Word: clowning
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SEPARATED. Jerry Lewis, 54, compulsive clown and cinematic one-man band; and Patti Lewis, 56, his wife of 36 years and mother of his six sons; in Los Angeles...
...city, balloonery is, well, soaring. A cluster of two dozen rubber bubbles costs around $25, not too much more than a florid array of earthbound blossoms. At many ballooneries, the fee covers the cost of delivering the gaudy globules by a messenger dressed as a magician, a mime, a clown, Big Bird, the Mad Hatter, Groucho Marx-or even with an entire chorus line. Sometimes bubbly also accompanies the balloons...
...chrysanthemums. Shelly Anderson, who with Sandye Dianto started the Balloon Express Co. in Los Angeles last May, specializes in hand-painted balloons depicting rainbows, birthday cakes and people's names-even "dirty pictures." One blue batch was decorated with "porno stuff' and delivered with a nude male clown to a woman's "stagette" party. Another Los Angeles company, the Red Balloon, has a lot of requests for black numbers inscribed with messages like I HATE YOU or I DON'T LOVE YOU ANY MORE. In Hollyweird, a divorce date rates lotsa balloons...
...clergy clowns find a theological justification for their unusual ministry in the injunction of St. Paul to the Corinthians to become "fools for Christ's sake" because God has "made foolish the wisdom of the world." They discern multilayered analogies between the clown and Christ: the clown's joy in living and mimed delight in simple things, like the scent of a flower, for instance, recall Jesus' command to "consider the lilies of the field, how they grow." The simplicity and childlike persistence of the clown can have a special meaning for Christians. "The clown refuses...
Today there are 3,000 clown ministry groups in the U.S. who put on big noses and suits of many colors in order to serve God. Yet it was only seven years ago that Methodist Minister Bill Peckham organized one of the earliest clown ministries in Elkhart, Ind., among the young people of his parish. Calling themselves the Holy Fools, they began visiting hospitals, mental institutions and nursing homes, where they fanned out to chat with individual patients, occasionally performed short skits or magic tricks and made balloon sculptures. Often they just talked quietly with a patient, held or hugged...