Since I’m on deadline and sources are torturing me by not calling back, I’ll spend a little precious time writing here about being funny. About laughter, really. On Friday, I checked out the DVD Little Miss Sunshine from our library. I know, this flick is several years old, but I had never watched it. It’s dark, hilarious and brilliant. I laughed extra hard because it reminded me of my own ill-fated stab at becoming Little Miss Iowa. I was painfully similar to the character played by Abigail Breslin…I had big plastic glasses (only mine had my initials in small gold stick-ons in the corner of one lens), a wacked out family that came to cheer me on and zero beauty queen qualifications or inclinations. I didn’t even possess a suitable stage mother. In fact, I think my mother was a bit horrified. Yet, like Toni Collette’s mom character, she allowed me to be me and participate. Well, I managed to get to Little Miss Iowa — held at a hotel in Newton, Iowa, with a winding staircase, fake flowers galore and an indoor pool — saw the other contestants, and it quickly dawned on me that pageantry wasn’t fun or even interesting. I remember practically running from the stage when the contest ended to change into my swimsuit so I could cannonball into the pool. Very beauty queen-like behavior. Little Miss Sunshine, though, goes way beyond poking fun at pageants. It’s really about dreams not working out, sometimes in very spectacular ways.  This weekend, on the advice of friend/novelist Nancy Spiller, I was also reading Jonathan Franzen’s essay Why Bother? in his book How to Be Alone. In it, Franzen tells how he came to terms with a bout of personal anguish/ambivalence over writing. In a passing remark, he mentions that the most reliable indicator of a tragic perspective in a work of fiction (this is a good thing, naturally) is comedy. So, all I’m saying is that I agree — and Little Miss Sunshine is right on the mark. Greg Kinnear and Steve Carell are also in it. Enough said. Watch it if you haven’t already.

I’m just weeks away from giving birth to my second son. In case you haven’t been in this position, I will tell  you –whoever YOU are — that the end causes sleep difficulties. Thus, I’m up at strange hours. So this morning about 3am I was reading a back issue of The New Yorker. And after I read about the Koch Brothers funding all kinds of anti-environmental causes for their own economic gain,  I came across a story by Raffi Khatchadourian about the Indian laughing guru Dr. Madan Kataria. Click here for the online abstract of the article. (Sorry, but I believe you need a subscription to read the full text.) Apparently there are laughter yoga clubs cropping up around the world. You can even go on Skype and laugh with others around the world. Free of charge! Jokes are not even required. And there are many supposed physical and mental benefits. Perhaps a laughter club is an even better idea than a book club these days. HAHAHAHAHA, right?