Show Folk

Lovers of art and art history who don't have a lot of money are probably familiar with Taschen publishing. The mostly photo, but also fine art and design books put out by Taschen can class up your library and give your eyeballs a little vacation when you want to look at pretty pictures.

Thanks to Flavorwire, we discovered a Taschen book that will soon join the Typing Monkey library:  The Circus Book: 1870-1950. Flavorwire republished some of the photos a couple years ago, so in honor of National Clown Week (Aug 3, 2013 is officially National Clown Day), we link to those galleries.

One is "Rare Color Photos of Circus Showgirls of the ’40s and ’50s" the other is "Incredible Vintage Circus Photos of the '40s and '50s."

They're brief, fun looks at the romance and greasy glamor of human circus performers. Here's a sneak preview to entice you:

Circus people, 1955; courtesy Taschen; via Flavorwire

Oh, no

Farewell to Chris Wedes, better known to Puget Sound residents as J.P. Patches. He died Sunday July 22, 2012.

His passing set frequent Typing Monkey contributer Kris Kendall to reminiscing about The J.P. Patches Show. It's entirely possible Kendall's still talking, with a faraway, misty-eyed look, about Wedes' importance to local television.

We've taken this valuable piece of information from his ramblings and posted it here:

"By 1980, when J.P.’s show was three years from cancellation, I think I was the only kid at my school who still watched. Most mornings during the school year, my friend Mike would ask me, as we walked to school: 'Did you watch Star Blazers this morning?'

My answer was always 'No, I watched J.P.' And  I couldn’t understand why he didn’t."

Good bye J.P. Patches. You're one of the rare ones, about whom we can genuinely say, they just don't make 'em like that anymore.

Happy National Clown Day

The first week of August is National Clown Week. Says who? Richard Milhaus Nixon, that's who. He made it so on August 2, 1971 via Presidential Proclamation 4071. We like to think his clown name was Tricky Dick.

Traditionally, the Saturday of Clown Week is Clown Day. So if you know any clowns, thank them for their work and just enjoy the show.

The NCW site acknowledges the uptick in coulrophobia, the fear of clowns, which seems to have flourished mostly since the 1980s and really gained momentum via the Internet and Web.

The Typing Monkey's official position on people claiming to be afraid of clowns: knock it off, no you aren't.

We are sure there are a number of legitimate cases of diagnosable clown phobia. But just because circuses aren't as popular as they once were and a few horror movies have stained your memory, don't dismiss all clowns. A skilled clown is preserving a centuries-old tradition and slapstick is one of the puresest forms of comedy that translates across borders.

Hooray! Clowns!

[Illustration by Louis Slobodkin, from his book Millions and Millions and Millions!; Vanguard, 1955. Courtesy of his Website.]