On laughter
Ammo Grrrll is sensitive to noise, and she tells you all about it in a very funny piece at Powerline. If you need some laughter as relief from all the angst, I suggest taking a look.
It got me thinking, too. Ammo Grrrll writes:
I have no idea why – perhaps because I was evicted untimely from the womb after barely six months to relax — but I was born with a low tolerance for noise and an inordinate capacity for hysterics. Luckily, the hysterics include both the laughing kind and also the less popular shrieking kind.
Lord knows, I have tried to work on it over the years and sometimes it almost seems to have succeeded. And then, like many addicts, criminals, and other unfortunates in the grip of something beyond their control, I will relapse. No One Year Lunacy Sobriety Pin for me!
I don’t have a low tolerance for noise, except at highly-amplified concerts. But hysterics? Yes, especially the laughing kind; the shrieking kind only when sorely pressed and extremely necessary.
I’ve been in churches and synagogues and theaters of all kinds when something has pressed my laughter-hysterics button, and I’ve had excruciating difficulty trying to stop. But stop I must, or leave the venue – which can be very challenging in theater or pew when there are people in the way. Of course, by that time they’re probably happy to see me go.
What’s so funny, you might ask? It can be something quite minor, especially when I was pregnant. When pregnant, I even had trouble going to the movies because I would end up making so much noise laughing that I’d end up having a fake coughing fit to try to cover it up.
Sometimes my laughter would set off my husband’s laughter, which made it even worse because we’d lob it back and forth as in a tennis match. Whenever I thought I was getting my hysteria under control, if he started laughing again it would set me off once more. It was especially bad in pews, which – you may not realize this if you haven’t laughed in a house of worship – shake when someone laughs, and that can of course spark even more laughter.
Long long ago in Boston, my husband (then my boyfriend) and I were at the Boston Ballet. One of the pieces on the program was Balanchine’s Scotch Symphony, which isn’t one of my favorites. Here’s a very short clip of the San Francisco Ballet performing it:
In that long-ago Boston Ballet version I saw, the male lead had on a hat like the one in the video, only with a single longish feather as decoration. He was a tall man; and something about his hat, the way he held his head, and his profile caused my husband to lean over and whisper in my ear: “Danny Kaye.”
It was one of those phenomena that once seen cannot be unseen. The man – I’m purposely not naming him, but I remember his name very well – was instantaneously transmogrified into Danny Kaye, and his every move thereafter became screamingly funny. Which meant that I laughed so hard I cried with the effort of trying to stop, choking and sputtering and making a such a tremendous racket that I had to leave the theater and wait in the lobby for the duration of the ballet.
Not only that, but for many years thereafter, until that particular dancer retired, I had to check the casting of the company’s ballets before I bought tickets, because I found that the problem had generalized so much that any time I saw him step on a stage it would start my near-hysterics.
And I wasn’t even pregnant at the time.
What’s more, at least five or six times in my life I have experienced the phenomenon of laughing so hard in my sleep that it wakes me up. It hasn’t happened in a while, but it certainly has happened. The sad thing is that, when I would wake up, if I could remember the thing that was so hysterically funny in my dream it really wasn’t so very funny at all when I was in my conscious state.
As for the men in my life, they have mostly delighted in making me laugh, and those I’ve loved the most have been very very funny. This was very much true of my ex, and it was certainly true of Gerard, who sometimes would take little videos of me doubled over with laughter at something he’d said. And seeing him whip out his video camera or phone to record the scene made me laugh even more.
About headgear and Scottish dances: here’s a video of a champion Highland dancer performing the traditional Sword Dance– to the accompaniment of the bagpipes rather than Mendelssohn. Note that the dancer is bareheaded, so no Glengarry or Balmoral bonnet with or without a feather to provoke laughter-hysterics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP4N33dZLM0&ab_channel=GIBSON%27GIBBY%27ROSS
Side note: There’s a closeup of the dancer’s feet around the 2:00 mark, so you can see the intricate lacing of the soft leather shoes.
Another aside: I wonder how the SF Ballet copes with the decay of the surrounding city. I’d enjoy seeing the company perform in person, but not if it meant going to San Francisco.
How wonderful! The world could use a lot more laughter, and people less shy about sharing it!
My wife is a great laugher. She loves comedy and is a great audience for any comedian, in person or recorded. She also is great at making others laugh.
My sister and I can’t attend a religious service together because of the experience you cite. As children we spent an accumulation of hundreds of hours trying (and often succeeding) to make each other life while in pews that her and I start laughing if we are anywhere near one another in a church.
My hubby makes me laugh. But no one provokes me to hysterics like my sister and our two cousins. Our parents had to separate us at Mass. And we were sent outside often for being too loud and silly when we were together visiting.
At one great uncle’s funeral we all ended up in the church hall because we couldn’t “behave”. We loved him dearly and there was no reason all all that we couldn’t be respectful because we were sad about his accident, but we just couldn’t. Same at our mother’s funerals, although we were somewhat subdued by the thought of being haunted forever by the oh so very disappointed ghosts of our dear mothers who never did understand what was so funny.
One cousin’s son is my godson and we were all at his very formal Latin Mass wedding last year. We had to very, very, carefully and intentionally not look at each other even once during the ceremony lest one accidental lift of an eyebrow or something would set us all off. We’re in our 60’s so we should be past all that, but no.
OTOH, the reception was great fun.
Just Lily:
I feel your pain 🙂 .
Rufus T. Firefly:
I guess more people than I realized have had that laughter-in-the-pews experience. When that pew starts shaking, all bets are off.
