Barbara Ann Michaels on Humor & Healing

Reverend Barbara Ann Michaels is a New York-based interfaith minister and performance artist known as the "Jester of the Peace." She combines humor, art, and spirituality in her work as a wedding officiant and event creator. She founded the Humor Arts Museum and House of Holy Humor, using interactive performance to promote wellness and social connection.

Barbara, thank you so much for accepting my invitation. It is a pleasure, an honor, and a joy. I start all my conversations with the same question. I borrow it from a friend of mine who lives here in Hudson. She helps people tell their story. I borrow it because it's a big, beautiful question. I over-explain it because it's big. Before I ask it, I want you to know that you're in absolute control. You can answer or not answer in any way that you want. It's impossible to make a mistake. The question is, where do you come from?

That is a beautiful question. It has mystical applications, artistic applications, geographical applications, mystery of life applications. It's very interesting that you asked me that today because the other day, my cousin who lives in Portland, Oregon - and I live in New York City - and we hadn't connected in a couple of years. She messaged me in the middle of the night, asking me about our family heritage.

Half my family is from Italy from a bunch of generations ago. She was asking me about our family heritage, saying to me that I had been the keeper of the flame. First of all, I was honored to find out that I was keeper of the flame. Then we ended up having a two-hour conversation in the middle of the night, up until about two in the morning, about our family - why people do what they do and where we come from.

Is it even possible to know where we come from? There's only documentation for a couple of generations back from one side of that Italian family and not the other. One of the things I've been thinking about recently is feeling, as an American person with European heritage, that I was dropped from the sky onto New Jersey where I grew up, without a long connection to those many generations of European people.

On one side, the Italians; on the other side, the Eastern Europeans. After my grandmother passed away at age 99 and a half, I took the time to go to the one place on earth where I actually know that some family of mine comes from, which is Montesarchio, Italy. It's a hill town of 13,000 people or so in the Benevento region. I went there, and it was the first time that I could imagine relatives of mine walking in a place where I was walking. It was very profound to feel a sense of physical history, because the United States is such a new country, comparatively. It wasn't a feeling that I was used to.

I also have had the experience of not feeling fully at home anywhere ever. I do have nomadic tendencies. This conversation with her was very beautiful to me because we were exploring what our family heritage is and can we get Italian citizenship? What would it be like to be Italian-descended people going to live in Italy after a few generations didn't do that? That is only one part of where do I come from.

What did it feel like, that moment when you were walking where you could imagine them walking?

Although the other night - it was my birthday - I was in Newark, New Jersey, where some of these Italian people came from Italy. I know that my grandparents partly got their start as a couple there. I was imagining, "What was it like? Did they look at this square? Did they see that church? What was still here when they were here? Am I walking on a spot that they would have walked?"

Not having that feeling be familiar because I've been super nomadic and lived all over the US for all of my adult life - this is what I did. I don't speak Italian because I come from the generations where it was "don't speak the language of the old country, we're just going to forget that language and be American now." There's definitely a loss there.

When I was in college, I took an Italian class and I wrote my grandmother a letter in Italian, and she was so happy. Then I wrote her another letter in Italian and it was beyond what she remembered. She said, "Don't write me any more letters in Italian." I thought that was pretty funny.

Going back to Montesarchio, Italy, which is what you actually asked me about - I translated using Google Translate this message that said: "Hi, I'm in your town. I know for sure that I'm related to some people in your town. These are the names of my relatives who lived here 150 years ago. If you can help me find my family, that's great. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be in your town."

I would show people this message on my phone in Italian. They would start talking to me in Italian and they would pick up their phone and say "Del Giaco" and "Del Sesto," which are my family names. They were trying to find my family thanks to Google Translate. Nobody found my family, but I know that somebody there is related to me because it just has to be that way.

What made that important to do?

She had passed away and I had never been there. I actually had never been to Italy. It was the first time I went to Italy. I went to Venice Biennale and had this extraordinary experience in Venice of feeling like I was in a place where life moved at the speed of people, not technology. First of all, I go to Venice and the whole experience of being a human being gets dialed back to pre-technology because you can only get around by boat or feet. There's no cars, not a bicycle, not even a roller skate - at least not that I could find.

