A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #134
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For April 9-15, 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 you're all doing well out there in Newsletter Land. We've been trying our hand at baking while quarantined in the Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ), but with six hands in a bowl at once, all over dough has been very over-kneaded.
This week, we've picked some more non-virus related pieces for you to enjoy as a brief respite from the overwhelming news.
What We Enjoyed This Week
Motivational Quotes For Those Meddling With Powers Beyond Mortal Comprehension by Natalie Holt (Slackjaw) Using heightened occultist language in unexpected ways is a bit of a short humor trope these days, but Natalie keeps the reader surprised by using familiar quotes to build and break our expectations. Makes for a piece that is contained, but can roam as far as it needs to find a joke.
Why It’s Actually Feminist to Run Over the Curb a Little by Megan Cantarella (Reductress) Opening a piece with the phrase "Picture this" is a simple and direct way to jump right into a funny hypothetical. Here, it sets Megan up to explore and find lots of fun jokes and observations.
Hi, I’m Jesus, And When I Get Back, I Want All The Eggs Hidden by Eli Grober (McSweeney's) Another classic form, the monologue tacking away from the expected tone and status. Here Eli calls out weird holiday traditions as a series of outlandish demands from an insecure Jesus. As a writer, it can be tough to manage so many funny elements in a single piece, but the strong voice and the chattiness of the monologue form lets Eli pick up different threads without too much scaffolding or transition. Adding elements to keep the reader surprised is a fun way to liven up a piece, but it takes a sure and confident hand to keep the piece from feeling like a random grab bag of jokes.
Father, Why Hath Thou Forsaken Me, the Sock at the Back of the Drawer? by Devin Wallace (Points In Case) Another way to keep a piece engaging is to take the opposite route, and really focus on one element. This monologue piece is working off of a similar funny juxtaposition of voice and expectation as Eli's piece, here imagining a tattered sock that talks like a heightened Biblical character. But where Eli added elements to keep the reader engaged, Devin lasers in, digging deeper into the specifics of the character and the world. Devin can build the piece to stranger places and flesh out a narrative and a voice for this lonely, desperate sock.
An Old Favorite
Roger Ebert's Review of Slithis (RogerEbert.com)
Lately, I've (James here) been trying to get a little lost on the internet. I've been trying to find corners of the Lonely Web or to recreate Stumble Upon, that randomizing plug-in. One thing I've been doing is looking at old Roger Ebert reviews. I found this pan of the monster movie Slithis by going to RogerEbert.com and scrolling through reviews by Roger Ebert that he rated between zero and one stars. This will give you lots of fun reviews from the years, but this one is particularly wonderful, with a great anecdote from the theatre and a funny and imaginative little scene at the end. It's worth taking a second to poke around and play with the search features: there are a lot of fun reviews here. And if you like digging around in piles of bad reviews, be sure to check out one-star reviews of very expensive restaurants on Yelp. Lots of treasure there.
Also let us know if you've seen Slithis and Ebert's getting it wrong.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
We're still working out the kinks on our baking techniques. Seems like three hand mixers in one bowl of cookie batter may be too many. We're getting batter everywhere, but there's usually enough left in the bowl for one or two cookies.
News About The Next Show
We swear, when we can, we'll be among the first ones to read short humor to you in public! And hopefully by then, we'll have perfected our thrice-twisted pretzels.
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!