Ha Ha

"The Woman Who Walked Into Doors," by Roddy Doyle. Viking Penguin. 226 pages. $22.95. Irish novelist Roddy Doyle has written another gorgeous novel. "The Woman Who Walked Into Doors" is both powerful fiction and a dirge, a lament as devastating as his Booker Prize-winning "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha" with its horrifying revelation of the full title: "Paddy Clarke - Has no da. Ha ha ha!" Paddy's dad abandons the family and Paula, Mr. Doyle's new heroine, is beaten senseless for 17 years by Charlo, her brutal husband, before this novel's own startling conclusion.

Down the hall from quiet card games and serious meetings, one room at the Bain Center in Columbia is a riot of laughter. Last week, 10 people at the senior center laughed while they high-fived one another. They giggled and pointed at each other like they knew a secret. They howled while pretending to talk on a cell phone. The Another Way to See It Laughter Club, which meets each Monday, seeks to improve people's physical and mental well-being by teaching them to laugh more easily and more often.

NEW YORK -- "What is so funny?" someone finally asked Monica Seles yesterday after she had beaten Conchita Martinez in a U.S. Open semifinal that was shorter than Peter Angelos' speech on 2,131 night.Seles blushed and giggled -- her choppy, rat-a-tat giggle, as opposed to her loopy, grunting giggle -- and barked back an answer."Everything," she said, twisting her body in her chair as she spoke, as if she were being tickled by someone from beneath the dais in the interview room.Then she giggled again -- her honking, snorting giggle, as opposed to her high-pitched, slightly hysterical giggle she had used on national television a few minutes earlier.

Just as much as I look forward to new music every year, I also greatly anticipate reissues. Sometimes, I enjoy the revisited material more than the new stuff. And that was more or less the case last year. In concluding my look back at the music of 2006, I spotlight the reissues I couldn't get enough of. The Sisters Love Give Me Your Love You probably have never even heard of this group. And that's understandable, because the Sisters Love never had a real hit. The group evolved from the Cookies, which turned into the Raylettes, Ray Charles' backing group in the 1960s.

Back in 1954, when the Russians were evil and I was a first-grader at Wampus Elementary School in Armonk, N.Y., the school authorities regularly conducted emergency drills wherein we students practiced protecting ourselves from nuclear attack by crouching under our desks. We'd hunker down there until Mrs. Hart gave us the word that the nuclear war was over, then we'd crawl back out and resume reading about the fascinating adventures of Dick and Jane. ("Ha!" said Dick. "Ha ha!" said Jane. "Ha ha ha!"

NOTING not one but two recent columns in this space in which I said Gov. Bill Clinton had a lot in common with President Grover Cleveland, Marion Cohen of Roland Park called my attention to an interview with her father in the Boston Globe on the day before the New Hampshire primary."

Spending the day at Kings Dominion with Ray Ueberroth proved one thing for certain: He is not like normal people. At least not when it comes to riding roller coasters.Our suspicions about him developed during our first ride of the day aboard the hair-raising Anaconda. Maybe you've seen the television commercials promoting it. Carloads of young people are shown returning from the 90-second ride with white hair and wrinkles. For once, there could be truth in advertising.The Anaconda is the only coaster in the world to plunge riders through an underwater tunnel; it's the only one in the country with a twisting butterfly turn.

The line of people waiting to see Robin Quivers on a sunny Saturday afternoon, almost 1,000 people strong, is one long visual introduction to the demographics of "The Howard Stern Show." Want to know who listens to the world's most famous shock jock? Here they are, mostly young, mostly white, men and women who love the self-appointed King of All Media and, by extension, his queen. They made his radio show No. 1, his book No. 1, and put Quivers' new book on best-seller lists the week it was released.

"A Star Called Henry," by Roddy Doyle. Viking. 344 pages. $23.95.Some books sweep you into the embrace of their arms and do not let you go. Roddy Doyle's sixth novel, "A Star Called Henry," is of that breed -- compelling, original, devastating, funny, a masterwork, an instant classic. It's as if Doyle has reinvented language and the way a story gets told. As if the author himself had been born into nothing in Dublin at the turn of the century and is telling all, for our ears only, with a manic generosity.

"HELLO, MOM?""Yes, dear, what is it?""I GOT THE JOB WITH CNN.""Oh, honey, that's great. All those years in journalism school really paid off. Why are you yelling?""I CAN BARELY HEAR YOU, MOM. YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE HOW HARD THE WIND IS BLOWING. I CAN HARDLY STAND UP.""Where are you?""WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA. I'M COVERING HURRICANE BONNIE. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?""You're what?""COVERING HURRICANE BONNIE FOR CNN. TURN ON YOUR TELEVISION. I'VE BEEN OUT HERE FOR 15 STRAIGHT HOURS. THEY GAVE US ALL MATCHING RAIN SLICKERS.