I watched people in cafes talking to each other and not being on their phones because life was moving at the speed of people. Then I went even further back in history going to Montesarchio, Italy, in this little hill town. I didn't know that on one side of the hill, there's a very smooth road to get to the top of the hill where the little castle is that my great grandfather had some kind of connection to.

On the front of the hill, there's all these windy little paths and old stone houses. I walked all the way up through all the little twisty turnies, only to find out that there was a clear road on the other side. One of the funny things when I got to the hill is there was a sign - and for many years, I've been saying to whoever I happened to be in love with at the time, "This is a kissing spot. We should kiss on the kissing spot," just as a fun game over many years.

I got to the top of the hill in Montesarchio, Italy, and lo and behold, guess what there was? There was a sign, and it says in Italian, "kissing spot." I felt like, are you serious? I've been carrying around the kissing spot on the top of the hill in Montesarchio, Italy, with me everywhere I go into all the loves that I've had. And I was representing my family's historical kissing spot. It was totally delightful.

Did you have an idea growing up of what you wanted to be when you grew up?

Yes and no, because my mother took me to a program called Creative Theater Unlimited at McCarter Theater in Princeton. The program would tell us a story - it was a theater program for young people. They would tell us a story and then they would take out all of the details, take out the character names, take out all the lines, take out all the specifics and just leave us with the plot points. Then we would retell the story with our own characters, our own lines, our own details.

I thought that was quite brilliant because it teaches you how to have a story structure, but it also teaches you to improvise. I realized decades later that everything I do artistically is an improvisation on the structure, which probably came from that experience that then stayed with me for many years.

All of the artwork that I create has very simple structures that are audience participatory, like the Love Letter Lounge Post Office, where people come and write love letters to clear their heart or cheer their heart. "I Vote for You" - the voting booth that I was doing last week because we had an election in the U.S., where people vote themselves to be president of whatever they want: president of peace, president of pretzels, president of prosperity. "Marry Yourself," where you can make a commitment to a part of yourself - marry your creativity, marry success, marry sleep, marry whatever matters.

All of those are improvisations on a very simple structure. Plus, I was an improviser and a clown. Did I know that was going to be the trajectory? I realized years, decades probably later, how impactful that theater program had been in setting up my life to be an improvisation on a structure. But everybody's life is an improvisation on a structure.

Tell me where you are right now and what you're doing for work.

I am physically right now in a storefront called Razor Space BK, which is run by my wonderful friend Rachel McIntosh, who is a multi-artist. I am the artist in residence here to do performances of a town that I have called Humorville. It's fun that we started talking about a town and I've made a town.

One of the funny things about my town of Humorville, which is if you put my performances and experiences together, they make a town, is that I did not realize that I was making a town until I'd already made it. I made a post office and a library where people tell stories that were hard then that are funny now. I made a phone company where you call yourself on the phone and tell yourself everything you've been holding back. I made holidays, I made a parade, I made a marriage bureau. But I didn't realize that I was making a town until about 10 years in when I looked at the projects.

This weekend I'm going to be doing the Love Letter Lounge post office. People come and write letters - write a letter to anyone or anything. Addressed letters get mailed and unaddressed letters get ritually released, which could mean burn it, shred it, drown it, stomp on it, whatever it is.

One of the other hallmarks of those projects is they meet people emotionally wherever they are. An example of that is "I Vote for You" where last week I had one person, this was in the street on election day, vote for herself to be president of Stress Baking Banana Bread, which I thought was a totally delightful presidency and she absolutely had my vote. Then another person got real in a different way and voted to be the president of arts funding.

If somebody needs a serious moment, they'll take it. If someone needs a funny moment, they'll take it. I'm there with my structure to improvise with people and help people feel seen, heard, and celebrated.

