Over the last several years, Paula Poundstone has been on a quest not just for some new jokes but something that’s much more elusive: happiness.
The veteran comedian tried various ways to get to that state of mind, from taking Taekwondo classes to going camping to trying her hand (feet? legs?) at swing dancing. But as she explains in her new book, “The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness,” happiness might be the trickiest emotion to define.
If she had a better understanding of it, Poundstone writes, “I’d run up to the snooty street north of where I live and yell, ‘Put the yoga mat down; it’s not the answer’ to all the people getting out of their BMWs. It could be yoga, though. I hope not. I’ve never enjoyed putting my foot in my ear.”
But in a phone call from her home in southern California, Poundstone said that if the exercises and experiments she conducted for her book did not lead to any sparkling revelations, “They turned out to be a great place to find new jokes” — even if, while she was doing all this physical activity, “I would have preferred sitting in a comfortable chair eating Doritos.”
The former Massachusetts (Sudbury) resident, who comes to Smith College in Northampton this Saturday, has long been known for her irreverent, improvisational style of comedy, in which she asks questions of audience members and begins riffing on topics as they come up. She mixes that with observations on current events, her home life and children, and her career.
These days she’s also hosting “Live from the Poundstone Institute,” a National Public Radio podcast in which she offers her take on weird and obscure research studies, like one that examined what kinds of music cats enjoy. This new gig, which began this past summer, comes after Poundstone has spent years as a panelist on NPR’s weekly news/comedy quiz show, “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!”
Poundstone said the idea for the podcast came to her in spring when she and other “Wait Wait” panelists were discussing a study, from the University of Helsinki, that suggested Donald Trump was elected president because many Republican voters think he’s good-looking.
“When [“Wait Wait” host] Peter [Segal] started talking about that, I said ‘OK, just who did this study? Who exactly did they talk to?’ ” Poundstone said. “Donald Trump attractive? What planet are we on? Peter kept trying to move on, and I was like ‘No — we can’t just let this go.’ ”
As Poundstone said on the show that day, “I’ll bet [Trump] was a cute baby, but that doesn’t count.”
Speaking of Trump, Poundstone, who’s 57, says the president is also a good source for jokes. But she worries that simply getting audiences to laugh about his latest tweet or rant only normalizes what she considers his unpresidential, polarizing and downright scary behavior.
“I keep making Trump jokes — it’s pretty hard not to — but I wonder if what we say about him should really be on a much more serious level,” she said.
In fact, Poundstone, who has three adopted children — ages 26, 22 and 19 — says her shows are not just geared to laughter. She likes to mix in some talk about issues of concern to her, like the obsession many have with cell phones and other digital devices.
Her son, Thomas, her youngest child, “is addicted to technology,” she said, and she’s convinced that kind of thing on a large scale is dumbing down the younger generation and destroying their collective attention spans.
“I think the entire nation should be part of a class-action suit” against the computer industry, she said, for marketing the devices as vital educational tools.
Part of Poundstone’s appeal over the years has come from her willingness to share some of the struggles in her life, like what’s it been like to raise three children as a single mother who has to spend a fair amount of time on the road.
In a well-publicized episode in 2001, she was arrested for drunk driving and child endangerment and temporarily lost custody of her children. Poundstone was compelled to apologize publicly for her actions and spend six months in rehab. But as difficult as the episode was for her, she was able to poke fun at herself.
In her 2006 book, “There Is Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say” (Random House), which is part autobiography and part comic monologue, she wrote that she was aware of her drinking problem at the time but couldn’t figure out a way to come to grips with it.
“That’s the good news and the bad news about drinking; there are red flags, but they’re kind of blurry and they zip on by,” she wrote.
Poundstone has also starred in several HBO specials and her own series on ABC and HBO, and she was the first woman to share the dais with the U.S. president and perform standup comedy at the White House Correspondents Dinner. But all those big-time venues, and the travel that comes with it, can take a toll, she says.
That’s part of the reason she likes coming to Northampton, she said. “It’s a smart town. I feel like it’s where all the brains are kept. But it’s also pretty low-key. That’s a good combination.”
And it’s got a great toy store, she adds. She recalls ducking out of the Hotel Northampton one time to bop across the street to A2Z Science and Learning Store, where she finally found Mille Bourne, a French car-race card game, that she’d been looking for and hadn’t been able to locate elsewhere.
“I wanted a Christmas gift for my kids, and there it was,” she said. “Thank you, A2Z, and thank you, Northampton.”
Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.
Paula Poundstone comes to John M. Greene Hall at Smith College Staurday at 8 p.m. For tickets and additional information, visit paulapoundstone.com or dspshows.com.