Mason Adams, 86, known for his Emmy-nominated role on the television series Lou Grant and as the voice behind the Smucker's jelly commercials, died Tuesday at his home in New York City. His distinctive, often fatherly voice was first heard in 1940s and 1950s radio serials, including "Batman" and "Pepper Young's Family." But he did not achieve fame until being cast as Charlie Hume in Lou Grant, a spin-off of The Mary Tyler Moore Show that ran from 1977 to 1982. Mr. Adams earned three Emmy nominations for his work on the series.

THERE COMES A TIME when a man must go into the wilderness and face one of Mankind's oldest, and most feared, enemies: trout. For me, that time came recently in Idaho, where I go every summer. Many people think Idaho is nothing but potato farms, but nothing could be farther from the truth: There are also beet farms. No, seriously, Idaho is a beautiful state that offers - to quote Emerson - "nature out the bazooty." This includes many rivers and streams that allegedly teem with trout. I say "allegedly" because until recently I never saw an actual trout, teeming or otherwise.

WASHINGTON - Well, this is a new one. I mean, we've all heard about the pot calling the kettle black. Until this week, though, I'd never heard of the pot calling the kettle old. But that's what the just-filed lawsuit against Dick Clark Productions amounts to. You know Mr. Clark, of course. Former host of American Bandstand, producer of countless award shows, blooper shows, New Year's Eve shows. Nicknamed "the world's oldest teen-ager," ha ha ha, because of his ageless good looks. Well, according to the lawsuit, a fellow named Ralph Andrews, a television producer in his own right, went to Mr. Clark in 2001 looking for work.

LOUD OR SOFT, a laugh tickles the brain's reward center, Stanford University scientists say, and that's all to the good. Using magnetic imaging scanners on college students, the researchers found that humor can turn on brain networks that send reward messages to the system, the same areas that amphetamines and cocaine are known to trigger. Yet humor doesn't carry the drugs' ill effects, and may offer other benefits, too. While earlier researchers have noted that a good sense of humor appears to have health benefits, including increasing immune-cell counts and decreasing pain and anxiety, they hadn't yet made the sight gag-brain connection.

New Line Cinema has asked journalists not to reveal the slew of guest-star appearances that crop up in Austin Powers in Goldmember. I say that's not cricket. Around the World in 80 Days and The List of Adrian Messenger - movies I'm sure Mike Myers and his alter ego Austin Powers have seen - advertised their big-name cameos and made spotting them a game akin to Saturday Night Live's old "Find the Popes in the Pizza" contest. To keep the critical peace, let's just say that the guest stars supply most of the fresh laughs in the movie.

WASHINGTON - You cannot libel a recording industry executive. At least, that's my humble opinion, based on the 18 years I spent reporting on the $14 billion-a-year business of pop music. I saw gall that would shame a TV preacher, greed that would make an Enron executive blush. So from where I sit, you can say pretty much any nasty thing about the industry and its leaders that your heart desires. Because, as your lawyer will tell you, it ain't libel if it's true. That's why I wasn't particularly mortified when Michael Jackson took a swipe at Sony Music Chairman Tommy Mottola during a rally at Sony's New York headquarters this month.

One noticeable thing about the younger Irish writers: They tend to talk about their own writing in a refreshingly unpretentious way. No high-flown critical talk; you'd think they were meticulous carpenters describing their craft.It's that way to be sure with Roddy Doyle, bespectacled 35-year-old author of "The Commitments," "The Snapper," "The Van" and now the prize-winning "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha," the tale of a child in agony about his quarreling parents. (The film version of "The Snapper" opens in Baltimore Friday.

Just what is it O.J. Simpson keeps doodling on that note pad in the courtroom? The authors of "French for Cats" and "Latin for all Occasions" think they have the answer."

WASHINGTON -- Forget politics, Alan Keyes is talking sex. It didn't take long for the former presidential candidate, the fringe phenomenon from the 2000 campaign, to push that hot button on his new MSNBC show, Alan Keyes Is Making Sense. With the Capitol dome gleaming through the set's plate-glass window, Keyes appears in a jaunty suede jacket on a recent evening next to his guest, the talk radio host known as Dr. Laura. The firebrand conservatives are feeling frisky, in a family-values kind of way. "By the way," Dr. Laura leans in to tell him, "married sex turns out to be -- " "Pretty good!"

I long have been a big fan of Amnesty International, one of a tiny handful of organizations of ostensible good will that in my experience has never succumbed to empire building or blathering political foolishness. Now 40 years old, it gets on with the job of trying to save people from abuse by wielders of awful powers. As a fund-raising exercise for Amnesty, now comes "Yeats Is Dead! -- A Mystery" by 15 Irish writers, edited by Joseph O'Connor (Knopf, 259 pages, $23). The idea is not exactly fresh.