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Battling Climate Change / #next364 #rednose

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Events that occurred on the third day of my #next364 writing project defined the direction of my upcoming year as an artist. My day began dressed in clean clothes for a production meeting next door at my neighbors Kevin Kling, and Mary Ludington’s house. We were meeting about a fundraiser for MN350.org to help in their battle against climate change.

The driving force behind last summer’s project was Mary. She wanted help producing a show called Full Moon Circus to raise money and consciousness about climate change in our community. She explained that Kevin Kling was being brought in because the Koch Brothers fueled opposition was winning the battle of the story.

Mary explained, “We need storytellers that can do a better job of telling our side of the story.”

“Let’s do it,” I said

Mary sprang up saying, “Great, let me change into my paint clothes before we go.”

“Paint clothes?”

My day ended in a warehouse painting protest signs for an upcoming anti-climate change march on the MN State Capital. Planted that day was the seed of an idea that became my new play, The Land of Clowns.

To Be Continued…

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Special Note: This story is part of my #next364 project where I spent a year publishing daily posts to my blog celebrating the spirit of the clown.  Over the course of a year I generated enough material to make into a book. In fact I’m making it into a book.    You can follow my progress here at www.LloydBrant.com. My current step is to revisit the past year of posts to polish, edit and shape the written material into a future book.

 

My Red Nose Son / #next364 #rednose

CFun-HRUgAA4joyThis is a selfie my son Gabriel tweeted last year when he was rehearsing his summer clown show.  At this same time my tech savvy son helped me start this blog.  We launched it the day after America’s first Red Nose Day. My goal was to spend the next year online living out the spirit of the clown using the hash-tag #next364.

I was doing pretty good until my blog crashed this April for a week. But the story of where this #next364 project took me for a year is enough to make into a book. In fact I’m making it into a book. You can follow my progress here at www.LloydBrant.com. My next step is to revisit the past year of posts to polish, edit and slowly shape my written material into the book.

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Where It All Started / #next364 #rednose

11329749_10206673326015163_1374704809573581081_nPhoto by Gabriel Cole-Brant:

A year ago my son Gabriel tweeted, “Where It All Started,” along with this picture of our family home. As a small boy he helped his Mom and Dad assemble our family’s Emergency Clown Noses® on the dining room table.

For better or worse Gabe’s tweet marks the start of a yearlong journey for me. Inspired by America’s first annual Red Nose Day, I committed to spend a year online living out the spirit of the clown for the #next364 days.

I now plan to compile the written material on my blog into a book. You can follow my progress here at www.LloydBrant.com. My next step is to revisit daily the past year of posts to polish, edit and shape my written material into a future book.

The adventure continues….

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The Woodlyn Clown Family in The Land of Clowns

Clown FamilyPhoto by Craig Hostetler:

Pictured from top to bottom are Flora, Jack, and little Jasper who stole every scene he was in.  The Woodlyn Clown Family were played by real clown family Caitlin Reilly, Ben Schave, and their son Frank.  For those who don’t know them, Ben and Caitlin just move to Minnesota from Texas last fall.  It’s now springtime so they proved their hardy enough to survive our winter.

Welcome.

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