Back to Black Joanne Black
You know the world has turned upside down when people are frightened by clowns and laugh at Donald Trump.
Clowns are getting terrible press, to the extent that the real ones in the US have started a Clown Lives Matter movement. I share the public’s fear of clowns only as far as worrying that I will look like one if I smear lipstick all over my face as middle age takes its toll on my eyesight. Otherwise, I’m not sure what the fuss is about. A while ago I was anticipating we’d get Donald Trumps trick or treating on Halloween, but now I’m expecting Marcel Marceaus. I don’t foresee any trouble, and regardless, they will, along with the witches and ghosts, still be wanting candy.
But you know the world has turned upside down when people are frightened by clowns and laugh at Trump.
This clown paranoia reminds me a little of when Ken Ring predicted large earthquakes for Christchurch, terrifying otherwise sensible people who intellectually knew this was ridiculous but were frightened anyway. His predictions preyed on an existing vulnerability, and so does clown fear. Being human, we expect and want to see people’s faces and know their true expressions and feelings. This is one reason the Muslim burka and niqab are so disliked.
I expect the paranoia will pass, especially once one or two clowns get shot. This seems inevitable here where anyone perceived to be a menace is vulnerable to the shootfirst-ask-questions-later response.
Pity McDonald’s. Fast-food chains already have a number of fears. A mouse’s head turning up in a hamburger; anti-globalisation, anti-obesity or anti-waste campaigners on their doorsteps; and now a worldwide fear of clowns so acute that Ronald McDonald has been put on gardening leave. Clowns are not a worry. Although occasionally some antisocial people in dress-up can be a threat, as usual our fear of becoming a victim is vastly out of proportion to the likelihood of it ever happening.
Fall is falling and the backdrop to my life in the suburbs here is the sound of leaf blowers. This is new to me. For a Wellingtonian, the idea that you’d have to generate wind outside is laughable. Leaves never got a chance to settle at our previous home before they were whisked off by the southerly, taken to the other side of town and replaced by chippie packets from the neighbouring school. Here it is so still that people create big piles of leaves on the verge of their properties and one weekend the council sends its leaf truck around to collect them.
God forbid that I should quote former Alaskan Governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, but she has explained her diet philosophy thus: “If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?” (I am digressing, but she also said, “There is plenty of room for all Alaska’s animals – right next to the mashed potatoes.”)
I think that if leaves were not meant to go back into the soil, they would not be falling on the ground. However, I guess that just as Palin’s argument could justify her eating her children (on occasions, she possibly wished she had), you could also say that if chippie packets were not meant to be lying on the ground, they wouldn’t be there, either.
I see I need to do some more work on my philosophical objection to leaf blowers, but now there’s no time. I need to go out and rake the leaves off the sidewalk before they go mushy and someone slips and sues me. It is a chore. It would be a lot easier with the neighbour’s leaf blower.
I expect the paranoia will pass, especially once one or two clowns get shot.