this is the front of a A4 brochure designed circa 1980 by chris heywood, the head of graphic design at the portsmouth college of art where palfi{aka hurst palfey rinehart) taught photography from 1972 to 1982, staged dramatic productions and booked some of the greatest touring fringe companies in the world including incubus, belt and braces, temba, john bull puncture repair kit, lumiere and son, forkbeard fantasy and hull truck company. the top photograph is the top of a full figure photo taken by the great richard devereaux and used on an immaculate fold out card brochure wherein the photo was converted to a drawing. the photograph was taken by charles curtis at the guilford university festival. the right hand photo is by peter everhard smith at one of the albion fayres that took place in east anglia from about 1976 to 1986.

back of brochure used circa 1980.(clockwise from centre}palfi and potso(lee boxhall) inside geodesic dome at moon fayre, old hall, east bergholt, essex; albion fayres....,palfi collecting for The Society For The Prevention Of Natural Causes, Rougham Tree Fayre, Suffolk, albion fayres...,Ipswich Show, palfi performs a total tickleotomy....,Putney BMX and Rollerboard Park...,geodesic dome, moon fayre, old hall, east bergholt, essex. all three albion fayre photos taken by peter everhard smith. 

palfi receives a donation for The Society For The Prevention Of Natural Causes. " More people die of  Natural Causes than any other disease known to man." photo by peter everhard smith at an albion fayre circa 1979.

palfi on his army bunk with tuco the toucan at fort dix, new jersey 1968. at this time i was working as a scrub nurse in the operating theatre in walson army hospital and clowning at the electric factory in philadelphia, a rock venue 40 miles south of the army base. i was improvising and interacting with bands such as canned heat, iron butterfly, chuck berry, earth opera, steppenwolf, richie havens, blood sweat and tears, buddy rich and cat mother and the all night news boys. i met my first wife in the philadelphia institute of arts sitting in front of "nude bathers" by renoir. we lived together in paradise by a lovely lake at brown's mills, new jersey for 3 weeks, i got orders for viet nam and i spent the first year of our marriage there.

palfi with his bird fattening machine in the middle of the race track where he did big visual gags in between the heats of pony and trap racing in front of 4,000 thousand people at the midland county fair in midland ,michigan u.s.a. in 1961 and 1962. i was 17 years old. it was a company town in the middle of one of the richest farmlands in the world where only 60 years before you could walk for a hundred miles and never see daylight under the canopy of the giant michigan pines. they were all cut down. there are 11,000 lakes, the great lakes and 36,000 miles of river. i lived on a flower farm on the banks of the titabawasee river one mile below th dow chemical factory, which produced styrofoam, aspirin, agent orange and a component for napalm. the river never froze in temperatures sometimes 20 degrees below zero F, because of the thermal polution from their coal fired powerplant. that's gone now and the river freezes over now and the river runs clear over the silt that has buried the dioxins. happy clowning. you gotta laugh. damn this internet. i'm really letting go.this is the kind of shit you will hear from me if you hang around. i don't do much; just talk. 