When you're asking me what I do for work - I do that as art, I do it as wellness, I do it as training. One of the things, if there's any other creators listening right now who want to work more, that made a really big difference for me is when I realized I didn't have to call my work art all the time. Is that art? Yes, it's art. Is that team bonding? Yes, it's team bonding. Is that education? Yes, it's education. Is that personal development? Yes, it is.

I'll call it whatever it needs to be called for it to show up in someone's familiar language and their budget. I've been able to do a lot more work in a lot more places doing the exact same thing all the time because I've been willing to call it whatever it needs to be called. It's always art to me underneath. But if I had to have it be called art all the time, I would have less of an impact and work less often.

When did you first discover that this was a way that you could make a living?

That's such a wonderful question. I got into the events industry pretty early on because I was a clown early on in my early twenties. I went to study clown theater, and I had this extraordinary experience of having that change my life.

I had always been a smart kid. If you're a smart kid and you have the answer, things go well. And if you don't have the answer, things might not go so well. I went to study mime at this place called Celebration Barn in South Paris, Maine, which was founded by Tony Montanaro. I really liked mime because I'd been a dancer and really enjoyed that. Then the next year I went and studied clown.

I was an absolutely terrible, unfunny clown. I had no ability to deal with failure. I was just not funny in the least. I was confused and I didn't have the answer and things were going badly. I basically just collapsed on the floor and sobbed, which was incredibly embarrassing.

I couldn't process failure. Then my teacher, whose name was Julie Goell - it was Julie Goell and Bob Nurenberg. Julie's passed away now, so I want to send her some mystical love. She came over and she sat with me and put my little head on her little lap. She was smiling at me and stroking my hair. I was a mess. And she just was totally full of joy because I was that terrible.

It was the first time I'd ever been celebrated for failing, which is not the same as "Oh, you got it wrong, you can do it again" or "Just go on to the next one" or "It'll be okay next time." It was full-on celebration of my abject failure as a clown. It changed me because I couldn't process failure before that.

As soon as that happened, I devoted the rest of my life to humor. The origin story of making a living as an artist partly comes from that moment because I've worked in a lot of different kinds of contexts, always with humor for wellness, even though I didn't realize that for a long time. Believing deeply that putting humor back in the medicine cabinet and humor as a wellness tool, humor as art, humor as life.

I deeply believe that anything that brings energy is life. I will say humor is life because it brings energy to people and brings connection and brings love as long as it's positive humor when we're laughing with things.

So I went into the events industry. I was doing parades and events and teaching clown theater and teaching improvisation. I was performing at festivals, then performing at conferences and wellness events. Then I was performing at schools. And I was working on a senior adult therapy platform. It takes a lot of forms. But it being mine to do and having an entrepreneurial spirit, the inclination of "I'm going to work on this for the rest of my life" was born in that moment on the stage with Julie.

What do you love about the work? Where's the joy in it for you?

I can't feel better if the other person can't feel better. Everything I do professionally has to do with bringing more energy, bringing more relief, bringing more positivity. I don't mean that in a fluffy joy bunny fashion, although sometimes I do really silly things. I mean that in a truthful, vital way where if I have more energy today, I'm more available to myself and others and will make better choices for myself and others.

I'm actually a really serious artist. I just use humor as a strategy because it's phenomenally faster. If I did my post office and my marriage bureau and my phone booth as a serious project, people hold back and they think and they wonder, "Is it OK to participate in this? What does it mean if I participate in this?" But because it's funny, people just don't think. They say, "Oh, all right. I'll marry my favorite vacation spot. I do love it." And this is why I'm marrying my vacation spot, and this is when I started going there. And actually, let me tell you about my family. It's this door opener for people to really share themselves without thought. If people aren't thinking, it's just a better experience.

What is that shift or what's the trick that humor plays? I'm very curious, too, about what it means to be a clown. To study to go to clown school or to explore clown theater, you must learn something. What's the shift that happens when you become a clown, and what is the trick that humor plays for us?

