And I laughed back. What else was there to do? It was ridiculous. Objectively, it was funny — I was an angry teenager covered in pink and blue eyeshadow, I looked like a joke, but wasn’t that the ...

while the contemporary circus clown, with his exaggerated face paint and physical wit, debuted on a London stage around 1800. (The one dressed in an ill-fitting suit and oversize shoes emerged as ...