All Comments on 'Coulrophobia'

I hope you didn’t actually ENJOY this story. I hope you read it the way you’d watch a traffic accident or maybe a pimple-popping video; shamefully unable to look away. I meant for it to be BOTH “Ha-Ha!” funny and “Oh-No!” funny. If you’re left confused, unsettled, and itchy under the skin, then I succeeded in my goals. If you simply “liked” it, then I worry for the condition of your soul.

The Great Clown Panic of 2016 actually happened in the United States. However, the quote from an unnamed Chicago PD official at the beginning of this story is entirely bogus. It’s merely reminiscent of something I think I might have heard once. The Kurt Vonnegut quote at the end, however, is real. It’s from “Mother Night” (1962). The one other quote that I REALLY wanted to include, but couldn’t find a place for, was “Can’t sleep, clown’ll eat me. Can’t sleep, clown’ll eat me” (Bart Simpson, season 4 episode 10 “Lisa’s First Word”)

The phenomenology of the Art of Clowning isn’t exactly as I’ve described it here, but parts of it have a basis in reality. Some (but not all) clown performers go through that kind of ritualistic transformation, approaching the point of reverence. There really is an Egg Registry https://www.clownsinternational.com/egg-registry/ for the trademarking of clown faces. And I believe that our fascination, revulsion, and yes, horror of clowns is deeply rooted in our awareness and existential dread of death, madness, and compulsion as essential components of our being that we’d rather not think about. Sexuality, too, is on a spectrum with such things- we all “shift gears” into sexual “mode” when we get busy and become something primal, uncontrolled, and “other-than” our usual selves. I hope you’re as creeped out by that as I am.

Although I’d love to leave the question unresolved for readers to puzzle over, I will say for the record that neither Monica nor Mike went mad in this story. Trixie and Twisto are written as distinct characters. They are hostile invasive intelligences, unbound by the protocols that would have contained them if they’d been evoked by competent practitioners. Technically, they’re Trickster spirits, specifically Egregores. I would have liked to have related the word “egregore” to the egg registry, but that would have required someone in the story to have a clue. If anyone had been savvy enough, they would have said “Hang on, you INVITED a sociologically constructed chaos deity into your SOUL and then CONTINUOUSLY FED it with SEX ENERGY for MONTHS!?!? WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?!?!?!?”

But even chaotic trickster spirits have rules. They can’t bind to anyone’s flesh without making a contract. Like the djinn, they’re compelled to follow the letter of the deal while finding creative ways to corrupt its intent and destroy their summoners. They’re committed to the themes which define them. And I couldn’t help but think of the handcuff scene from Roger Zemeckis’s “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” (1988) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtfHaJKW1zQ&t=25s

I know nothing about Candomble, and I cannot claim to speak for any of the Orixa, nor any of the faithful who channel them.

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is the name of a small town in Wales that was famously referenced in the Roger Vadim film “Barbarella” (1968) starring Jane Fonda, who actually had to say it. In Welsh, it means “St Mary's Church in the hollow of the white hazel near the rapid whirlpool of Llandysilio of the red cave,” which the community playfully adopted in the late nineteenth century to attract attention to themselves and generate revenue. Go ahead and Google it.

Mike and Monica Bailey were named for James Anthony Bailey, a founder of what became the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey circus, as well as for George Bailey, the hapless self-sacrificing everyman played by Jimmy Stewart in Frank Capra’s “It’s A Wonderful Life” (1946), who spends the entire movie being fucked with by supernatural forces as well as by common treachery.

The book Monica was writing, but which sadly exists “only in the ol’ grey puddin’ up here,” is loosely fashioned after Radley Balco’s “Rise Of The Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_Warrior_Cop ISBN 978-1610394574 which I highly recommend. Uncontained egregores ARE, in fact, a real danger in this world.

You are right. That was not at all enjoyable, but very well written. I have you in my favorite authors, and when your new story popped up, I dived in without looking at the category. Watching a train wreck, indeed. I didn't want to finish it, but couldn't abandon it unfinished. Five stars for a story I didn't like. My brain hurts...

Strange story. It kept my attention, I kept waiting for Mike to make some kind of decision. Once he crushed the egg, his tolerance pushed the story over the edge of a cliff. It crashed, burned, and died.

Well written. First part was very accurate and received five stars. But, I agree with Versatek! Guess I will be forced to read what category the story falls in rather than just blindly following a great author.

Wasn't prepared for that. I'm not going to rate it, liked it and hated it at the same time.

This sudden hankering for a certain clown nose at clownantics.com has me worried.

What the fuck. no really, what the fuck. 10/10, hope i never see your stories again. please continue writing

ZainabTheLittleMouse has written the most perfect comment possible for this. That's exactly what I was going for. Thank you.