Breathe
By Marilú Acosta
The word joke comes from the Greek βρῶμα which means food or woodworm, someone of greater power eats someone of lesser power. A joke is structured to disconcert the one who is being teased, from its origins it is linked to deception, farce or mockery, which provokes anger that is masked with laughter. For Henri Bergson (France, 1859-1941) there are three essential elements to laughter. First, it is exclusively human. We will never laugh at an object, a mountain or an animal for its own sake. If it makes us laugh, it is because we have humanized it. Second, laughter is insensitive. Laughing at a comical situation only happens if we have no emotion whatsoever. A Thousand (improbable) Ways to Die is a program that talks about death. Death does not make us laugh, the improbable does. Third, laughter is an accomplice. Laughter is social, group laughter, it is enlivened if someone else laughs, it continues if there are others who are laughing.