Those are two phenomenally deep questions. Clown theater is the art form of taking the ups and downs of life and finding humor. So we can all have a cathartic laugh, put more energy, put some space around that pain and keep going and forgive ourselves and see ourselves in each other.

That's different than sometimes when I say clown in the U.S., people immediately think of the birthday party industry and balloon animals and face painting are commonly associated with clowns - those are visual art forms that it takes real skill to do well. The actual study of clown theater and the presentation of clown theater is a theatrical art form that embraces the extremes of life so that we can get a laugh, exhale, see ourselves in each other and be able to look at some of those things that are maybe harder to see because humor makes it possible.

There's a reason why some people get their news from nightly comedy shows and not directly because sometimes watching the regular news is hard. But getting it through comedy puts a little space around it, a little space.

What's the space you're pointing to? What's that space around pain?

First of all, laughter is a physiological and emotional release simultaneously. When I was a pediatric hospital clown, you go in and you play with the things that are hard once you have complicity because you have to have complicity in order to do that. Once you have complicity, then you play with the things that are hard and it gives a relief. It gives an exhale. It's like, "Oh, this thing that is difficult - it's not only serious."

It's very serious, and yet I can laugh about this aspect of it. That's what the Circus of the Heart Library is about. It's people telling stories about things that were hard then that are funny now. With the real understanding that many stories in our lives do not find humor in our lifetime, but those that can, we can help other people with them.

I call it Circus of the Heart Library because people go to the real circus in order to see people do impossible things. Like Luigi can hang off of this high wire, looking like a garbled up spaghetti. Well, if you can do that, maybe I can swim or whatever - it's like whatever feels impossible. And then the emotional equivalent of that is laughing with what was hard, which is either forgiveness or what was hard - those are the things that feel impossible emotionally.

The Circus of the Heart Project is specifically about people laughing about stuff that was challenging, knowing that the original thing isn't funny. I've had people tell me stories about death of parents, brain surgery, almost drowning, drugs, guns, breaking both legs - none of that's funny, but something along the way finds humor and it's vitally important to be able to let humor live because it's part of the human condition for wellness. We are designed to reframe our stories with humor. It's not a trick. It's not something brought in from the outside. It's actually part of the human psyche to be able to do that.

I call that moment the first laugh where it's been "too soon, too soon" - the comedy industry term where it's too soon. But then the first laugh happens, which could be so tiny, like the little "hee hee hee." And once that happens, then that's when we put space around the pain. That's when the heart has hope. That's when we know the healing journey is still gonna happen, even if it's gonna be long, but the first laugh happens. So we have hope. And then the story is truly funny and we get energy when we tell the story and we feel better when we tell the story about the aspect of the thing, not the original thing. That's when we help other people. That's what the Circus of the Heart Library of Humorville is about. Right now I have about 30 interviews online about that.

I want to go back to when you talked about complicity and playing the hard stuff. Is it possible to do a slow motion replay of what's happening with you when you're interacting with somebody? When you're actually using humor? How do you get complicity?

Complicity is when we want to play together. How do I know that? Part of it's training. I have been doing audience interactive theatrics for 30 years in the street, in theaters, at trade shows, on Zooms - it's all the same skills.

One of the things I learned as a street artist over all these decades is that there's always four kinds of people in the audience. The first kind is the people who are ready for anything. They really let you know because they're ready for anything. They basically want you to sit on their lap and lick their face. They're ready for anything. And so I don't mean literally lick their face, I mean metaphorically do that. So they're called the lickers.

The second group is the watchers. They totally want to watch you lick someone else's face. They just don't want you to lick theirs. But they want to be acknowledged for watching.

The third group are the hiders, and they do not want to be seen, but they want to participate. They do not want you to know that they're totally enjoying watching because they don't want any attention, versus the watchers who totally want the attention.

And the fourth group does not care. They don't care. They got a bad text. They have something going on in their life. They just don't care right now.

So complicity is - and this is what I say to people when we go out and do the community service part of Humorville, which is going into a park and playing with strangers with clown noses on - we have the clown noses on, just to show how easy it is to bring joy to others. You just go out and find the lickers and lick them. Find the lickers and lick them and all will be well because they let it be known. And I do mean that metaphorically, we must understand.