This is the make-up I wore from 1961 to 1978. The photograph was taken in 1963 while I was home on holiday from my university theatre course at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan 20 miles away, by a guy in my hometown, Midland, Michigan, in the basement studio of his home along with several others in colour: full lengths in tramp gear with the first clown shoes I made. I wore tramp make-up from when I started clowning in 1958. I was fifteen and inspired by my eldest brother of five years: dixie. that is his real first name as palfi is my real middle name in the original Hungarian spelling. It was changed, perhaps at Ellis Island in New York when my mother, who was one year old at the time and her parents immigrated to the U.S.A. in 1912 from Klagenfurt, Austria-Hungary. My first major gig, which Dixie the Clown had done previously, was at the Midland County Fair doing large visual stunts in front of 4,000 people in between the heats of pony and trap racing with an explanatory dialogue between me and the race commentator. I did five nights for $50. Not much money; even in 1961. For three days they brought in Ricky the Clown,(real name: Irv Romig). a famous ex-circus clown from Detroit, 150 miles south. He had a television show in the Detroit area. He had a King Midget minuture kit car that chased him around the track with his son under the bonnet and a lama that jumped hurdles and was his giant poodle. In the backstage the lama would spit great gobs of green slime at me. 20 years later Mike Hurst told me that the way to stop them from doing it was to spit right back at them. Irv said, "You can work with me kid, but you can't were that make-up." He wore the Tramp make-up similar to mine and Emmet Kelly. He painted this face on me and i wore it for 17 years with raggedty clown gear. We rehearsed a levitation gag once and did it that night. He told me, "When you're out there doing it in front of the audience you'll feel like you are really being levitated." Guess what!? I told my own clown proteges that 12 years later and they didn't believe me. "Wow Palfi, I really thought I was being levitated." Irv was great and generous.I learned more from him in three days than I learned in years of studying theatre. I learned that there was someone doing the kind of funny stuff I had half-imagined should be done. I liked especially that, in doing walkabouts, he related to everyone as if he had known all of his life. When I do silent clowning I find it best to try to behave as if the whole world around me is all knew, but I tend to be extremel verbal most of the time. In 1968 while working as a scrub nurse assisting in surgery in the operating room theatres in Walson Army Hospital at Fort Dix , New Jersey, I had a gig clowning on friday and saturday nights for $50 improvising with bands such as Canned Heat, Richie Havens, Earth Opera, Chuck Berry, Blood Sweat and Tears, Buddy Rich, Steppenwolf and Cat Mother and the All Night News Boys at the famous Rock venue The Electric Factory in Philadelphia. It was managed by Larry Magid, a music promoter and radio disc jockey who later put together the U.S. end of the first Band Aid concert in John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philly in 1985. The venue still is in operation in another location. It was there that I first put my make-up on in front of the audience. I believe that I was, possibly, the first clown in the world to do this. Before this it was taboo to show any skin at all in American Circus. I have some snapshots a friend in the Army took of me doing it. I have dozens of historical documents and photos, but I am a cyberinfant and will get to scanning more when I can. I started putting on the make-up in front of the audience it because it was lonesome in the dressing room and also because I did not like going to work before the audience did. I still don't. Arrival is part of the show. I switched back to tramp make-up in 1978 at my first festival in Britain: the wonderful Hood Fayre near Dartington Hall in close to Ashburton, Devon. In 1984 I became tired of taking off the black grease-paint beard and heavy rags and bells. It became like bearing a heavy cross. I also adopted the title Consultant Laughologist. It happened on my birthday October 26, 1984 when I told a Chicago street performer I was tired of stupid names like JoJo the Clown, Pipsi the Clown and Palfi the clown. He responded, "Well, why don't you call yourself Dr. Palfi the Laughologist. I believe I was the first Laughologist. There are plenty now. I almost never wear make-up any more.. I mainly do walkabouts wandering about in a nightdress talking to a banana or sometimes wear pink and black stripped tights, a red and white striped t-shirt, oversized boxer shorts with an old brass laundry bag pin my mother gave me when I was starting out and my late father's wide rainbow braces. I love sharing this with you.

this lovely thank you letter was from the time i did a show before i went home to Michigan on my Christmas leave for the people on the children's ward in Walson Army Hospital  at Fort Dix, New Jersey, where i was stationed in 1967-1968 until i was sent for a year to Viet Nam at the height of the war. the army hospital also treated dependants of army personnel.  i also visited people on the ward. i experienced one of the strongest examples of  the power of laughter and wonderment. i was passing by a private room. i noticed a patient in his forties on a hospital bed with three of his limbs in either casts or traction. he was screaming in pain the hospital army chaplain was sitting with him. the moment he saw me he stopped screaming and forgot about his pain. i joked with them for about ten minutes.half hour. i did not hear his shrieks resume. i did not adopt the title of consultant laughologist until 1984. there are dozens of laughology specialists since. clowns have been doing this type of thing from early times and none of them bothered to make a big thing of it until Patch Adams.

this(at the moment) belongs with the photograph five pages above where i have a moustache and the sign behind me says "day off". i need to find page 16 wherein this article is continued.