Light up your face with gladness
My Way
Ursula Feist
My cruelest month is here: November. The leaves are off the trees. It is pitch dark at 4 pm and 7 am. It is the month of Remembrance. It is just too sad, so I have decided to devote my column to laughter.
Who laughs at what, and why, intrigues me. It tells me something about a person. What triggers that deep belly laugh, the little giggle, grin or chuckle? Hillary Clinton recently punctuated her interviews with a hearty laugh. Maybe she has calculated that a laugh is more effective during an election campaign because it provoked people to talk about her. It ’s certainly more original than kissing other peoples’ babies.
I shriek with laughter when watching the British sitcoms Keeping up Appearances or Fawlty Towers. The Brits are so good at capturing clever and absurd situations. The French play with words; their jokes are sharp and witty. The Germans ’ sense of humour is more earthy.
Different societies and ethnic groups laugh at different things. The Chinese might not find the antics of Hyacinthe and Richard in Keeping Up Appearances as hilariously funny as they appear to us. Winston Churchill coined the sentence “Some chicken! Some neck!” during WWII in response to France’s claim that England would “have her neck rung like a chicken” in three weeks’ time. His humour gave the people an emotional lift.
I can never get enough of Oscar Wilde’s clever, wicked witticisms. He once said to a guest, “Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come. There are a hundred things I want not to say to you.” Regarding the House of Commons, he opined, “There is hardly a single person in the House of Commons worth painting, though many of them would be the better for a little whitewashing. ” He was Irish and the Irish are full of laughter. When I was on a tour in Dublin, I asked our guide why those doors on their Georgian houses are all painted a different color. He replied with a giggle, “It’s because when we come home sozzled, we can find our house more easily.”
The slapstick comedy of Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, and Groucho Marx make me weak with laughter, as does Victor Borge playing the piano with the music score upside down. Woody Allen and his intellectual neurotic monologues leave me giggling even after the movie is over, while Seinfeld ’s show “about nothing” is a riotous half-hour.
I will never forget two seagulls who fought viciously over a small piece of bread on a beach. When one of them had just about succeeded, a third zeroed in, took it right out of her mouth, and flew away before her victim had a chance to react. Animal antics are great, like those of monkeys whose reactions are so similar to ours! How about the spontaneous laughter of children? I wonder what makes babies laugh and giggle.
Laughter, like yawning, is infectious. I bet that if you stood at the corner of Peel and St. Catherine and burst into a fit of laughter, you ’d attract a crowd and cause a laugh-along. I have often been tempted to do just that, especially during a snowstorm ….
A sense of humour and laughter are vital for survival in our restless world. So is a smile. A smile on one ’s face will go a long way even among the grumpiest of us. Smile when your heart is aching/smile even tho’ it’s breaking makes me think of Charlie Chaplin, who wrote that lovely score. It makes me feel better when I ’m down. Happy November everyone.
