Send in the Clowns: Cultural engineering
“Send in the Clowns” is a song written by Stephen Sondheim for the 1973 musical A Little Night Music, an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s film Smiles of a Summer Night. It is a ballad from Act II in which the character Desirée reflects on the ironies and disappointments of her life. The “clowns” in the title do not refer to circus clowns. Instead, they symbolize fools, as Sondheim explained in a 1990 interview: From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Send_in_the_Clowns> For those of you who remember back that far – Judy Collins… This song is for those of us who need to wake up and [-MORE-]