My wife and I took our 4 year old daughter to the Big Apple Circus who famously regularly perform at Lincoln Center, however we caught them Cunningham Park in Queens which was much closer to home for us. I had grown up with the much larger scale of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus which always performed at Madison Square Garden when they were in New York City; the Big Apple Circus came with a real circus tent and was a much more intimate an experience. My daughter was excited to go and she drew a picture with crayons to give to the lead clown Grandma. I had bought front row seats for the performance and when Grandma passed by my daughter, she stuck her hand out and gave the picture to Grandma who did not speak but was clearly happy to receive the gift while continuing on her way. At some point there was some audience participation required and Grandma returned to us and pulled me out of the audience to act as a prop for someone to leap over me during the act. Unfortunately I just read in a Newsweek article that Barry Lubin,, who played the Grandma character for years, was reportedly pressured to retire in 2012 because of sexual misconduct allegations but managed to return to the circus in 2017.

Send in the Clowns

Rock on!

GQ