Why People Laugh

“Laughter is universal, but we know very little about the reasons we do it. Dr. Robert Provine has been studying the social and neurological roots of laughter for 20 years, and has come to surprising conclusions about how we operate as human beings.” (video)

Top Posts From AJBlogs 06.05.14

Making the old new (1)
How can older classical music — all those familiar masterworks — sound contemporary? Because most of the time they don’t.
AJBlog: Sandow | Published 2014-06-05

Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos: Not to be counted out yet
AJBlog: Condemned to Music | Published 2014-06-06

My Q&A with Timothy Potts: Reinstalling the Getty Museum’s Antiquities (and more on the Getty Bronze)
AJBlog: CultureGrrl | Published 2014-06-06

Songwriters Struggle in the Digital Age
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-06-05

The Crocker’s Big Secret: A Good News Story
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-06-06

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The Montreal Symphony Gets A New $4 Million Organ

“It is an imposing instrument with 83 stops (types of sounds) and 6,489 pipes—more than 25 tons of high-octane power, brilliance, flexibility and coloristic variety. But the organ’s highest achievement is how beautifully it blends into the aural fabric of the orchestra and, a few quibbles aside, how well it sounds in the pleasingly reverberant 1,900-seat hall.”