Though the clown business hit my neighborhood last week (including an unsubstantiated report from my kids’ school), this is the week when things went national, with stories on NPR this morning, all kinds of offical statements from schools and law enforcement, and a (probably bored) reporter raising question of the clown epidemic at a White House press briefing.

I’m not sure why, really. I suspect there really aren’t actually that many people actually donning clown garb, though somebody’s proving you can do some interesting social engineering with some well-placed social media activity.

I suspect it’s kind of the same reasoning I had about the Pokemon a couple of months ago; we need a distraction from reality. The real world is confusing and occasionally scary right now, what with killer storms, contentious elections, and real violence in our streets and in civil wars overseas. I wonder if it’s not easier for us to package up the very real fears and anxieties we have about the world and project them onto something relatively ridiculous because that’s easier to deal with?

Just a theory. People could get distracted by better stuff, like that Chipotle has chorizo now.

In any case, it’s not really impacted my life in any significant way other than as an occasional diversion for my attention, and me maybe thinking about asking Metricula, my one actual IRL (folk-singing dominatrix) clown friend, about it, but I kind of suspect she’s tired of the whole business. The week’s been realtively slow, low-level stressors all over the place, but nothing imminently serious. I’ve been doing a bit of preparation for a roundtable meeting in DC next week where I have to do a couple of presentations, trying to figure out the rest of the year in terms of commitments and family activities, and doing my damnedest to continue breathing in spite of some of the worst allergy symptoms I’ve experienced in years.

Oh, and my kid’s going on a college campus visitation later this weekend. I’m so definitely an old.

Anyway, here’s some tunes out of my pandora mix; bit of a stutter on “Don’t” there at six and seven, but otherwise, could be worse:

1. “The Ghost in You” – Psychadelic Furs
2. “Dirty Boots” – Sonic Youth
3. “The Parting Glass” – The Wailin’ Jennys
4. “Seven Wonders” – Nickel Creek
5. “It’s My Life (live)” Bon Jovi
6. “Don’t You Cry for Me” – Cobi
7. “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” – Simple Minds
8. “Frontwards” – Los Campesinos
9. “Animal” – Def Leppard
10. “Back in Black” – AC/DC
11. “Youth Gone Wild” – Skid Row

Oh, this week’s random eleven link isn’t necessarily awesome – I hope the stage parent business gets nipped in the bud; Millie seems like a good kid; she doesn’t deserve this crap.