City of Laughter

City of Laughter PDF Author: Vic Gatrell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802716024
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 720

Get Book Here

Book Description
Drawing upon the satirical prints of the eighteenth century, the author explores what made Londoners laugh and offers insight into the origins of modern attitudes toward sex, celebrity, and ridicule.

City of Laughter

City of Laughter PDF Author: Vic Gatrell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802716024
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 720

Get Book Here

Book Description
Drawing upon the satirical prints of the eighteenth century, the author explores what made Londoners laugh and offers insight into the origins of modern attitudes toward sex, celebrity, and ridicule.

Laughter

Laughter PDF Author: Anca Parvulescu
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262514745
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book Here

Book Description
Uncovering an archive of laughter, from the forbidden giggle to the explosive guffaw. Most of our theories of laughter are not concerned with laughter. Rather, their focus is the laughable object, whether conceived of as the comic, the humorous, jokes, the grotesque, the ridiculous, or the ludicrous. In Laughter, Anca Parvulescu proposes a return to the materiality of the burst of laughter itself. She sets out to uncover an archive of laughter, inviting us to follow its rhythms and listen to its tones. Historically, laughter—especially the passionate burst of laughter—has often been a faux pas. Manuals for conduct, abetted by philosophical treatises and literary and visual texts, warned against it, offering special injunctions to ladies to avoid jollity that was too boisterous. Returning laughter to the history of the passions, Parvulescu anchors it at the point where the history of the grimacing face meets the history of noise. In the civilizing process that leads to laughter's “falling into disrepute,” as Nietzsche famously put it, we can see the formless, contorted face in laughter being slowly corrected into a calm, social smile. How did the twentieth century laugh? Parvulescu points to a gallery of twentieth-century laughers and friends of laughter, arguing that it is through Georges Bataille that the century laughed its most distinct laugh. In Bataille's wake, laughter becomes the passion at the heart of poststructuralism. Looking back at the century from this vantage point, Parvulescu revisits four of its most challenging projects: modernism, the philosophical avant-gardes, feminism, and cinema. The result is an overview of the twentieth century as seen through the laughs that burst at some of its most convoluted junctures.

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting PDF Author: Milan Kundera
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063290693
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Get Book Here

Book Description
"An absolutely dazzling entertainment. . . . Arousing on every level—political, erotic, intellectual, and above all, humorous." —Newsweek "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting calls itself a novel, although it is part fairy tale, part literary criticism, part political tract, part musicology, and part autobiography. It can call itself whatever it wants to, because the whole is genius." —New York Times Rich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed, and experienced.

Strange Nervous Laughter

Strange Nervous Laughter PDF Author: Bridget McNulty
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429969628
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Get Book Here

Book Description
You'll not find six more remarkable characters: a cashier-turnedmotivational speaker, an undertaker with a toenail fetish, a girl wrapped in dreams, a man who communicates with whales, a garbage man with a peculiar sense of smell, and a Guinness Book of World Records representative. When a random holdup at a local grocery brings them together, their once separate lives intertwine in a humorous blend of lyricism, whimsy and wit. This is a rare book about what love does to us, how our lives are changed by being in love—and the odd ways in which we sometimes behave. Up-and-coming novelist McNulty shows herself to be a writer to watch.

Not Without Laughter

Not Without Laughter PDF Author: Langston Hughes
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486113906
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book Here

Book Description
Poet Langston Hughes' only novel, a coming-of-age tale that unfolds amid an African American family in rural Kansas, explores the dilemmas of life in a racially divided society.

Laughter Yoga

Laughter Yoga PDF Author: Madan Kataria, M.D.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143134949
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Get Book Here

Book Description
Could you use a good laugh? This definitive guide by the founder of the worldwide laughter yoga movement will show you how to giggle your way to good health! Bring laughter into your life at any time of day--no special equipment needed, no new wardrobe, no expensive classes, not even a sense of humor! Laughter yoga is all about voluntary laughter--how you can learn to laugh even in the absence of humorous stimuli, and reap the extraordinary, scientifically proven benefits, which include stress reduction, pain relief, weight loss, heightened immunity, and, especially, enhanced mood: If you act happy, you'll become happy--your body can't tell the difference! Children laugh more than 300 times a day, adults fewer than fifteen. But it's easy to start laughing again. The exercises in this book combine voluntary laughter with yogic breathing to give you a full body-mind workout. And it turns out that laughter is the fastest way to reduce stress and the best kind of cardio: Ten minutes of hearty laughter is equal to thirty minutes on the rowing machine. With Laughter Yoga, join the growing worldwide movement and discover how laughter really is the best medicine. A PENGUIN LIFE TITLE

Laughology

Laughology PDF Author: Stephanie Davies
Publisher: Crown House Publishing
ISBN: 1845908120
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 162

Get Book Here

Book Description
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;

The Palace of Laughter

The Palace of Laughter PDF Author: Jon Berkeley
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062003127
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 472

Get Book Here

Book Description
Miles Wednesday, orphaned, unwashed and living in a barrel, has never been to a circus before—but then the Circus Oscuro is no ordinary circus. There's a strange beast called The Null and an array of sinister-looking clowns, and when an unusual little girl with wings falls from a tower during the performance, Miles's life is changed forever. As Miles and Little embark on an extraordinary journey to rescue two friends who have been captured at the Palace of Laughter, they discover nothing less than the power of friendship and the gift of family.

Chronic City

Chronic City PDF Author: Jonathan Lethem
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385532156
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 482

Get Book Here

Book Description
A New York Times Book Review Best Book of the Year. A searing and wildly entertaining love letter to New York City from the bestselling author of Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude. Chase Insteadman, former child television star, has a new role in life—permanent guest on the Upper East Side dinner party circuit, where he is consigned to talk about his astronaut fiancée, Janice Trumbull, who is trapped on a circling Space Station. A chance encounter collides Chase with Perkus Tooth, a wily pop culture guru with a vicious conspiratorial streak and the best marijuana in town. Despite their disparate backgrounds and trajectories Chase and Perkus discover they have a lot in common, including a cast of friends from all walks of life in Manhattan. Together and separately they attempt to define the indefinable, and enter into a quest for the most elusive of things: truth and authenticity in a city where everything has a price. "Full of dark humor and dazzling writing" --Entertainment Weekly

Great Laughter

Great Laughter PDF Author: Fannie Hurst
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Depressions
Languages : en
Pages : 512

Get Book Here

Book Description
A story of family life in New York in the 1920's.