To understand another country …

To understand another country …

How much analysis of other countries and cultures, informing both policy and relations with others, gives consideration to what makes them laugh?  Seriously. Trying to understand another country merely by reading its literature results in limited knowledge even when...
Court jester to the king

Court jester to the king

A book on the Indian stage-fool vidusaka affirms the likely existence of real-world court fools in India, and provides the only reference I recall to an early 20th century jester at the Afghan court.  A tantalising possibility needing more information.      … we...
Some subjects are so serious

Some subjects are so serious

A succinct and provocative statement by Niels Bohr, flying in the face of the common supposition that the more serious the subject the less appropriate it is to joke about it.  It also echoes an equally pithy quotation, from Hemingway’s For Whom the Bells Toll. ...

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