19 May 2005

Since 1999, a Danish friend has asked for a recording of Elizabeth's laugh. I tried once with a tape recorder when we met in a coffee house, but the background noise overwhelmed our conversation. Last fall we made a video interview of Elizabeth on Wholeo Dome. It's peppered with great laughs. This week I put them end-to-end in video and audio files (your choice). The laugh-only total time is less than a minute, but feels full. They are here, under Study 3. The URL is

http://www.wholeo.net/Trips/Wholeo/GlassDome/location/
movies/studies/wdatfsInstallStudy.htm#s3

I have a vague memory of an all-laugh record, 78 rpm, about 50-60 years ago. When the phonograph needle wore out, I played records with a sharpened toothpick. It might have been by Spike Jones. All laughs are good for laughs.

In the new elizalaugh movie, I experimented with video filters to distinguish the different clips and to emphasize the laugh character. Doing so reminded me of when we first got multiple fonts on the computer and printer. Many of us used fonts lavishly, changing mid-sentence to embellish phrases and single words, especially in display graphics. That quickly became garish and tasteless. It was a short-lived flowery font flourishing. I suppose my effusive filtering heads for the same future trash bin. I ask that you filter your viewing as long as it is a video study. Actually, I enjoy the effects and will improve them with use.