A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For August 15-21, 2019, a roundup of the week's finest prose humor and prose humor-related news.

Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, the email propaganda arm of the acclaimed humorous readings show, An Evening of Humorous Readings. It's our 100th edition! We're tempted to make a joke here but in all earnestness, thank you for sticking with us for some many of these. We love humor writing and we love the community that supports it, so thanks for reading, writing, editing, going to shows, and being a part of making this little humor world go 'round.

We also ordered 100 pizzas and now Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ) is full of rotting pies -- help!!!
 

What We Enjoyed This Week

Thursday Is the Best Day by Austin L. Ray (The Outline) A sober analysis of the week's days and how they stack up. This is the sort of ThunderDome-style battle we're comfortable supporting.

Commercial-Casting Breakdowns by Keaton Patti (The New Yorker) A simple framing device to deliver the maximum amount of jokes possible. And fun callbacks -- list-y pieces like these always hit harder with a few well-placed callbacks. It's a Non-Hacky Writing Hack™.

REPORT: Stalking That Girl Online Made You Feel So Much Better by Walker Caplan (Reductress) This whole piece is great, but the last line is so good that we all spat out our pizzas at the same time.

Claudius, Come See This Play I Put On About A King Who Keeps Leaving His Dirty Dishes In The Sink by Michelle Cohn (Slackjaw) This is a really well-done Shakespeare piece. Gets the language and references right, but also breaks the voice in ways that are fun, not distracting, and don't sell out the piece.

No Son of Mine Is Going To Be A Benthamite Utilitarian. This Is A John Stuart Mill Family, Dammit! by Dan Caprera (McSweeney's) While we're on the subject of niche, nerdy, and specific, this one is also really fun and really inside baseball. This is also a great lesson in how to get across a joke about something niche to a wider audience -- the voice is super specific and heightened, the situation and relationship is familiar and relatable, and the specifics feel so real that we go along with it. Like in sci-fi movies, when people bang on keyboards and shout about "fluctuations in ionized tachyon particles," the tone, voice, and movement of the action are more important than any scientific accuracy (though this piece does also seem like it's extremely accurate). 

A List Of Everyone Waiting In Your Friend Request Queue by Sarah Vulpio (Little Old Lady) Finally a piece answering the age-old question of "who the hell are all these people?"
 

An Old Favorite

Philogelos, or "Laughter Lover" (Ancient Greece / Mental Floss)

This one's really dusty, but this selection of jokes from a Greek anthology from the 4th or 5th century hold up surprisingly well for dad jokes. Keep these in your back pocket for when someone asks you to tell them the oldest joke you know. It happens to us constantly.
 

Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show

Thanks to everyone who filled out our survey (you still can, if you'd like), you gave us a ton of great thoughts and ideas! Also, a majority of you think we're most like the Powerpuff Girls, which really works for us!

See you next week!

@brianagler, @lukevburns, & @jamesfolta

Did we miss a piece you loved? Did you love a piece we mentioned? Let us know! This is an experiment and we're hoping to continue to make it better and better. If you have any thoughts, notes, wishes, or dreams for this newsletter, please email us or respond to this email and tell us what the score is.