Ukulele?

[lsanderson]

Those Four Irresistible Strings
By ALLEN SALKIN

EVERYTHING began falling into place for Jen Kwok once she decided to buy a pink ukulele.

Last summer she was living in Hell’s Kitchen, working as a finance manager for a nonprofit arts company and having little success with her forays into stand-up comedy.

Then her boyfriend bought himself a natural wood ukulele. She started strumming it, and found it easy to play with little training.

Within a month Ms. Kwok had fulfilled a childhood desire to own a pink instrument, acquiring a ukulele in that color and adding it to her act. Her corny jokes (“I don’t understand why they call it lubricant. It should be lubri-can.”) worked better when she strummed.

By November, NBC was flying her to Burbank, Calif., to perform for casting directors at a talent showcase. She has since quit her job and is now auditioning for sitcoms and movie parts.

“The ukulele is a happy instrument,” she said last week. “People’s eyes light up when I step up with it.”

Suddenly there’s something irresistible again about ukuleles. What Ms. Kwok stumbled into is an international voraciousness for all things having to do with the tiny four-string instrument. From wildly popular Web videos to car commercials and concert stages, the ukulele, born in Hawaii more than a century ago, is gently plunking heartstrings everywhere. More