Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Clown-masked gunman robs store in Eldon

http://www.lakesunleader.com/articles/2007/01/29/news/02.txt

Clown-masked gunman robs store in Eldon
By Lake Sun staff
MILLER COUNTY ' The Eldon Police Department was searching for a suspect wanted for questioning in connection with an armed robbery at a convenience store late last week.

The robbery was reported late Thursday evening after a clerk at the Casey's convenience store was held up at gunpoint by a male suspect wearing a clown mask.

According to police chief Rodney Fair, the suspect allegedly walked into the store and demanded the clerk hand over money out of the register. The suspect brandished a handgun at the clerk, Fair said.

The suspect is believed to have fled on foot into a nearby residential area, pitching the handgun used in the robbery.

A handgun matching the description given by the clerk was found by the Eldon Police Department's canine a short distance from the entrance of the store.

Police did not release how much money was taken in the robbery, nor did they provide a detailed description of the suspect. The store is located at the intersection of 4th St. and Grand Ave.

Last week's hold up is the second time in the last several months the store has been the target of a robber. In November, a clerk refused to turn over the cash register receipts to a would-be thief demanding money.

When the clerk refused to cooperate, the suspect fled from the store on foot. Police arrested him within hours of the attempt.
Contact this reporter at joycem@lakesunleader.com

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Clown Academics

Israeli degree in 'medical clowning' a prescription for health
By Asher Goldstein January 14, 2007

Laughter is the best medicine - an old saying, but one that the University of Haifa is taking seriously by introducing Israel's first degree program - and perhaps the only degree in the world - in medical clowning. "It's a kind of start-up actually," said Herzel Ziyoni about the pilot program being offered by the university's Department. of Theater.

http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles%5El1523&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Health

and:

New graduates await clowning glory
Toaster and Shuffles learn you are never too old to be a clown

By Tanya Rose, MEDIANEWS STAFF
Article Last Updated: 01/10/2007 06:54:13 AM PST

Joe Silva, CEO of the Concord Senior Citizens Club and a retired mortgage banker, groans in fake pain inside Fuddruckers restaurant while children point and laugh.

He has a pretend toothache and needs a dentist, pronto. Albert Zais, 65, rushes in with a pair of giant pliers and readies for surgery. He adjusts the red, fuzzy clown wig hes wearing, pauses for theatrical effect, then pretends to plunge his hand into Silvas moaning mouth.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_4983425

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Pilo Family Circus: Review

http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1988909,00.html

Big-top bogey men
Will Elliott's horror story The Pilo Family Circus does nothing to help the image of clowns, says Elena Seymenliyska

Elena Seymenliyska
Saturday January 13, 2007

Pilo Family Circusby Will Elliott 314pp, Quercus, £10.99

Jamie is a modern everyman, an Australian twentysomething arts graduate killing time in a McJob and living in a tip of a houseshare in Brisbane. Late one night, driving home from work, he is forced to a sudden stop. A man is standing in the middle of the road, as though hatched out of a giant egg. Dressed in a flowery shirt, striped pants and oversized red shoes, his eyes bulge out of a white-painted face. He opens and shuts his mouth but no sound comes out. Then he simply walks off into the night.

As the silent-film star Lon Chaney is supposed to have said, there's nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight. The next day it happens again, but this time there are three of them: one on the roof of a house, one on the ground and one who's just a mean old bastard, despite the cute kittens printed on his shirt. The day after that, they wreak havoc in Jamie's house. Amid the wreckage, Jamie finds a card addressed "For a Special Guy", and inside it the message: "You have two days to pass your audition. You better pass it, feller. You're joining the circus. Ain't that the best news you ever got?" It's signed Gonko, Doopy and Goshy, on behalf of the Pilo Family Circus.

Will Elliott's first novel taps into an established tradition born out of coulrophobia, or fear of clowns. From the murderous jester of commedia dell' arte to the sadistic Pennywise in Stephen King's It, the masked man with the false grin is both a reliable bogey man and a subversive social critic. Elliott's clowns are as unnerving as they come, but their weirdness is more than just an act: this particular circus has pitched its tent in the underworld. Reached via a Portaloo portal, it floats in a dark cellar of the universe, right next door to hell. From there, it lures unsuspecting "tricks" - "regular types who eat pies, watch football and breed" - before milking them of their souls.

In charge of this operation is Kurt Pilo, a seven-foot giant with talons who likes to snack on teeth as if they were popcorn. (It was Mr Pilo who helped a certain failed Austrian painter make his name in political history.) Once Jamie is dragged into this underworld, he is shown what he would have become in real life: an alcoholic in a dead-end government job, with a disabled son whose mother is squeezing him for child support. Only wearing the white facepaint will save him from this living death. But as soon as the facepaint goes on, Jamie becomes JJ, a sadistic psychopath. Can Jamie manage to kill off JJ without destroying himself?

Elliott is stronger on the carnivalesque imagery than he is on the cod-philosophy. Like Chuck Palahniuk in Fight Club, his gripe seems to be with "ordinary" life, as lived by regular pie-munching breeders, but his critique gets lost in complex confabulations of alternate universes, mind-altering substances and shape-shifting characters. While The Pilo Family Circus won a first novel award in its native Australia, it might have made a better horror movie or violent computer game.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Haunted Clown on Ebay

Yet another "haunted" clown doll up for sale on ebay:

"This evil clown was dropped off to me today.
I WANT IT GONE A.S.A.P!
The evil energies that pour from this is beyond imaginable...
I first sat it in a chair to go get my camera & I swear to you the eyes followed me! I screamed & literally threw what I had in my hand.
My cat, Raven, even checked it out!
When I was in the kitchen I heard it's evil, sinister laugh...
It is quite old. It measures 31 inches from the tip of it's hat to the shoes. I have no clue what it is made out of.The head feels like a thin plastic, the main body feels like a piece of wood,&it has a bit of wood & stuffing that makes up the rest of it's body parts, etc.
I wanted to add that this clown does not actually stand up on it's own, I used a small tack at the very top of it's hat to do so for picture taking purposes only.
I am selling him as is due being in not the greatest condition due to age.
~Blessed Be~
I must state due to Ebay rules that I am not responsible for the activity or lack there of."