A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #133
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For APRIL 2-8, 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. How's everyone doing? Staying healthy? Good. Taking a nice walk outside once a day? Great. Stocking up on bullets, oil, and toilet paper in fear of roving gangs of marauders? Fantastic. You and us both. But seriously, we hope you're doing well. It's all coronavirus all the time out there, so once again, please enjoy some humor that has nothing to do with any of that.
What We Enjoyed This Week
I'm Your Brain, and You Can't Sleep Until We Analyze That Time You Accidentally Called Your Teacher "Mom" by Tomo Lazovich (Points in Case) Ok, we're going to get a little meta here, but the narrator of this piece, and the writer of this piece, are both showing the value of letting your imagination run wild. Find your premise, and explore it. It's funny, and it might help you unlock some dark secrets about your childhood.
Video Game for Gamers by Gamers by Jeremy Kaplowitz (Hard Times) We like this piece because we share the sentiment. Here at the newsletter, you're getting thoughts about humor by humor writers...not people who make tiny birdhouses. Though, a tiny birdhouse newsletter does sound like a great side gig. We'll get back to you.
We Need to Sync Up About that Meeting you Just Requested by Leslie Ylinen (The Belladonna) Wow, when you see it all there on one page, it kind of makes you realize that the way we work today is absurd. I mean, people used to make things in this country. Now, what, we Slack all day? We...meme? This one is going to sting for a bit.
An Old Favorite
I'm Going to Close This Deal Using Business Word I've Heard Men Yell at Airports by Wendi Aarons (McSweeney's)
Think about Leslie's piece above. It does something very similar to Wendi's piece here. Well, namely, they both don't do something. Pieces that simply repeat funny phrases from popular culture are a dime-a-dozen. The jokes have already been made, the piece is simply re-using them and asking, "Hey, remember these?" Leslie's piece explores the modern working world. Wendi takes a different route. She focuses on character. She's not just dropping in random words, she's building a character--a deranged, self-important lunatic who actually believes in the value of what she's saying. What's more, we don't just get a character, we get a setting. We feel like we're at the airport, listening to this person yell. It adds so much more texture than would have been present if this piece were simply, "Someone Uses Business Slang." This piece is a joy to read, and the inspiration would be terrible to experience in real life.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
Brian's show about speechwriting, SpeakEasy, is being livestreamed by Caveat on April 14th at 6:30. Come see Brian, his co-workers, as well as The Late Show with Stephen Colbert's Felipe Torres Medina talk about words and what makes them important!
Luke is writing for an all-digital version of the long-running UCB show Sketch Cram this Saturday! It's a sketch show written, rehearsed, and performed entirely in one day--but this time, instead of live sketches and a live show, it's going to be all video sketches (still created in just one day) that will premiere during a live Twitch stream on Saturday at midnight. There's gonna be some weird fun stuff, so check it out!
McSweeney's is hosting a great reading series on Instagram, which includes friends of the show and newsletter, Colin Nissan, Josh Gondelman, and more. Check it out!
News About The Next Show
When the world is back, we'll be back!
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!