Grandfather wouldn't ever talk about the fighting,
but we all knew the War had changed him.

"How low and unbecoming a thing laughter is, not to mention the disagreeable noise that it makes, and the shocking distortion of the face that it occasions. I am neither of a melancholy nor a cynical disposition, and am as willing and apt to be pleased as anybody; but I am sure that, since I have the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh.

Having mentioned laughing, I must particularly warn you against it; and I heartily wish that you may often be seen to smile, but never heard to laugh, while you live. Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill manners: it is the manner in which the mob express their silly joy at silly things, and they call it being merry. In my mind there is nothing so illiberal and so ill-bred as audible laughter."

Lord Chesterfield, 1748

Expressing the consensus of opinion among

17th and 18th century physiognomists

in a letter to his son

"There are some people who raise their upper lip so high, or let the lower lip sag so much, that their teeth are almost entirely visible. This is entirely contrary to decorum, which forbids you to allow your teeth to be uncovered, since nature gave you lips to conceal them."

St. Jean-Baptiste De La Salle,

The Rules of Christian Decorum and Civility, 1703

I bought a hollowed-out human foot from the shop.

My First Clown Crush

Ruby was the first clown I ever "got".



She was hosting a variety show in Toronto in a hypnotic manner that never really left whichever half of my brain stores stuff that's intellectually creative.











In a hidden chasm of my imagination's memory, little red-nosed men are building a statue in her honor and revering it with unspeakably inappropriate gesticulations.

Fifteen minutes, or it's FREE!

You Can't Get High From Post-It Notes.

I paid the motherfuckers for car insurance.