Download or read book Ha written by Scott Weems and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An entertaining tour of the science of humor and laughter Humor, like pornography, is famously difficult to define. We know it when we see it, but is there a way to figure out what we really find funny -- and why? In this fascinating investigation into the science of humor and laughter, cognitive neuroscientist Scott Weems uncovers what's happening in our heads when we giggle, guffaw, or double over with laughter. While we typically think of humor in terms of jokes or comic timing, in Ha! Weems proposes a provocative new model. Humor arises from inner conflict in the brain, he argues, and is part of a larger desire to comprehend a complex world. Showing that the delight that comes with "getting" a punchline is closely related to the joy that accompanies the insight to solve a difficult problem, Weems explores why surprise is such an important element in humor, why computers are terrible at recognizing what's funny, and why it takes so long for a tragedy to become acceptable comedic fodder. From the role of insult jokes to the benefit of laughing for our immune system, Ha! reveals why humor is so idiosyncratic, and why how-to books alone will never help us become funnier people. Packed with the latest research, illuminating anecdotes, and even a few jokes, Ha! lifts the curtain on this most human of qualities. From the origins of humor in our brains to its life on the standup comedy circuit, this book offers a delightful tour of why humor is so important to our daily lives.

Download or read book The Game of Humor written by Charles R. Gruner and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2011-12-31 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humor, wit, and laughter surround each person. From everyday quips to the carefully contrived comedy of literature, newspapers, and television we experience humor in many forms, yet the impetus for our laughter is far from innocuous. Misfortune, stupidity, and moral or cultural defects, however faintly revealed in others and ourselves, seem to make us laugh. Although discomforting, such negative terms as superiority, aggression, hostility, ridicule, or degradation can be applied to instances of humor. According to scholars, Thomas Hobbes's "superiority theory"—that humor arises from mischances, infirmities, and indecencies, where there is no wit at all—applies to most humor. With the exception of good-natured play, Charles R. Gruner claims that humor is rarely as innocent as it first appears. Gruner's proposed superiority theory of humor is all-encompassing. In The Game of Humor, he expands the scope of Hobbes's theory to include and explore the contest aspect of "good-natured" play. As such, the author believes all instances of humor can be examined as games, in terms of competition and keeping score—winners and losers. Gruner draws on a broad spectrum of thought-provoking examples. Holocaust jokes, sexual humor, the racialist dialogue of such comic characters as Stepin Fetchit and Archie Bunker, simple puns, and many of the author's own encounters with everyday humor. Gruner challenges the reader to offer a single example of humor that cannot be "de-humorized" by its agonistic nature. The Game of Humor makes intriguing and enjoyable reading for people interested in humor and the aspects of human motivation. This book will also be valuable to professionals in communication and information studies, sociologists, literary critics and linguists, and psychologists concerned with the conflicts and tensions of everyday life.

Download or read book Inside Jokes written by Matthew M. Hurley and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some things are funny -- jokes, puns, sitcoms, Charlie Chaplin, The Far Side, Malvolio with his yellow garters crossed -- but why? Why does humor exist in the first place? Why do we spend so much of our time passing on amusing anecdotes, making wisecracks, watching The Simpsons? In Inside Jokes, Matthew Hurley, Daniel Dennett, and Reginald Adams offer an evolutionary and cognitive perspective. Humor, they propose, evolved out of a computational problem that arose when our long-ago ancestors were furnished with open-ended thinking. Mother Nature -- aka natural selection -- cannot just order the brain to find and fix all our time-pressured misleaps and near-misses. She has to bribe the brain with pleasure. So we find them funny. This wired-in source of pleasure has been tickled relentlessly by humorists over the centuries, and we have become addicted to the endogenous mind candy that is humor.

Download or read book The Humor Code written by Peter McGraw and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part road-trip comedy and part social science experiment, a scientist and a journalist travel the globe to discover the secret behind what makes things funny, questioning countless experts, including Louis C.K., along the way.

