The book is silent on mimes.

The book tells us two goops may work together, their big heads, their tight coats, their silly dances. But what to do together? You ask a goop, but he has no clue.

The tramp clown wears a magic hat but all his tricks go askew. A clown’s not allowed to cry, but look closely for creases beneath the make up. Who says clowns can’t pout? Not the nuts, those pure unadulterated walkarounds in their bathing suits & snowshoes, with their rifles laden with fish, with their notebooks full of prose poems.

Who doesn’t love the burlesques: see the clown as president mispronouncing words, all blue suit and dunce cap. See the clown lawyer ready to sue me for giving up their secrets.

The book also fails to mention pilgrim clowns, so unfunny are they, on their knees to St. Pete’s Shrine of Ringling. On their knees, bike horns have been taped, which honk as they go, white-faced, red-nosed, and laughing. How the townsfolk come out with bowls of food to offer, though a few do grab their children instead, tugging them closer when they hear those pilgrims crawling their way.