A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #104
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For September 12-18, 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. September's show is next Tuesday at Caveat! We've got a really great line-up that we think you're going to love! Why not grab a ticket now? And if you can't make it this time around, we also always HUGELY appreciate it when people help us get the word out about the show.
What We Enjoyed This Week
16 Surprising Ways to Injure Yourself When You’re Over 40 by Liz Alterman (McSweeney's) Lists of jokes can sometimes feel incohesive, but this piece elevates the list form with a constellation of details that build a specific portrait of the narrator.
My High School Experience Retold as Podcast Ads by Ramsey Ess (McSweeney's) Such a fun mapping idea. Made us think that if a Truman Show-style project were made today, it would probably be a podcast with ads like this.
The Power of Imagining Ten Thousand Dollars by Ellis Rosen (The New Yorker) Another piece that nails a chummy and chatty tone -- this time the language of self-help-y, actualization gurus -- and uses it in a way that exposes its weird hollowness.
Why I’m Not Bringing My Child to Church Until She’s Old Enough to Decide If She Likes Gothic Architecture by Miranda Kronfeld (Reductress) We love a good reference to flying buttresses.
They Are What You Eat by Caity Weaver (The New York Times) This reported piece is full of so many details and well-observed facets about the weird snack brand industry. The humor here comes from Caity Weaver's brilliant framings and comparisons that really highlight the fun and surreal specifics ("The top emojis people had felt about Cinnabon were crying laughing, sobbing, heart eyes and anguished," etc.).
An Old Favorite
Meet Our New Guest Columnist, StacyBot! by Anna Drezen (Reductress)
This series that Anna Drezen did for Reductress was so consistently great. It's hard to convincingly write badly, but the stilted robo-language of StacyBot was always simultaneously recognizable and sideways. The whole run of StacyBot articles is worth revisiting, but we included this first piece because it has one of the all-time great opening lines in humor.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
James is teaching a class called "Use The Whole Buffalo" on parody writing at the Magnet. It's four weeks of getting deep into parody -- discussing, workshopping, and planning your own projects. It's going to be really fun and collaborative. If that sounds like your thing, please sign up!
Have you checked out Friend of the Show Ginny Hogan's new book, Toxic Feminity in the Workplace? It came out recently and is well worth picking up.
News About The Next Show
Our show is next Tuesday, September 24th at Caveat. As usual, hangout starts at 6:30, show starts at 7:30! Get your tickets here and get 'em soon! Our guests for this show are out of this world:
- River Clegg (The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, The Onion, The New Yorker, Clickhole, McSweeney’s, @riverclegg)
- Claire Friedman (Desus & Mero, Saturday Night Live, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s)
- Sarah Pappalardo (Co-Founder, Reductress; @yourpappalardo)
And if you'd like to check out some of the guests' writing to get an idea of what's in store for the show, make your way over to this twitter thread.
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.
See you next week!
@lukevburns & @jamesfolta
We started this newsletter with our dear friend Brian Agler, and we want it to always honor his memory and his love of all things humorous. You can find our newsletter tribute to Brian here.
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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!