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It began with three girls who were stricken with bouts of uncontrolled laughter for hours on end. Eventually nearly half the 159 school boarders were affected, laughing for up to 16 days at a time. The school was closed and the children sent home but this resulted in further spread of the condition throughout communities and to other schools. Attempts to reopen the school were disastrous. In the two-year period that the gelastic epidemic lasted, 14 boarding schools and entire villages and towns were affected round the eastern shore of Lake Victoria.

Raymond Tallis
Why We Kiss (…)

When blessed silence returns, I can listen to the butterflies that flutter inside my head. To hear them, one must be calm and pay close attention, for their wing beats are barely audible. Loud breathing is enough to drown them out. This is astonishing: my hearing does not improve, yet I hear them better and better.

Jean-Dominique Bauby
Le Scaphandre Et Le Papillon

In San Pedro Cutud, a hamlet that has become well known for its crucifixions, there was a festive atmosphere. Hawkers sold beer, ice cream and souvenir whips to those watching the bloody spectacle.

Dozens Ignore Warnings (…)

Living in England is like living in a cabbage.

Leonard Cohen

These problems exist prior to us, and we gather ourselves, almost molecularly, we gather ourselves around these perplexities. And that’s what a human is: a gathering around a perplexity.

Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen Unplugged

Loose