I am sure we all remember the infamous Mary Tyler Moore episode where she couldn’t stop laughing at the funeral for the clown stepped on by an elephant. And when the priest finally told the assembled mourners that it was okay and they all should remember Chuckles that way, Mary burst into tears! Thanks for this shout-out, Neo, I am honored. Sometimes we have to dig deep to find some humor in these perilous and depressing times! Ammo Grrrll from Power Line (Friday guest only)
Well, THEN there’s the Giggle Loop.
https://www.snotr.com/video/6244/The_Giggle_Loop
Whole episode:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5klp63
Coupling. Possibly THE best BritCom ever. If you haven’t seen it, it’s awesome. And yes, language, sex warning, if such is relevant. For those under 16, parental guidance is suggested.
I’m glad you read Ammo Grrrll, she’s a treasure, both as a comedian, and as a commentator.
I don’t often go off in hysterical laughter, but it happens sometimes. It’s my mother’s fault. I can remember her laughing uncontrollably with her favorite sister-in-law about a secretary bird — can’t remember the joke, but only the laughter.
Saturday Night Live used to do “Bad Ballet” segments, back in the years when people say the show was funny. They also did a take-off on Black Swan. They do take the joke too far sometimes and carry on too long, and that can be a cure for out-of-control laughter.
Used to call it “Church giggles.” Once started, very hard to stop. The worst was not the laughter, per se, but after it was almost under control, the loud snort that precedes the next round.
You sound like delightful company Neo.
in 70-71, about 60 ninth graders from Ms Turner’s English classes went to the discount theater to see a morning double feature of two Neil Simon hit plays turned into movies:
– Barefoot in the Park with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, and
– The Odd Couple with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau
Both movies are funny, even today. But we found them side-splitting hilarious. And kids tend to get each other going So we laughed hard and relentlessly for four hours.
My jaw hurt. Really, really hurt. Because somewhere down front was a guy with a loud, boisterous laugh. Never saw him, but he sounded like he must have been enormous. And he was always a few seconds slow in getting the joke.
For four hours we kids in the back laughed at every humorous bit in the two movies. And just as we settled down, the big guy would get the joke and let out a huge belly laugh that is hard to describe, but funny as could be to hear throughout the theater. It cracked us up, so all of us 13 and 14 year olds would laugh again at him.
The human body cannot really handle laughing constantly from double the jokes in a double feature for four hours. But it sure was a great day at school.
stan:
Your story made me laugh.
Laughing, Neo? Like Kamala? Sorry.
Dear Neo:
I don’t think my post will be read in the way I intended, would you please pull off of your site. It was never my intent to harm any feelings or ridicule individuals. Please excuse. Thank you,
Anne:
I can’t imagine that anyone would take offense. But since you asked, I’ll remove it.
Susan Vass:
Greetings, Ammo Grrrll.
You do a lot to cheer people up amidst the gloom.
Susan Vass,
I too thought of the “Chuckles the Clown” episode. One of the very best episodes in any sit-com. So well written and Mary Tyler Moore played her role brilliantly.
My sister (who I mentioned earlier for our shared ability to make either break up at a solemn religious service) and I have a pact. Whomever dies first the other will state this at some point while eulogizing the other, “A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.”
Abraxas,
In the first or second season SNL did a segment or two coupling ballerinas with a proto-hip hop dance group. I found it very inspirational!
Reading Ammo Grrrll and the new neo—
A great start to every weekend.
Thank you Neo.
My wife used to do the potato chip bag or cheetos bag thing while we were watching a movie. With a good movie at night, there is a bit of an altered state of consciousness for me, and the crinkling bag sound would occur every 10 seconds for about an hour. Sometimes there would be an empty dinner plate sitting right next to her. OMG. Please put a helping of your snack on your plate!
Both of us were really good about not nagging each other, but this one crossed the line.
_______
Generally, when dating or socializing, nothing is better than great humor or a sense of humor. But as people age, we carry around more and more baggage and it becomes harder to find that humor.
_______
Initially, I found it a little difficult to laugh at the gun play in the end of the Ammo Grrll piece. I had to double check the top and it’s disclaimer to make sure I understood it correctly.
I hadn’t been out to the firing range in a couple years and I went for the first time about three months ago. I hadn’t been there for more than 3 minutes standing behind my stall watching the other two guys shooting next me to when I witnessed this:
The guy in the next stall was very experienced, but the guy next to him was a yahoo firing a semi-auto pistol that wasn’t working very well. He’d fire 2 or 3 rounds and his gun would fail to feed and he’d start yanking on the slide before firing another 2 or 3 rounds. Eventually, he grew so frustrated that he pulled his pistol in close to his chest to yank on the slide, and pointed it right at the guy next to him.
I was almost ready to grab my stuff and leave the range, when the experienced shooter, who at this point was lucky to be alive, calmly walked up to the gentleman and explained the error of his ways. The yahoo exclaimed, “Boy, that would have ruined my whole day.” Then I said, “No, that would have ruined two people’s day.”
Just a little note to Mr. Hofler: I understand your concerns, believe me. I have had similar terrifying experiences at the range. Often from guys trying to “instruct” their inappropriately-garbed girlfriends (hot brass is no joke!), who wave the weapons around like squirtguns! Because I am a regular Friday guest columnist on PowerLine (for 10 years now), all the “regular” readers know that I am both an excellent shot and Safety-First person. Oh, and also, as you point out, I identified it as a “spoof, parody and satire.” I loved your response to the idiot. AG (Susan Vass)