Best Place to Clown Around

It's the only full-curriculum clown school in North America -- yes, more comprehensive than the famous but recently downsized Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's Clown College in Florida. If you want to be a clown, and get the degree to prove it, the Clown Conservatory is the place to go. You'll not only learn how to juggle and pratfall, you'll study the history of clowning as an important art form. You'll discover that clowning is not just for red noses and Bozo wigs anymore -- it has a higher calling in which one can subversively change the world by calling attention to injustice and absurdity through humor. All that and sit on whoopee cushions, too. Starting May 16, this year's graduating class of burgeoning clowns begins a Bay Area tour of schools, hospitals, and community events to perform their newly learned talents. Call the Circus Center for show times.