Backstory: The Joy Laugh Club

This gives the laughter here a defiant edge, and the members of this small, laughing counterculture have the requisite Elysian motives, too. "It feels sooooo good!" says Ms. Ruhnke. "And you feel better, like, for days afterwards. If something funny happens, I would just start laughing uncontrollably again!"

Carmen Yurick agrees. "I do it because it makes me feel good, it gives me energy, and it lasts for about two days. And then I have to go home and laugh by myself. I look in the mirror every morning, and I say, 'Ah, I'm alive!' "

Wendy Grethen, a trained biologist, founded the group last August almost on a whim. She's a chronic hobbyist - playing the dulcimer is her life's passion - and this summer, when she bought a video camera and took up filmmaking, she went to the library and took out as many film shorts as she could.

When she watched a 35-minute documentary titled "The Laughing Club of India," about a physician in Bombay who treated patients by encouraging them to laugh together, she thought that would be an interesting group to start in Duluth, though not necessarily for therapeutic purposes.

"It was just sort of an experiment, to see if people would come," Ms. Grethen says. "And I like doing activities where everyone participates, and this was relatively simple."

But Grethen, too, reacted physically to the first meeting of the laughing club. The next day at work, she says, she started crying, and couldn't stop for almost an hour. "It was kind of a weird response - I mean, I don't cry in public, and I'm a reserved person, but it was just a let-go."

Along with many others in the group, Jan Karon, an original club member, recalls the laughing therapies of Norman Cousins, the well-known left-wing activist who, after becoming ill, began funding research into holistic healing techniques in the 1960s. He rejected pain medications and used group laughter to treat his ailments. "It's totally changing your body chemistry," Ms. Karon says, citing Mr. Cousin's ideas. "It's a very healthy thing to do. It is said that 15 minutes of laughter is worth six hours of meditation."

Yet many members say the feeling can be fleeting. After a few days of a physical euphoria, the chuckles dissipate. Grethen is in the process of making a CD of their Monday laughing sessions - call it a therapeutic laugh track for life - so members can laugh along with the group while alone or at home.

Surprisingly, the group does not need much to get the laughter going. As they gather in a circle for a second round, they take their deep breaths, and on the second exhale they each begin to chuckle. In a matter of seconds, they are laughing - Ruhnke is in stitches.

A few people from the courthouse walk by, startled. They glance over, but then quickly look away. Ms. Valentine notices, and after the laughter dies down, says to the group: "It's embarrassing to see a group of people standing in a circle and laughing, and I thought, maybe we should turn around and face them, or put up a sign saying, 'Everyone Welcome, All Welcome.' Wouldn't it be nice if they could come join us on the spur of the moment, get called in by the laughter?"

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