Download or read book Laughter written by Robert R. Provine and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2001-12-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do men and women laugh at the same things? Is laughter contagious? Has anyone ever really died laughing? Is laughing good for your health? Drawing upon ten years of research into this most common-yet complex and often puzzling-human phenomenon, Dr. Robert Provine, the world's leading scientific expert on laughter, investigates such aspects of his subject as its evolution, its role in social relationships, its contagiousness, its neural mechanisms, and its health benefits. This is an erudite, wide-ranging, witty, and long-overdue exploration of a frequently surprising subject.

Download or read book Why Do We Laugh written by Stephen Gregg and published by Dramatic Publishing. This book was released on 1983 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Crying Laughing written by Lance Rubin and published by Ember. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A tragicomic story of bad dates, bad news, bad performances, and one girl's determination to find the funny in high school from the author of Denton Little's Deathdate. Winnie Friedman has been waiting for the world to catch on to what she already knows: she's hilarious. It might be a long wait, though. After bombing a stand-up set at her own bat mitzvah, Winnie has kept her jokes to herself. Well, to herself and her dad, a former comedian and her inspiration. Then, on the second day of tenth grade, the funniest guy in school actually laughs at a comment she makes in the lunch line and asks her to join the improv troupe. Maybe he's even . . . flirting? Just when Winnie's ready to say yes to comedy again, her father reveals that he's been diagnosed with ALS. That is . . . not funny. Her dad's still making jokes, though, which feels like a good thing. And Winnie's prepared to be his straight man if that's what he wants. But is it what he needs? Caught up in a spiral of epically bad dates, bad news, and bad performances, Winnie's struggling to see the humor in it all. But finding a way to laugh is exactly what will see her through. **A Junior Library Guild Selection**

Download or read book I Love to Laugh written by Karen Farmer and published by Penton Kids. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Readers can push the button and hear giggling as a boy plays such games as "Pat-a-cake," "This Llittle Piggy," and "Peek-a-boo" with his mother and father. On board pages.

Download or read book The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh written by Helen Rutter and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When life is funny, make some jokes about it. Billy Plimpton has a big dream: to become a famous comedian when he grows up. He already knows a lot of jokes, but thinks he has one big problem standing in his way: his stutter. At first, Billy thinks the best way to deal with this is to . . . never say a word. That way, the kids in his new school won’t hear him stammer. But soon he finds out this is NOT the best way to deal with things. (For one thing, it’s very hard to tell a joke without getting a word out.) As Billy makes his way toward the spotlight, a lot of funny things (and some less funny things) happen to him. In the end, the whole school will know -- If you think you can hold Billy Plimpton back, be warned: The joke will soon be on you!

Download or read book Humor Seriously written by Jennifer Aaker and published by Crown Currency. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WALL STREET JOURNAL, LOS ANGELES TIMES, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER • Anyone—even you!—can learn how to harness the power of humor in business (and life), based on the popular class at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Don’t miss the authors’ TED Talk, “Why great leaders take humor seriously,” online now. “The ultimate guide to using the magical power of funny as a tool for leadership and a force for good.”—Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of When and Drive We are living through a period of unprecedented uncertainty and upheaval in both our personal and professional lives. So it should come as a surprise to exactly no one that trust, human connection, and mental well-being are all on the decline. This may seem like no laughing matter. Yet, the research shows that humor and laughter are among the most valuable tools we have at our disposal for strengthening bonds and relationships, diffusing stress and tension, boosting resilience, and performing when the stakes are high. That’s why Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas teach the popular course Humor: Serious Business at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where they help some of the world’s most hard-driving, blazer-wearing business minds infuse more humor and levity into their work and lives. In Humor, Seriously, they draw on findings by behavioral scientists, world-class comedians, and inspiring business leaders to reveal how humor works and—more important—how you can use more of it, better. Aaker and Bagdonas unpack the theory and application of humor: what makes something funny, how to mine your life for material, and simple ways to identify and leverage your unique humor style. They show how to use humor to rebuild vital connections; appear more confident, competent, and authentic at work; and foster cultures where levity and creativity can thrive. President Dwight David Eisenhower once said, “A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.” If Dwight David Eisenhower, the second least naturally funny president (after Franklin Pierce), thought humor was necessary to win wars, build highways, and warn against the military-industrial complex, then you might consider learning it too.