Complicity is finding the lickers and licking them because they're like, "Yes, lick me now," but metaphorically. And it's obvious because someone is - I offer my attention and someone returns it. If they returned it, okay; if they didn't return it, obviously they're not my person. But that's part of the craft. The part of the craft is understanding that.

The other part of the craft is people change their state. Somebody can be like, "Yes, I want to play," and then the next minute they're like, "Nope, done." And we have to be able to ride the change. Or someone comes out of hiding and is suddenly a watcher, and then they're a licker, but then they disappear and suddenly they don't care. That's where the craft really is - we have to be able to manage people's state changes because nobody's a licker all the time and nobody's a hider all the time.

On any given day, I could be like, "Yes, person on the sidewalk asking me if you can stop me for two seconds, I would love to talk to you about that." And another day, "Please no, not today." Complicity is just meeting the energy where the energy is and being willing to be very honest about that and not trying to put energy where it isn't or where I wish it was, which is a wonderful metaphor for every other relationship in life.

We have to just be with the energies as they are. If we try to make the energies what they're not, it's gonna be hard. And that is the same in street performing as it is in love, as it is in work, as it is in family. It's all the same. It's one of the things I love the most about clown theater - all of the tools of clown theater apply to every other relationship we have.

So the two questions - one was about the clown. What's the shift that happens in you when you become a clown? And then the other one was about humor. What does humor do for us?

Humor is life. Humor brings energy, humor helps reframe. However, I need to make a distinction that humor can also be used to hurt people. So there's a distinction between laughing at people and laughing with people. If I say to myself, "Oh, they're laughing at me," it feels hard, it feels separating. If I say, "Oh, they're laughing with me," it's so energizing, it's so beautiful.

In general, because sometimes laughing at will serve - it's not a complete 100%. In general, if we trend laughing with each other, then we will create more love. If we trend laughing at each other, we will create more division. That's one of the things that humor does. Humor brings relief because it's physiological. Laughter predates language. Laughter sounds the same in every language. It predates language. We laugh first. Babies laugh before they can talk.

Is laughter - what do you know or understand about laughter? I feel like I read somewhere that it's kind of a safety, it's an indication of safety.

My personal experience of laughter is there's a form of love when we're laughing with each other versus at. We feel it's - I can exhale. One of the things I know as a public speaker, because I also keynote about humor and wellness, and I train about humor and wellness, and I do programs about humor and wellness - the best time when doing public speaking to say something really serious is right after everybody laughed, because they've just exhaled, they're listening, and their minds are clear.

I have a great story about that. I was presenting at a conference called the Creative Problem Solving Institute. My very wonderful colleague, Mark Milhone, who ended up becoming my very dear friend - this is our meeting story, it's very fun. I was teaching a program called Clown Curious, which is the rules of body language and humor for creative facilitators or for a business context. He said, "Well, I really want to come to your workshop, but I have to leave early."

I said, "Well, okay, this is a clown workshop, so you can leave early, Mr. Milhone. However, you have to do it as obviously as possible. This is the clown class, okay?" And he, being a good comedian, which he is, said okay.

So I'm presenting and it's wonderful, and we're exploring these concepts and it's audience interactive, because it always is. And Mr. Milhone's time for him to leave comes, and so he walks directly in front of me between me and all of the people in the workshop with his roly bag as if I'm not even there. Just no one can concentrate because he's walked right in between us, which is as obviously as possible, and he was such a good friend that he really took it on, but he's also a devotee of comedy and what it can do.

This is what happened: Half of the room ran out of the facilitation room, chased him into the elevator, pressed all the elevator buttons so that he would have the most difficult time getting down the stairs, had the time of their lives in a professional setting, ran back, huffing and puffing, smiling, giggling. The whole room is electric. Everyone has exhaled, everyone has laughed.

