A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #132
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For March 26-April 1, 2020, 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. We hope everybody out there in Newsletter Land is doing well and staying safe. No topical pieces again this week (though historically we haven't run a whole lot of topical stuff either)--we figure everybody could use a little relief.
What We Enjoyed This Week
The Very First Wave by Alexis Wilkinson (The New Yorker) This is a great example of generating humor by doing a deep dive on an everyday thing that we take for granted and generally don't think about all that much. It gets very granular in a very satisfying way.
How to Be a Good Friend, But Not Good Enough to Be a Bridesmaid by Sterling Mulbry (Reductress) This isn't just funny, it's also extremely helpful advice.
“The Roads Not Taken”: A Robert Frost Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Poem by Dan Caprera (McSweeney's) A great premise married to a compelling, unique format. (And "The Walking Song" is an instant classic.) If you enjoy this Robert Frost Choose-Your-Own-Adventure--and we're sure you will--you'll surely also enjoy this extremely good Twine game by Alex Blechman: "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening to Steal Treasure".
An Old Favorite
Do Men Enter Bathtubs on Hands and Knees So Their Balls Hit the Water Last? by Kelly Conaboy (The Cut) Look, not every pick is gonna be super highbrow, okay?
An Anniversary of Humorous Readings
As you may know, March was the sixth (wow!) anniversary of An Evening of Humorous Readings. Since we weren't able to do a big 'ol anniversary spectacular as we had originally planned, we reached out to some Friends of the Show to ask them to share some Memories of the Show, or other celebratory material, and they delivered big-time. Thanks so much to everyone who wrote in, and thanks so much to all of you for all your support over the last six (wow!) years.
Karen Chee
This show is the first show I ever did in New York, before I even moved here! It was the best and coolest and made me realize not ALL men in bars are creeps. Every show I've done since then has been just horrible by comparison.
[Bizzy sent us a video message to share a memory of meeting someone very cool at the show.]
Before An Evening of Humorous Readings, I was a complete mess. I spent my days writing humorous pieces, funny and short and sweet, and then my nights agonizing, Where shall I ever read such a thing? My humor and I will be alone forever." I became a shell of myself and (I'm not proud to admit) resorted to extreme measures: knocking on doors of bars, theaters, private apartments; hoping someone would let me in and read my piece satirically conflating the B.P. Oil Spill with a rat infestation. I once commandeered the Sunday sermon at a Unitarian Church. The pastor was very understanding, which made me glad I had chosen them over the Seventh Day Adventists across the street.
But then An Evening of Humorous Readings came along. All of a sudden I had a voice--a venue--a savior. I no longer live in squalor, hoping my words will find an audience. They found an audience. And that audience was full of laughter and once, a man who gave me an interesting note on how I should read my humorous pieces moving forward. The point is goddamit it finally gave me the validation I craved and I've been happy every day of my life since! Happy Anniversary, my darling--here's to us!
One of my favorite memories is of walking into the back of HiFi [Ed. note: HiFi is the sadly-defunct much-beloved bar that was the original venue for the show!] the first time. I had been in New York for less than a year and out of loneliness and my inability to sit through another standup show I had Googled some pretentious combination of "literary" and "humor", where I came across the "Evening of Humorous Readings" show listing. I don't know what I had been hoping to find but this seemed like it.
For years I'd tried to talk to people about my love of this type of writing. No one in the standup world knew or cared what I was talking about. No one in the literary world knew or cared what I was talking about.
"So like, funny fiction?" people would say.
"No, like Mcsweeney's pieces, or: do you know the Shouts and Murmurs--like things that are just nonsense..."
"Ohhhh," they'd say, finally getting it, "So nonfiction."
I showed up to this weird event where three apparent mattress startup interns were inexplicably friendly and not knew only about but worshiped short humor writing. They seemed to have started the show not so that they could then get booked onto other, tougher-to-get-on short humor writing reading shows, but because they genuinely loved this kind of writing so much they thought it worthy of its own show.
I'm still not sure about the last past, that this show is even warranted. (The show is so indulgent it should be called an Evening of Humoring Readings!) But that's what makes it so fun, for the writers and the audience. It's a precious little silly thing where people read precious little silly things and neither has any real right to even exist.
That weird heavy curtain at Hifi, the one that was both inconvenient and didn't block any sound whatsoever from the bar, was like pulling back the curtain on the New York I'd hoped to find when I moved here. A show featuring a type of weird silly writing that, like my initial Googling, is about clacking what you want to be true into existence and boldly making it so.
[Riane sent us a video introduction for a selection from a very old favorite of hers. Watch the video, then enjoy the prose!]
If you've got a memory about the show you'd like to share, please write in! We'd love to hear from you, and we might even feature it in a future edition.
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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