The Clown Egg Register
August 5, 2010 8:09 AM Subscribe
The Clown Egg Register: “The eggs are not just a record of the clown's facial makeup, but an actual portraiture in miniature.” Also, Happy Clown Week!
I like to keep an egg for each clown that I murder.
posted by LordSludge at 8:18 AM on August 5, 2010 [6 favorites]
posted by LordSludge at 8:18 AM on August 5, 2010 [6 favorites]
Huh. This showed up in a discworld book- Making Money. Seemed reasonable, and it's certainly a great way of recording, long term, a 'face' like that.
posted by LD Feral at 8:19 AM on August 5, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by LD Feral at 8:19 AM on August 5, 2010 [3 favorites]
I loathe clowns (not afraid of them, just HATE them), but this is still neat.
I remember an old episode of CSI that referenced some sort of "National Clown Registry" in the US that allowed our intrepid heroes to track down some clown who was involved in the plot somehow.
posted by Gator at 8:22 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
I remember an old episode of CSI that referenced some sort of "National Clown Registry" in the US that allowed our intrepid heroes to track down some clown who was involved in the plot somehow.
posted by Gator at 8:22 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
*holds up an unpainted egg*
Is this the clown that killed Beano?
posted by quin at 8:26 AM on August 5, 2010 [16 favorites]
Is this the clown that killed Beano?
posted by quin at 8:26 AM on August 5, 2010 [16 favorites]
some sort of "National Clown Registry" in the US
You know who else had a National Clown Registry? Also, to this day clowns are forced to wear distinctive clothes and makeup that single them out. When will the madness end?
posted by DU at 8:27 AM on August 5, 2010 [6 favorites]
You know who else had a National Clown Registry? Also, to this day clowns are forced to wear distinctive clothes and makeup that single them out. When will the madness end?
posted by DU at 8:27 AM on August 5, 2010 [6 favorites]
One of the weirdest moments of my life was walking down a long, wooded drive at night and seeing a clown in full makeup reading the paper through a lighted window. I suppose he just lived there and was either returning from or getting ready to go to work, but it was somehow... unnatural.
posted by codacorolla at 8:30 AM on August 5, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by codacorolla at 8:30 AM on August 5, 2010 [3 favorites]
Gator gets bonus points for getting to use the phrase "some clown" ambiguously in a sentence.
One of my personal Crowning Moments of Awesome was the day my wife and I were at a supermarket and we saw a man in full clown makeup and costume, doing his shopping. With the oversize shoes and everything. I was able to immediately turn to my wife and say, in an exaggerated stage whisper, "Hey - get a load of that clown".
posted by yhbc at 8:31 AM on August 5, 2010 [3 favorites]
One of my personal Crowning Moments of Awesome was the day my wife and I were at a supermarket and we saw a man in full clown makeup and costume, doing his shopping. With the oversize shoes and everything. I was able to immediately turn to my wife and say, in an exaggerated stage whisper, "Hey - get a load of that clown".
posted by yhbc at 8:31 AM on August 5, 2010 [3 favorites]
You know who else had a National Clown Registry? Also, to this day clowns are forced to wear distinctive clothes and makeup that single them out. When will the madness end?
Yeah, Schindler's Clown Car was brutal, but a real testimony to the triumph of good jokes over evil.
posted by Gator at 8:33 AM on August 5, 2010
Yeah, Schindler's Clown Car was brutal, but a real testimony to the triumph of good jokes over evil.
posted by Gator at 8:33 AM on August 5, 2010
Yeesh! I think I remember this being integral to an episode of The Avengers.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:33 AM on August 5, 2010
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:33 AM on August 5, 2010
Wow - creepy near-simultaneous posts, codacorolla. How many clowns are out there in the world, going about their daily routines in giant, puffy shoes?
posted by yhbc at 8:34 AM on August 5, 2010
posted by yhbc at 8:34 AM on August 5, 2010
The Clown Egg Register sounds like something the Monty Python boys might have considered naming their show before finally deciding on Flying Circus.
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:35 AM on August 5, 2010
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:35 AM on August 5, 2010
I was able to immediately turn to my wife and say, in an exaggerated stage whisper, "Hey - get a load of that clown".
Nice. I got a similar moment walking through Chicago, we turned a corner and I barked out a surprised "Jesus Christ!", my wife turned to me, confused and worried, and I pointed to the giant crucifix across the street and said in a more conversational tone "Jesus."
