Tuesday, August 08, 2006

I'm so proud of him!

Phil was invited to lecture last night at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester. He was asked to speak about humor and it's relevance in our culture by the husband of one of our clients who teaches sociology there. Poor Phil was so nervous about this, we got the call on Friday and he spoke Monday night, so I suppose it was good he didn't have longer to worry about it, although it would have been nice to have more time to research. He did a wonderful job of getting the students to laugh, and talking about trends in comedy and the practical application of comedy in life for healing and connecting with others.

He has been told that if last night went well, he may be offered a more regular opportunity, which is exciting, and leads us to conclude that he will be going to the Laugh Conference in Sept. I am in the process of filling out a scholarship from http://www.laughterfoundation.org/index-new.asp
for him. Wish us luck!

In the long run, we hope to have him teaching daycare and elementary teachers how to use laughter in their classrooms to connect with and help their students learn. As ever, the practical everyday application of laughter for us is in entertaining kids that he encounters in his audiences, and even our own children. As we start reaching out more into senior centers the use of laughter becomes almost a healing agent, something to lighten weary days there. Because he is an entertainer, the study of laughter and comedy's uses to reach others is a natural extension of what he is already doing, a more guided application of a pratical tool in his repertoire.

The above is the essay for the application. What do you think?

1 comment:

Sharon said...

In my humble opinion, I think Phil has an excellent grasp of what is and isn't funny. He has the rare ability to make someone laugh when they don't really want to; the ability to encourage laughter and the ability to bring about laughter with great ease.