Download or read book Only Joking written by Jimmy Carr and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-09-21 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Britain’s hottest young comedian presents a seriously funny, up-close look at joking matters—from the social origins of laughter, to the art and craft of humor, to why we can never remember the punch line—featuring over 300 jokes. As the host of the hit game show Distraction (now in its third season on Comedy Central) and one of the premier stand-up acts working today, award-winning comedian Jimmy Carr has won over millions of fans around the world with his trademark rapier wit, laced with "exquisitely economical and perfectly timed one-liners" (The Guardian). For this book he teams up with friend and fellow comedy writer Lucy Greeves to take an in-depth look at where humor comes from and how it works, through exploring its purest form: the joke. Only Joking begins with the mechanism of laughter—how it happens and why even infants do it—then delves into the power of the punch line, exploring the basics of all jokes, from the use of shock and surprise to advanced stand-up techniques such as the "pull-back/reveal." Carr and Greeves go on to explore taboo humor, jokes that bomb, and the psychology of finding something funny. They look into the long-standing connection between politics and humor, and discuss the survival prospects for contentious jokes in the current political climate. Throughout the book they conjure up a supporting cast of colorful joke enthusiasts, from Sigmund Freud to Lenny Bruce, and discuss their influence on the jokes we tell today. Surveying across national, ethnic, and gender divides, this rollicking analysis of why joking will always be close to the human heart is an irresistible exploration of humor that makes clear why we need a good laugh now more than ever.

Download or read book Laughology written by Stephanie Davies and published by Crown House Publishing. This book was released on 2013-06-24 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A practical guide to using laughter and humour as a thinking skill to feel better and communicate more effectively. This book will explain simple techniques that will improve the reader's ability to gain a more positive perspective in difficult situations and increase their happiness through adopting the techniques from the Laughology model.The key subjects covered are What is laughter;What is humour; The psychological connection;

Download or read book I Heard God Laugh A Practical Guide to Life s Essential Daily Habit written by Matthew Kelly and published by . This book was released on 2020-08-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is Your Life Working? Most of us are trying to put together the jigsaw puzzle we call life without a very important piece. Over time this becomes incredibly frustrating. In this extraordinary book, Matthew Kelly powerfully demonstrates that we cannot live the life we have imagined, or experience the joy we yearn for, unless we learn to tend the soul. From there, with his classic style of practical wisdom, he teaches us how to remedy this problem. When our bodies are hungry, our stomachs growl. When our souls are hungry, we become irritable, restless, confused, overwhelmed, exhausted, anxious, discontent, and tend to focus on the things that matter least and neglect the things that matter most.

Download or read book How to Laugh in Ironic Amusement During Your Existential Crisis written by McCrae and published by . This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book They Loved to Laugh written by Kathryn Worth and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1831 in rural North Carolina, sixteen-year-old Martitia, newly orphaned and timid, comes to live with a large, boisterous Quaker familywhose five sons delight in teasing and laughter.

Download or read book Why and how We Laugh written by Samuel Kahn and published by . This book was released on 1975-01-01 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Why We Laugh written by John Charles Simon and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why We Laugh: A New Understanding is a most interesting and thoughtful discussion of why we, as humans, and others in the animal kingdom, share a common vocalization that we call "laughter". Its basis is scientific and focuses on the studies and experiences of John C. Simon's career as a research biologist. In its application, the text combines laughter's origins and evolution with its modern-day expression in humor and personality traits such as those displayed in bullying and group dynamics