Pause, and I said, "I'd like to remind everyone, this is a professional conference." There's a pause, and then the whole room just cracks up because I said, "What is possible now professionally for us because this has happened? What is possible professionally for us because we've collaborated, because we've been improvisational, because we've taken a risk? What is possible?"

Going from the highest height of everyone's joy and mischief to, "Oh, this has some seriously practical implications. Let's really understand what just happened." That is an experience I've had over and over again, because I know to drop the most serious thing that's going on right after the funniest thing that happens. Because that's transformation, that's the high and the low. And I don't mean low being a low feeling, I mean taking people to the highest height and then ground.

You use the word mischief. Tell me about mischief. I've read about the trickster. Is there a relationship between the clown and the trickster?

Oh, sure. There's clowns and there's the fool and there's the trickster and they're really not the same. The idea that the jester term has to do more with being the trickster and saying the hard thing. The clown has more to do with being a bumbling idiot and representing everybody's trying to pretend everything's okay all the time - which it clearly is not because that's why we need clown theater.

Relief can happen in either one of those contexts. What I love the most about this art form is that it's so incredibly honest. If I had a really good clown show, people will laugh and cry and see the human dynamics there in all of our lives.

What do clowns make theater about? Power dynamics. Anybody in the world experience power dynamics today? Probably. Pretending everything's okay? Yes, I'm trying to drink this water but it has a hole in it. Is anybody trying to pretend that some situation is not going awry right now? Probably. It's incredibly honest and I'm grateful because I've studied it long enough that I can bring humor to a situation faster or look for it - I look for humor faster.

What do you mean? How do you mean that? What does that mean to look faster?

When something's going wrong, have the ability to be like, "Okay, what's gonna come out of this that's funny?" I can go there faster. I also do the library project on a senior adult therapy platform and as a wellness activity, even though it was an artwork. One of the women in the workshop said to me, "As I go through my week, I find myself looking for humor faster. I was talking to a really annoying friend and I just took a second rather than get mad at her. I thought, 'Oh, that's funny. She's going off like that.'" And I thought, "Oh yeah, we win."

We win if we laugh with each other, we win if we laugh. And with a real understanding that the "too soon" comedy term exists for a reason because things really can be too soon and often are too soon. Whenever I do this as a wellness workshop, I have everyone put their hand on their heart just to acknowledge all those stories that will not find humor in our lifetime.

However, you wouldn't think that - I mean, war is terrible all the time in every instance and you wouldn't think anyone would ever find humor in it, but how many funny movies are there about war? There's a lot because people need to process it and process it through humor. It's not that the war is funny because it's not, but something from the journey finds humor or this aspect can be humorous and we need to bring release and relief and know that healing is possible and that's what humor does. Humor helps us, laughing with helps us know that healing is possible because humor is the harbinger of healing and humor is human.

I will also say that humor is a spiritual practice, a human right. I'm an interfaith minister too. I'm not a member of any particular religion but I'm a legal clergy person. I also do this as a spiritual service - humor, the library, having the congregation of whatever faith that happens to be tell stories about humor as a spiritual practice. Humor is a human right. Humor is wellness, humor is life.

So you're the Jester of the Peace?

That is correct. That was given to me by a very dear friend when I first became a wedding officiant, which is the theater job you never age out of - that is the shout out to other theater people who may be listening right now. I did 560 weddings for creative couples.

I was the one doing costume weddings and helicopter weddings and weddings in the snow - just whatever people needed to do because some people need to express their tradition and some people need to express their creativity. My friend said, "You're a clown and you're doing weddings. You should be the jester of the peace." And I said, "Oh yes, you're right."

I've kept it even though I'm not in that business full time anymore, but it was a wonderful business. I ended up being a wedding officiant right before same-sex marriage passed in New York state. I was able to officiate some of the first same-sex marriages in New York, which was really a tremendous honor and very moving and lots of fun.

I keep "jester of the peace" because it means humor for wellness and it means fun for life. I am not - sometimes people think about play and it seems like silly goof-off time. And in reality, it's so important. It's vital to life.

