Everyone likes a good laugh - but even the funniest witticism, after provoking gales of laughter, loud applause, sighs of happiness, wiping of eyes, and desperate attempts to regain composure, must eventually give way to straight faces... at least until the next joke. But what if the laughter could be permanent? Certainly this would make the world a happier place, even at the cost of increasing the number of patients suffering from split sides.

But how to create this permanent laughter? Well the secret is to make the laughter recursive: that is, to make the laughter itself provoke laughter, which in turn provokes laughter, which provokes more laughter, and so on indefinitely. This entry prevents a few techniques for achieving, or at least trying to achieve, this wonderful effect.

Onamatapîßtaké

Onomatopoeia is a technique in poetry and fancy writing where a word sounds similar to what it describes. For example, in the word 'buzz' the 'zz' sound is similar to that made by a bee, while the word 'paparazzi' sounds identical to a bunch of tabloid reporters surrounding some poor unfortunate who has got their attention¹. Onamatapîßtaké is an ancient Chinese art which I invented a few moments ago, and is not really related. But it sounds similar.

Onamatapîßtaké is actually quite simple: it is simply the art of having a laugh which sounds so appalling that it makes everyone else in the room burst out in laughter. The pin-up on the wall of every teenage male practitioner of Onamatapîßtaké is, of course, 'Janice' from Friends. But even if you aren't naturally blessed with a voice like Janice's, practice and discipline can bestow what mother nature has missed out. Alternatively, smoking like a chimney will provide startling results². The simple art of Onamatapîßtaké turns into recursive laughter when one practitioner starts laughing in the presence of another. If both practitioners are sufficiently well-trained, the resulting cycle of laughter can last for days.

Once a critical mass of Onamatapîßtaké monks has started laughing, the only things that can break the cycle are heart attacks or John Major. In 1993, tragedy struck a remote Onamatapîßtaké monastery just North of Hong Kong, when the USA military delivered a laser-guided copy of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. In the investigation that followed, the President explained that the trilogy had been destined for the Iraqi trenches³, but the person⁴ in charge of the operation got the map upside down. The coroner ruled that it "was pretty funny really, when you think about it", and was subsequently stoned for bad taste.

'This is neither the time nor the place...'

When you hear the phrase above, immortalised by decades of Authority people⁵, it is certain that this is precisely the time and the place, at least for recursive laughter. This technique focuses on a simple idea: laughing in the wrong place is funny. Slapstick in a cemetery; stand-up in a stately home; mirth in a morgue; laughter in a library. The possibilities are endless, and a good croud of people who all 'get it' can carry the comedy until well past throwing out time.

But don't forget the temporal aspects - they aren't as common as the spatial ones, but can be very rewarding. Look for these tell-tale clues:

• Periods of silence, especially if they're announced in advance.
• People putting on their 'serious' or 'contemplative' faces.
• Any type of music. Best if unusual and badly played.
• Old people.

Laughing Men in the Sky

Don't look now, but the fat people in the sky are looking at you... and laughing. Don't worry, though, they laugh at everything and everyone. Luke Rhinehart, in 'The Dice Man', explains:

As I was doodling with a wooden pencil there came from above the street noises the sound of bubbling human laughter. The sound made me smile; then I realised its unlikelihood in the New York Public Library. I looked around. The old lady opposite me was looking with knitted bush brows at one of her pile of books; the three males at the other table seemed neither amused nor offended. Yet the bubbling laughter continued, even growing louder.

When I looked up, I saw very far away and high up a fat man shaking with laughter and pointing a finger at me. He seemed to think that my effort was the play of a silly fool. He also found amusing my effort to smile at the realisation that I was a fool. He thought my seeing his laughter at my smiling at his laughter was also funny.

My mind was filled suddenly with the vision of thousand of fat men⁶ sitting up there in that fourth dimension watching the antics of human aspiration and purpose, and laughing - not a single one sober or compassionate or pitying. Our plans, hopes, expectations and promises, and the realities of the future which they could also see: only a source of laughter.

Once you start laughing at the fat men laughing at you laughing at them laughing at you, then you can't be far off from recursive laughter.