Dear Marion,

As I might have suspected, there is ample information
about the Minnesota State Fair on the Web, accessible
even with the slow Internet connection here in Konnarock.
I make the rounds looking for you: first in the BAA booth,
then in the MOO booth, then in the OINK booth. I hear
laughter, but can't be sure where it's coming from. Do
animals laugh? and if so which, and why, or why not not?

Is laughter always a symptom of happiness? Is it ever?
Does one occasionally laugh from embarrassment, (Verlegenheit)
Under what circumstances, if any, is laughter obligatory?
If you have answers, please tell me; if you have no answers,
please don't be offended at my asking.

Thirty or forty years ago, when physicians were less afraid of
being sued for malpractice, and were therefore less inhibited in
expressing themselves, it was not unusual at medical meetings to
hear case reports of diagnostic or therapeutic procedures where
everything seemed to have gone wrong, one accident or mistake
having followed another, until the patient, - or in the field of
ophthalmology, the eye, succumbed. Frequently then, at the denuement,
or just preceding it, the audience of physicians would break out in peals
of laughter, a reaction which I have always interpreted as an
escape from the embarrassment of failure.

My knowledge of Mozart operas is limited. I'm quite familiar with
Die Zauberfloete, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan Tutte, with Figaro and
Idomeneo but slightly, but with the other operas not at all. None
of them a laughing matter. The Magic Flute is a monument to righteous
naivete. The da Ponte libretti strike me as profound commentaries
on human nature. The laughter of Leporello and Don Alfonso within
the operas highlights the drama, but does not, in my understanding
necessarily invite the listener to join them.

That's all for now. Maybe more, later.

Jochen