Play is not for children, play is human because if we don't play, we're not innovating. If we don't play, we're not releasing our stress. If we don't play, we're stuck in our adult patterns. If we don't play, we're not reaching for the next version of ourselves. If we don't play, we can't exhale.

And ultimately, even in a business context, ultimately people want to work with people who feel like friends. And what are the friendship qualities? The friendship qualities are playfulness, humor, sharing joy and sharing real deal stuff. So my projects share real deal stuff through joy. And so I have the friendship factor.

I'm curious about the playfulness of course, but you mentioned teaching body language. What do you know? How do you talk about body language?

Thank you for that. There's rules, humor has rules. And one of them is the rule of three which is same, same, different. Like frog, frog, intergalactic exploration, whatever. It's same, same, different because it only takes an instance of two to create a pattern. And one of the ways to create humor and create laughter is to do a pattern break in the psyche.

And so if I go frog, frog, people are expecting a frog. But if we go frog, frog, intergalactic exploration with donuts - I had to add the donuts too because it wasn't funny enough the first time but I think that the donuts really worked out.

Also leading with different parts of the body. When we walk, do we lead with our head and our thoughts? Do we lead with our heart and our feelings? Do we lead with our pelvis and our desires? All of those create characters but they also - if you just do some people watching, you will start to see people leading with their heart, their head and their pelvis and that significantly affects how people receive us and what stories they tell us about what they think we're like.

Those are some of the principles but I teach all of that through interactive games. I'm basically an interactive artist and I came to realize after I joined the World Experience Organization earlier this year that I'm also an experience designer and that was very exciting to find out because I didn't know that that existed.

Now I'm connected with all these people all over the world who design experiences and I design experiences too. It's fun to be in the interactive and immersive arts long enough that they have new names. Then it's immersive, then it's experiences - great. It's also clown theater improv and performance art but there was a time when the term performance art didn't exist either. And then the performance artists got to say, "Oh, I'm a performance artist." But I can say, "Oh, I'm an experience designer." Eventually it'll be called something else. I call it going from the human condition to the humor condition.

What are you most looking forward to or what are you working on next?

One of the things I'm working on right now is touring my town. Now that I realized it's a town after I had the aha moment - oh, I made a marriage bureau and a bank. Oh, I didn't make a bank. I was thinking about making a bank of laughter. I was thinking about making a bank where people can send in their favorite friend's laugh or their favorite uncle's laugh or their mom's laugh to have a bank of laughter and how beautiful that would be.

To tour it as a pop-up, to do a pop-up in a building, like a house takeover, a hotel takeover. What about a renovated space? So every different part of the space is go in this room and marry yourself. Go across the hall and vote for yourself. Go upstairs and call yourself on the phone and then the parade goes by. Now it's time to celebrate a holiday.

I'm looking forward to identifying space partners and I will go anywhere in the world to do that. So if you are listening and you would love to have this in your region, I would be delighted to come to you with it. That's one of the things I'm looking forward to.

I'm also looking forward to continuing to ride the different segments of society with the exact same projects because it is health. It's one of my favorite things about humor. It is health, it is love, it is art, it is education. It really is - I'm not massaging it to try to fit in people's categories. It really is all of those things because humor is connection and anywhere people are, connection is necessary. Humor, art and love are the fastest reconnectors of the human spirit that I know.

I get to work in all these different kinds of sectors because humor is life and because it's true. I'm looking forward to those things. I invite all of our listeners to go to jesterofthepiece.com which is where my calendar is and where you can communicate with me and talk about projects and share ideas.

One of the things I say after the Circus of the Heart Library when I'm doing it as a workshop is I'll say, have people turn to each other, actually give each other a clown nose and say to each other, "May you walk with humor?" And that's what I will say to you, Peter, may you walk with humor? As well as say to all of our listeners, may you all walk with humor and may you walk with humor with each other and do the things and participate in the artworks and practice the practices that have us walk with humor together.

Beautiful. I appreciate that very much. And yeah, I'm really glad that you accepted the invitation. So thank you.

It's a pleasure. Thank you

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