She was not nearly as amused by it as I was.
posted by quin at 8:37 AM on August 5, 2010
Nice. I got a similar moment walking through Chicago, we turned a corner and I barked out a surprised "Jesus Christ!", my wife turned to me, confused and worried, and I pointed to the giant crucifix across the street and said in a more conversational tone "Jesus."
She was not nearly as amused by it as I was.
posted by quin at 8:37 AM on August 5, 2010
Huh. This showed up in a discworld book- Making Money. Seemed reasonable, and it's certainly a great way of recording, long term, a 'face' like that.
This wiki page on the Fool's Guild in Ankh Morpork is how I found out about the existence of the real thing.
posted by Deathalicious at 8:40 AM on August 5, 2010 [2 favorites]
This wiki page on the Fool's Guild in Ankh Morpork is how I found out about the existence of the real thing.
posted by Deathalicious at 8:40 AM on August 5, 2010 [2 favorites]
Whoever has heard the laughter of a child or seen sudden delight on the face of a lonely old man has understood in those brief moments mysteries deeper than love.
posted by orme at 8:40 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by orme at 8:40 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
Not only was it integral to an Avengers episode, John Cleese played the man in charge of the registry. So there's your Monty Python link.
posted by Man-Thing at 8:41 AM on August 5, 2010 [5 favorites]
posted by Man-Thing at 8:41 AM on August 5, 2010 [5 favorites]
Nice job, Man-thing!
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:47 AM on August 5, 2010
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:47 AM on August 5, 2010
It was Men at Arms, not Making Money.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:57 AM on August 5, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:57 AM on August 5, 2010 [3 favorites]
Jack Handey on clowns:
"To me, clowns aren't funny. In fact, they're kinda scary. I've wondered where this started, and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus and a clown killed my dad."
"Why is it that we will laugh at a man in a clown outfit, but we won't laugh at a man just walking down the street carrying a clown outfit in one of those plastic dry-cleaner bags?"
"If you're a circus clown, and you have a dog that you use in your act, I don't think it's a good idea to also dress the dog up like a clown, because people see that and they think, 'Forgive me, but that's just too much.'"
"Happiness is not a circus clown rolling around in a big tractor tire so that his arms and legs form 'spokes.' Happiness is when he stops."
“You know what would make a good story? Something about a clown who makes people happy, but inside he's real sad. Also, he has severe diarrhea.”
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:58 AM on August 5, 2010 [2 favorites]
"To me, clowns aren't funny. In fact, they're kinda scary. I've wondered where this started, and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus and a clown killed my dad."
"Why is it that we will laugh at a man in a clown outfit, but we won't laugh at a man just walking down the street carrying a clown outfit in one of those plastic dry-cleaner bags?"
"If you're a circus clown, and you have a dog that you use in your act, I don't think it's a good idea to also dress the dog up like a clown, because people see that and they think, 'Forgive me, but that's just too much.'"
"Happiness is not a circus clown rolling around in a big tractor tire so that his arms and legs form 'spokes.' Happiness is when he stops."
“You know what would make a good story? Something about a clown who makes people happy, but inside he's real sad. Also, he has severe diarrhea.”
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:58 AM on August 5, 2010 [2 favorites]
which then acts in a way like clown copyright
ie: other clowns can't use the same pattern of paint/hair/costume? I can't imagine that kind of research on putting together an outfit...
And I cannot resist linking to this. Just because.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 8:59 AM on August 5, 2010
ie: other clowns can't use the same pattern of paint/hair/costume? I can't imagine that kind of research on putting together an outfit...
And I cannot resist linking to this. Just because.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 8:59 AM on August 5, 2010
Eideteker: "Clown week + underwear day = DO NOT WANT"
Clownderwear? *shudder*possibly NSFW
This is more proof that clowns are not born, but hatched. Fucking clowns.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 9:15 AM on August 5, 2010 [2 favorites]
Clownderwear? *shudder*possibly NSFW
This is more proof that clowns are not born, but hatched. Fucking clowns.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 9:15 AM on August 5, 2010 [2 favorites]
Rather than clowns made from eggs, how about a clown made from spiders?
You're blinking in the dim sunlight shearing through the holes in the roof of the abandoned house, holding a greasily copied flier, idiotically wondering, "This isn't supposed to be the circus! Why is a clown here?" as he smiles quietly and does a little shuffle, but there's something a little wrong with his outline. Not in the ruffles, no, but in his white profile, around the edges. They're not smooth. No, not like the greasepaint has covered stubble, because stubble does not wriggle.
