A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For September 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. Big news here at Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ): We finally got a response from the Secret Service about what our codenames would be if we were running for office. (If you make a formal request they legally have to tell you--it's like the Freedom of Information Act.) Unfortunately the codenames we got are "Dweebus" and "Dorkulon" and they wouldn't even tell us which of us is which. Jeez!

What We Enjoyed This Week

Is Keanu Reeves Immortal? We Asked the Only Expert by Rebecca Alter (Vulture) The inside scoop on a 10-year-old conspiracy theory that has thankfully remained harmless fun (knock on wood), and a look back on an earlier era of Internet culture.

Spider-Man Fans are FURIOUS Over Bulgaria's Involvement With the Central Powers During World War I by Jonah Nink (The Hard Times) The two elements of this piece (Spider-Man, WWI) are so different that it might almost feel forced to make jokes based on juxtaposing them, but the whole thing holds together because of how well it captures the extremely specific "pandering article reporting on esoteric controversy in fan community" tone.

A Second Chance by Janet Malcolm (The New York Review of Books) Not a traditional short humor piece by any stretch of the imagination, but the combination of dry wit (VERY dry) and inside baseball (VERY inside) makes this a fun read.

An Old Favorite

Do you have an Old Favorite of your own? Let us know by filling out this form and we may run your pick in a future edition of the newsletter. 

Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show

Last call to sign up for Luke's Narration and Form in Humor Writing Workshop, this Saturday 9/12 from 2PM-4PM Eastern via Zoom. (There are also still free diversity scholarship spots available!)

Also, the wonderful sketch team Luke has been directing, Denise, is having their first virtual show of the season on Twitch this Friday 9/11 at 9PM. Check it out!

James wrote a piece for The New Yorker called "The North Atlantic Diet" and it's about a diet that's popular with wind-lashed sea captains and vengeful whalers. Could be the right fit for you!

The Diverse as Fuck Comedy Festival and The Onion are teaming up to offer "FREE virtual satire writing workshops for POC, Women, LGBTQIA and people who are over 35+" aimed at helping them become Onion contributors. You can apply right here.
 

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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