nightmare reverse negative of an old Betty Boop cartoon, jumping not out of an inkwell but a vat of Twin Pines milk.








Was this magic, or a form of sorcery? Was his baggy monochromatic white costume and dead-white face a deliberate attempt to mimic the ancient itinerant carnival clowns depicted by Leoncavallo in Pagliacci?




Well, maybe. Except for the pompoms.


And this one is no less than Enrico Caruso, the most famous tenor of all time. Wearing Milky's costume, or a close approximation of it.




What's the magic word? . . . Twin Pines! ("But that's two words," I used to protest, provoking offended stares.)






And never mind that Pagliaccio, upon whom Milky based his classic white pointy-hatted costume, murdered both his wife and his romantic rival, leaving a pile of bodies on the stage. The little tykes won't know anything about that, will they?




We hope not.



 


Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book
    It took me years to write, will you take a look




Tuesday, November 20, 2012

I hate clowns

 
 
I hate clowns, I hate clowns,  I truly hate clowns,
They always depress me and drag my soul down.
 
 
 
When somebody puts on such strange things to wear,
The human condition is truly laid bare.
I ask, what's the point of all this tom-foolery?
It triggers in me a deep incredulity.
 
 
 
 
Now here is a clown who caused me great dread.
In childhood this creep rented space in my head.
His name was Milky, which was awfully scary,
Just clowning and whoring for Twin Pines, the dairy.
 
 
 
 
Before John Wayne Gacy came ambling along,
There was this guy here. And he was just wrong.
He wore stars and stripes for some unknown reason,
Though flag mutilation's a high form of treason.
 
 
 
Back when I lived near old Detroit town,
I saw a strange act performed by a clown.
When he mounted his friend, to my child's mind, 
of course he
Was riding on Bozo, just playing at horsey.
 
 
 
 
When I saw this old photo of black-and-white clowns,
I climbed on a bridge and just threw myself down.
There's Milky and Bozo, the two that were lovers,
Jingles, and Whatsis - who cares, they're all mothers.
 
 
 
 
 
This clown guy I mentioned, and those of his ilk
Did a lot of hard-selling by sucking down milk.
In Milky the dairy thought they would invest - right?
Then found out that he was a flaming transvestite.
 
 

 
Twin Pines weren't aware that they'd started a fashion.
Soon clowns 'round the world drank their milk with a passion.
And poor Pagliaccio was filled with a rage,
So he drank milk, then  killed his poor wife right on-stage.
 
 

 
With hijinks like this, some dark force was released.
The ringmasters shot themselves: all were deceased.
Clowns threw nasty fits, banged their heads on the wall:
These Komedy Kapers weren't funny at all.
 
 
 
 
If this gets much weirder, I'm going to be sick.
I've never laughed once when a clown did his trick.
I can't speak for you, but I think this is rude -
I never knew clowns were this nasty and lewd.
 
 
 
 
Milky is dust now, and Bozo is dead.
Their romance still haunts me and lurks in my head.
I hate clowns, I hate them, I'll never be free,
They never will get one guffaw out of me.