A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #16
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For January 4-10, 2018, 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. It's a new year and you know what that means: if you were good all last year, the New Year's Baby will bring you gifts, good tidings, and cheer! But if you were bad, the Ghoul of Years Long Gone will bring you bad luck, sleepless nights, and sadness. Them's the rules!
What We Enjoyed This Week
The Mysteries of Humor by Jack Handey (The New Yorker) The best in the game. And Handey's got a new book of Deep Thoughts out, called "Please Stop the Deep Thoughts."
I Am Eric Trump. My Family Won't Let Me Talk Because I Am An Anarcho-Feminist Committed To Kurdish Liberation by David Bradley Isenberg (McSweeney's) As we've said before, topical humor is tough, especially these days. This piece soars by tacking against expected tropes and heaping on great specifics.
The ‘Bomb Cyclone’ That Broke Me by Josh Gondelman (The New York Times) A fun piece about Grayson, the winter storm named like an anodyne nephew.
Written By Author Gene Simmons Or Title I Suggested To Author Gene Simmons In A Recent Letter To The Kiss Fan Mail Address? by Harris Mayersohn (McSweeney's) Sometimes the dumber the premise.
Hallmark Christmas Movie Character Two Weeks Later: Where Are They Now? by Jon Methven (McSweeney's)
Pitches for the CBS Hit TV Show Criminal Minds by Rosa Escandon (The Tusk) We love anything procedural related over here! Speaking of, have you visited our old friend, The Encyclopedia of Hypothetical Police Procedurals lately?
I Shazamed My Orgasms For One Year And This Is What I Learned by Josh Kraus (McSweeney's)
An Old Favorite
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
James has a new piece on The New Yorker, The People Who I Imagine Live In The New High-Rise In My Neighborhood, all about the folks who are moving into that new apartment building in the neighborhood.
Other Humorous Writing News
How Scripto, the App That Stephen Colbert Helped Build, Became a Fixture of Late-Night Comedy News by E. Tammy Kim We're big fans of collaborative writing software over here at Humorous Readings HQ and this is a fun peek behind the curtain at one piece of specialized software behind the writing of a ton of TV shows.
News About The Next Show
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 respond to us or this email and tell us what the score is.
See you next week!
@brianagler, @lukevburns, & @jamesfolta
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!