Tedtalks: Foolish Frogs!
Just saying “April Fools’ Day” makes me smile. In my life, every day is already pretty darn foolish. But it’s nice to have a special day to laugh — an especially rare commodity over the past year or so, given that the world feels like it’s going to hell in a handbasket. I never did understand that saying, but I sure understand the feeling.
I believe I’ve mentioned before that my dear old mother considered foolishness an essential life skill and taught me the same. It ran in the family. Her father, she’d say, was nutz. “Sure,” my grandfather would respond, “squirrel food.”
One of my favorite quiet funny guys may surprise you. Most people associate E.B. White with tender children’s stories like “Charlotte’s Web,” but what made him such a fine writer was that he saw the world through a warm, self-deprecating lens of good humor.
Not that he could define humor, but he knew it when he saw it. “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog,” he wrote. “Few people are interested. And the frog dies of it.”
Our contributors this month don’t bother with dissection or even much deep thinking as they distract us from world events with the joy of laughter. You’ll recall the line from philosopher-king Walt Kelly, creator of the great comic strip, “Pogo.” As his character Porky Pine said back in 1950, “Don’t take life so serious, son. It ain’t nohow permanent.”
For Joanne Fornes, laughter has always provided great physical benefits. Laughter Yoga, it turns out, is a real thing: the mere act of uttering, “Hahahaha!” can release endorphins and other good stuff in your body. Laugh and you’ll live longer. “Humor decreases tension and makes shared burdens lighter,” says psychologist Mark Lamers (page 1).
Humor needn’t be haha funny, though, as John Ash and George Clark separately demonstrate. Ash offers a dystopian view of the world, heading to hell in an artificial intelligence handbasket (page 3), and Clark discusses satire as social resistance (page 20).
Properly framed, life can be funny even to the end. Tracy Craig describes how humor eases burdens and lives for clients, their families and the staff at Hospice of Humboldt (page 17). And Senior News is honored to welcome Eureka sculptor, artist and cartoonist John King with a humorous take for our readers on the end of a beloved rock band (page 23).
Other offerings this month that may make you smile involve pregnancy (page 7), love in the pool (page 9), dogs (page 10), a frightening hand of bridge (page 15) and some gags in questionable taste (page 23).
On a more serious note, we also remind everyone to love your Mother Earth this month (and every day) on April 22, the 56th annual Earth Day (page 6).
It may be that April Fools’ Day is one of the most important days on the American political calendar. E.B. White knew the power he could wield with his dry wit, and it’s a good lesson for our times. “A despot doesn’t fear eloquent writers preaching freedom,” he wrote. “He fears a drunken poet who may crack a joke that will take hold.”
Huzzah for funny frogs and drunken poets!
Ted Pease is editor of Senior News. No joke.
