Tuesday, November 15, 2005

So, is that a joke?

From The Times, an excerpt.


"Laughter and humour are also being studied for their effects on health. Research methods include using a tickle machine, and probing with electrodes to find the funny parts of the brain. Laughter, like stress, increases blood pressure and heart rate and changes breathing. But unlike stress, it reduces levels of chemicals circulating in the body. In one study, people's cortisol and adrenaline were reduced after watching a favourite comedy video for 60 minutes.

It's difficult to resist the logic of the happiness doctors. Stay in your Eeyore-ish bubble of existentialist angst and have a life that's short, sickly, friendless and self-obsessed. Or find a way to get happy, and long life, good health, job satisfaction and social success will be yours. You'd better start writing that gratitude letter now.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN

Men often complain about their wives' volatility. Now research confirms that women really are both happier and sadder. Positive and negative emotions are not polar opposites — you can have both in your life. Women experience more of all emotions except anger. First it was found that women experience twice as much depression as men. Next, researchers found that women report more positive emotion than men, more frequently and more intensely. It all points to men and women having a different emotional make-up. Cognitive psychologists say that men and women have different skills related to sending and receiving emotion. Women are expressive; men conceal or control their emotions. Women convey emotion through facial expression and communication; men express emotion through aggressive or distracting behaviour. Does the difference lie in biology, social roles or just women's willingness to report emotion? That's up for debate.


Which all comes down to ???

Women love the Men of Humour!
Proof?!
Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft.
Robin Williams and any au Pair.

So, forget all that free weights, fly weights, middle weights, kung fu, bugaboo, peekaboo, and poo poo pa dooh.

Hone those verbal skills to match the ready wit you've been hiding and get out there and woo without the boo-hoo.

Comments:
Let us not forget to add DarkoV and his ever-loving wife to that list of couples!
 
I tried this many years ago but found that women did not care for the orange wig, big red nose, and huge shoes that are de rigeur for the whole humor thing.
Meanwhile, "rhzymy" - you really do hav eth ebest ones!
 
Mr. B. Mouse,
Your son (Blarney Mouse?) is wise beyond his (I don't know how many he has) years. That, or he's had way too much experience with the mis-named "fairer" sex. What they think they want and what they really want is a conundrum they go through daily, sometimes with their husbands/mates in tow.
My wife, in her pre-spouse days, was attracted (her words, not mine) by the collection of books and musical reproductions (vinyl at the time) I had. These days, she can't believe she still likes me, despite my collection of books and muscial reproductions (vinyl and cd). Maybe that thing about evolving rather than standing pat. I had a joke about that, but it's long dissipated into the atmosphere.
 
Well, there's humor and then there's humor -- the real thing.

Puns do not count, but a dry, intellectual wit? Irresistible!

Jokes are somewhat borderline and, to me, are rarely funny. Woody Allen, on the other hand, is brilliantly funny, but he’s also Woody Allen, alas, which somewhat negates the brilliant humor.

I have never met a professional comedian that I considered humorous. But I love to laugh. Real humor emanates unexpectedly from life, not from contrived situations.

Go figure.
 
Searchie, re.: "I have never met a professional comedian that I considered humorous.

Not a one? If I may pry, which comedians have you met that would have been so...non-comedic? Have you seen Jerry Seinfeld's The Comedian? Did any of that movie, specifically the additional stuff provided on the dvd that had Colin Quinn and Seinfeld doing a rolling commentary. Or the bit where Seinfeld describes a favorite, but a failure, of a joke as a bird that can't fly? Just wondering about your tastes. I loved Woody Allen's stuff up through "Hannah's Sisters". Then, it just got to be too much self-reverential idiosyncratic revivals of boredom. I don't think anyone has come to replace him either; I find myself forcibly laughing at some of the recent movies, rather than smiling as I had with Allen's earlier stuff.
Except, that is, for "The Comedian" and some of the Coens' offerings.
 
Hmm ... Mr. Bleak and Donnie Darko can always make me laugh, so I'm not devoid of humor, apparently.

I guess part of my "issue" with standup comedians is that I don't watch television and thus am quite removed from casual contact with Jerry and company. Believe it or not, I've never seen Seinfeld. It's un-American, I know, but there you have it.

So Monsieur Bleak, please deliver a pun that will make me laugh.

And maybe the Coens, yes. The Dude is indeed sublime.
 
Mr. B. Mouse I both envy and pity the estimable Mrs. Mouse. With this ever-present patter of enviable delicacy that you are blessed with (and which should receive equal credit for a gift neither wasted nor left un-exercised), evenings must be a verbal Cirque du Soleil of conunmdrums, contraptions, and backflips and salubrious segues into a range of topics that leaves me patting my forehead with a handkerchief. Good God, she must be exhausted, satisfied to the nth degree that must make sleeping truly a respite from the trials of a day.
 
Post a Comment



<< Home Verging on Pertinence Just some more disposable thoughts clogging up the hinterlands

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Click for Wilmington, Delaware Forecast Locations of visitors to this page eXTReMe Tracker
Loading
follow me on Twitter