He's grinning and waving as he falls apart like an overtopped sand dune into piles and piles of arachnids. White ones and red ones and black ones and yellow ones. So many hues, as many as the colors in a clown's coat. But mostly white, yes, and skittering straight towards you so fast that you haven't time to realize it before the hairs on your neck are tickling with thousands of tiny legs, even as the bigger ones clamber forward, lagging behind their speedier sisters and brothers.
Though you've drawn in a breath to scream, quick as a shot they've filled up your throat, now you're choking instead of howling for help as their hairy bodies tickle your tonsils and their little legs, while individually not so strong, somehow manage to keep your jaws open even as great piles of them have webbed down your limbs to floorboards which creak with only your struggles. Feather soft but so persistent in their multitudes they've pulled back your eyelids and in a moment of fractal perversity you see that their tiny round white feet have false eyespots and little streaks for red smiles, they want you to see something ...
And a second mass of them struggles and pushes something ovoid out of the shadows and towards your head. It's wobbling and pulsating and shinyslick, and that's when you know just how clowns lay their eggs.
posted by adipocere at 9:18 AM on August 5, 2010 [26 favorites]
You're blinking in the dim sunlight shearing through the holes in the roof of the abandoned house, holding a greasily copied flier, idiotically wondering, "This isn't supposed to be the circus! Why is a clown here?" as he smiles quietly and does a little shuffle, but there's something a little wrong with his outline. Not in the ruffles, no, but in his white profile, around the edges. They're not smooth. No, not like the greasepaint has covered stubble, because stubble does not wriggle.
He's grinning and waving as he falls apart like an overtopped sand dune into piles and piles of arachnids. White ones and red ones and black ones and yellow ones. So many hues, as many as the colors in a clown's coat. But mostly white, yes, and skittering straight towards you so fast that you haven't time to realize it before the hairs on your neck are tickling with thousands of tiny legs, even as the bigger ones clamber forward, lagging behind their speedier sisters and brothers.
Though you've drawn in a breath to scream, quick as a shot they've filled up your throat, now you're choking instead of howling for help as their hairy bodies tickle your tonsils and their little legs, while individually not so strong, somehow manage to keep your jaws open even as great piles of them have webbed down your limbs to floorboards which creak with only your struggles. Feather soft but so persistent in their multitudes they've pulled back your eyelids and in a moment of fractal perversity you see that their tiny round white feet have false eyespots and little streaks for red smiles, they want you to see something ...
And a second mass of them struggles and pushes something ovoid out of the shadows and towards your head. It's wobbling and pulsating and shinyslick, and that's when you know just how clowns lay their eggs.
posted by adipocere at 9:18 AM on August 5, 2010 [26 favorites]
Rather than clowns made from eggs, how about a clown made from spiders?
There is something wrong with you.
IN YOUR SOUL.
posted by Shepherd at 9:32 AM on August 5, 2010 [6 favorites]
There is something wrong with you.
IN YOUR SOUL.
posted by Shepherd at 9:32 AM on August 5, 2010 [6 favorites]
Oh come on. I know that clowns are considered creepy, but did you have to stephen king in the thread?
posted by Deathalicious at 9:35 AM on August 5, 2010
posted by Deathalicious at 9:35 AM on August 5, 2010
*squirts adipocere with seltzer*
*weeps*
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:35 AM on August 5, 2010 [3 favorites]
*weeps*
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:35 AM on August 5, 2010 [3 favorites]
Good grief, adipocere, did you used to write for Black Dog? That reads like something right out of Clanbook: Tzimisce.
posted by Gator at 9:37 AM on August 5, 2010
posted by Gator at 9:37 AM on August 5, 2010
Adipocere, the only way that could've been better is if it were in Comic Sans.
posted by condour75 at 9:40 AM on August 5, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by condour75 at 9:40 AM on August 5, 2010 [2 favorites]
He's grinning and waving as he falls apart like an overtopped sand dune into piles and piles of arachnids.
Reminds me of Alice Cooper's disintegration into vermin in Prince of Darkness. Very nice.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:42 AM on August 5, 2010
Reminds me of Alice Cooper's disintegration into vermin in Prince of Darkness. Very nice.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:42 AM on August 5, 2010
Actual clown spider.
Much more creepy 'Happy Face Spider'.
/enjoy
posted by zylocomotion at 9:45 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
Much more creepy 'Happy Face Spider'.
/enjoy
posted by zylocomotion at 9:45 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
how about a clown made from spiders?
Ooh, nice, I would have gone a different way; a mostly man sized clown with the body of a spider, possibly holding a snake in one hand for the phobia trifecta hanging upside down, silently outside your window, watching you sleep, but a clown made of tiny spiders that swarm all over the victims body with their tiny hairy little legs tickling the skin just before overwhelming the person?
