Infinite jesters / Alien commies
Today: Anna Merlan, author of REPUBLIC OF LIES: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power; and science journalist, columnist, podcast host, and science fiction writer Annalee Newitz, author of Stories Are Weapons, The Terraformers, and the Hugo and Nebula Awards finalist, Automatic Noodle.
Issue No. 572
Send In the Horny Clowns
Anna Merlan
The Politics of ‘Pluribus’
Annalee Newitz
Send In the Horny Clowns
by Anna Merlan
The night before our Brooklyn wedding party, my husband lost his voice, screaming over a gaggle of loud, horny clowns.. When we stopped by Rubulad—the excellent DIY space where we were throwing the party—to set some stuff up, we found the venue was hosting a clown event. We were engulfed in a tidal wave of tulle, greasepaint, bright-printed baggy pants, shaving-cream pies, and people making out in ways that were injurious to their clown makeup. Months later, at another, circus-themed party on the opposite coast, it happened again: clowns, everywhere, in character, and all of them in heat. Why, I asked myself, leaving sooner than I’d planned, was this happening?
As a recent, delightful New York magazine article by Allison P. Davis made clear, if you attend parties or go to clubs or really leave your house at all at night in either New York or L.A., you are increasingly likely to encounter a horny clown. (I don’t get out much in other towns; if there are horny clowns in Memphis or Columbus or elsewhere, please email me, so I can gently avoid them.)
“Clowns are just always getting naked,” Davis overheard one alarmed L.A. resident exclaim. (I can confirm that this is, somehow, even more accurate than you might imagine.)
Keep us breathing fire!
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