wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Comments

• [1] David Alexander from Oakland, California February 04, 2008 - 03:40PM

  My wife recommended this show to me, but I don't see a way to actually hear it. I just see links to various related sites.

  Is there a way to hear the entire radio show?

  Thanks,

  David

  
  
• [2] Ellen Horne from Radiolab February 04, 2008 - 04:53PM

  David,

  Look for the show audio for this episode after Feb 22nd - when this episode airs on WNYC. It'll be podcast shortly thereafter.

  Glad to hear your wife recommended it!

  Ellen from

  Radiolab

  
  
• [3] Karine Landgren from Chicago, IL February 22, 2008 - 03:56PM

  I would like to comment that this contagious laughter segment was so fascinating, especially because I have had an experience of it myself. As an American woman (I was 23yrs old) at a meditation retreat in India...I...and several others became "afflicted" with a bout of laughter that lasted for several days and was severe enough that we had to seek counsel from the monks/nuns at the retreat center for it. I had pinch marks up and down my arm from trying to contain the laughter. Morning, noon, and night this happened. I would say that were was some sense of "freedom" (of an unspecified kind) that was involved. I can pinpoint the moment it started.

  What a wonderful program...thank you for continuing to produce such fascinating programming.

  
  
• [4] Nathan Rosquist from Seattle, WA March 01, 2008 - 01:48AM

  Katrine,

  I can certainly empathize; I often have spontaneous outbursts of laughter while meditating (even alone)...

  Fantastic episode. Fantastic program!

  Nathan

  
  
• [5] Nils Vik from Winnipeg, MB March 04, 2008 - 10:47PM

  Great episode.

  I was a little surprised that the "Holy Laughter" phenomenon within charismatic evangelical christian circles was not mentioned.

  Excited about the new season,

  Nils

  
  
• [6] Jeff from West Covina, CA March 05, 2008 - 07:11PM

  Thank you for another great Radio Lab episode!

  One thing I was a little surprised at was when Robert said people don't laugh when alone. I laugh often when by myself - an odd thought, a funny memory, or a clumsy mis-hap. The guest researcher said media doesn't count because those are "vicarious social stimulus", but if you take away the things we laugh at then of course it's harder to get in the mood to laugh.

  Laughter may be part of our social interaction, but I think laughter is rooted in playfulness. Being in a playful mood will make us laugh at things that aren't jokes, and not being in a playful mood will stop someone from laughing even at the funniest joke in the world. Although it might be harder for "mature" adults to be in a playful mood when alone, I'm quite sure it's possible.

  Jeff

  Another interesting article on laughter:

  http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=938

  
  
• [7] Andrea from New York, NY March 11, 2008 - 05:16PM

  A weird laughter story:

  I was visiting Montreal for a long weekend in May of 2003 when I stumbled upon a "laughing club": it was a group of about thirty people in the center of a large plaza on the hill in the park overlooking downtown Montreal. I believe it was a Saturday morning.

  The people in the group were walking around in circles and laughing (at? with? to?) each other for no apparent reason. There were different types of laughs: for example a laugh performed with palms open and fingers splayed out, and a laugh when they pretended to be talking on cell phones. There were one or two people with video cameras ducking in and out of the crowd, filming at various angles. At one point someone called out "Why are you laughing?" To which the unanimous answer was "Hahahahaha!" I think it ended with everyone forming a circle and moving towards the middle with a big Whoop! ing laugh.

  I asked an onlooker what the hell was going on and he told me it was a Laughing Club, people who got together to laugh because laughing was good for your health. He said it was an international phenomenon, and one of the major local news networks had covered the event earlier that morning.

  International phenom or not, this was the first and last time I ever heard of a laughing club. It certainly contributed to my impression of Montreal as a rather jovial city.

  
  
• [8] Toby from Boston MA March 15, 2008 - 03:35PM

  Aspects of "Contagious Laughter" seemed familiar: It's the early nineteen sixties; girls are negotiating their sexuality in a nation undergoing upheaval; and they are helplessly and contagiously overcome by the need to laugh and cry and scream in a way that blurs the lines between despair and ecstasy.

  If I hadn't known it was about Tanzania I would have sworn it was about Beatlemania.

  
  
• [9] Greta from Brooklyn NY March 23, 2008 - 05:54PM

  Thanks for this fascinating story.

  While I appreciate the conclusion that teenage girl laughter is a way of expressing anxiety and/or of exerting a kind of power, I think it is also possible that, in fact, there was a grand joke to be found in this situation --

  Kafka famously believed that everything he wrote was hilarious. I think these girls might be laughing at a very Kafka-like joke: the ridiculousness of the trappings of authority in a culture that has experienced great social, political, and religious upheaval.

  The codes of discipline and behavior in an institutional context such as a school (in the best of times they can seem a bit ridiculous) must have seemed very silly in the face of the hyper-reality of these girls' life experience.

  Thanks for your great work,

  Greta

  
  
• [10] Charles Platter from Athens, Georgia March 31, 2008 - 02:40PM

  The section on contagious laughter was interesting. I would like to know how it compares to other outbreaks of public hysteria that are not a manifestation of laughter.

  Here is an amusing example which, to judge from your upcoming shows, I might have saved for the episode on popular music. I cannot vouch for its truthfulness:

  The satirist Lucian of Samosata recounts at the beginning of his essay "How to Write History" an incident that took place in Abdera where the entire population experienced various symptoms of illness, which, after a number of days, resolved into a mania for the tragic playwright Euripides. We are told that the entire population went around singing the choruses from his play "Andromeda," and that the strange behavior continued until winter.

  Chuck

  
  
• [11] toni from chapel hill, nc April 27, 2008 - 05:24PM

  always a fan of radiolab, i only recently listened to february's laughter podcast.

  a question for ellen on the contagious laughter piece: did the then-six-year-old woman's comments about the revolution and about villagers' "eating drugs" pique your interest at all?

  i immediately thought of the classic epidemiology story of john snow and the cholera outbreak via well water. i am, obviously, not familiar with the wastewater systems of the laughter-afflicted villages, (nor am i familiar with the half-life of drugs in water) but could laughter-inducing hallucinogenic drugs have made their way into the water supply (from human excrement)?

  loving radiolab,

  toni

  
  
• [12] Ellen Horne from Radio Lab June 06, 2008 - 03:50PM

  Toni - you must have misunderstood Gertrude's words. She didn't say that they 'eating drugs!' she said that they were BEATING DRUMS.

  Her accent is thick, I know, but I spent many, many hours with her and got used to it a little, I guess.

  Like you, I did wonder whether there was some sort of toxin or hallucinogen at the root of this epidemic -- frankly I was hoping to find that there was exposure to a fungus which might explain this strange behavior-- but nothing in that line of questioning actually panned out.