Masterful.
posted by quin at 9:46 AM on August 5, 2010
Ooh, nice, I would have gone a different way; a mostly man sized clown with the body of a spider, possibly holding a snake in one hand for the phobia trifecta hanging upside down, silently outside your window, watching you sleep, but a clown made of tiny spiders that swarm all over the victims body with their tiny hairy little legs tickling the skin just before overwhelming the person?
Masterful.
posted by quin at 9:46 AM on August 5, 2010
The scary thing about the Clown Egg Register is not that it exists, nor that the eggs whisper to each other late at night.
It's what they whisper.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:54 AM on August 5, 2010 [4 favorites]
It's what they whisper.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:54 AM on August 5, 2010 [4 favorites]
Website protip: When you have a chunk of content that says "Check out our web pages on the following subjects", followed by a list of subjects for which you presumably have pages, you might, you know, consider linking to the pages.
/CLOWNFAIL
posted by usonian at 9:55 AM on August 5, 2010
/CLOWNFAIL
posted by usonian at 9:55 AM on August 5, 2010
I might also be nice to have a Clown Car Register.
Not only could you make them out of Matchbox cars, you could fit the whole thing inside one briefcase!
posted by yhbc at 10:07 AM on August 5, 2010
Not only could you make them out of Matchbox cars, you could fit the whole thing inside one briefcase!
posted by yhbc at 10:07 AM on August 5, 2010
adipocere I will never sleep again. *shudder* And I can't stop itching.
posted by TooFewShoes at 10:13 AM on August 5, 2010
posted by TooFewShoes at 10:13 AM on August 5, 2010
Happy Clown Week!
posted by Deathalicious
eponysterical
(Clowns are terrifying)
posted by notswedish at 10:26 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Deathalicious
eponysterical
(Clowns are terrifying)
posted by notswedish at 10:26 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
I am honoured to say that my own Clown Egg resides at Wookey Hole. I have a copy of it on the shelf in my office. Sadly, Kate Stone has retired from painting the eggs. She will be greatly missed. I am a member of Clowns International which is a most excellent Clown Association with very many members in the UK and worldwide too.
posted by JtJ at 10:33 AM on August 5, 2010
posted by JtJ at 10:33 AM on August 5, 2010
Hopefully this'll be better than last year's Clown Week, when they all showed up at those healthcare town halls.
posted by PlusDistance at 10:34 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by PlusDistance at 10:34 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
Thank you for your openness and willingness to engage in the conversation, JtJ. Now, how do you respond to charges of contributing to millions of cases of coulrophobia worldwide?
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:02 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:02 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
Sorry, but clowns piss me off because they are supposed to do basically one thing, which is amuse children, yet not only do they often fail at that one freaking specific thing, they frequently do exactly the opposite: they terrify kids such that the fear lasts into adulthood.
I don't so much care about kids getting scared (here is your dose of corpse-white, grinning, malevolent chaos, Timmy. Would you like a balloon animal? I promise it won't eat your dreams): I just think it is a real design flaw in the whole enterprise. If clowns also fought crime or something, it wouldn't be so bad.
posted by Theodore Sign at 1:46 PM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
I don't so much care about kids getting scared (here is your dose of corpse-white, grinning, malevolent chaos, Timmy. Would you like a balloon animal? I promise it won't eat your dreams): I just think it is a real design flaw in the whole enterprise. If clowns also fought crime or something, it wouldn't be so bad.
posted by Theodore Sign at 1:46 PM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
What got me was I was browsing the slideshow, and then saw Lou Jacobs. And I checked, and yes, it was Lou Jacobs.
posted by jscott at 9:31 PM on August 5, 2010
posted by jscott at 9:31 PM on August 5, 2010
"Thank you for your openness and willingness to engage in the conversation, JtJ. Now, how do you respond to charges of contributing to millions of cases of coulrophobia worldwide?"
I respond thus: Not Guilty!
posted by JtJ at 1:32 AM on August 6, 2010
I respond thus: Not Guilty!
posted by JtJ at 1:32 AM on August 6, 2010
Can't sleep, eggs will eat me?
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 9:48 AM on August 6, 2010
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 9:48 AM on August 6, 2010
Remind me never to drop acid with Adipocere...
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:25 PM on August 8, 2010
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:25 PM on August 8, 2010
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posted by Eideteker at 8:17 AM on August 5, 2010 [1 favorite]