A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #162
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For December 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. Sorry if this edition of the newsletter is a little damp, we took it out yesterday to make snow newsletter-angels. They turned out beautifully, but everything took longer to dry than we'd planned on.
What We Enjoyed This Week
You Know a Movie Is Classic When a Character Is Carrying Three or Four Coffees by Peter Valle (McSweeney's) Setting a clear tone and voice can go a long way in laying the groundwork for a successful piece, and Peter makes sure to establish the point of view behind this piece early on. It lets us, the readers, enjoy the very compelling argument Peter unspools.
Watch This Disgusting Food Video Right Now. It Explains Everything. by Rosa Lyster (The New York Times Magazine) Not a traditional humor piece per se, but this exploration of Chefclub's disquieting food videos is illuminating and full of great, funny lines ("It’s as if the recipes were dreamed up by a scornful European who read about American food once, a long time ago, in something called 'The George W. Bush McDonald’s Texas Moron Cookbook for Workaholic Capitalist Gluttons.'")
2020 headlines by Janelle Shane (AI Weirdness) We're big fans of Janelle Shane's AI writing experiments, and this one is particularly fun. The best of these computer-generated experiments have the tone of plausibility, and the nonsensical and illogical juxtapositions of a computer that doesn't understand what any of the words it's using mean. These bot-written headlines do such a great job of implying full stories; we haven't been able to stop wondering if the Curiosity Rover ever caught those Shadow Bugs it was after...
An Old Favorite
An Open Letter to the Guys Who Kicked the Soccer Ball Over the Fence and Asked Me to Toss It Back to Them, Thus Scarring Me For Life by Jen Cordery (McSweeney's)
Stories that are based on a funny, first-hand experience can be tough to sustain in a longer piece--often the humor of the story revolves around one moment, or one misunderstanding, or one funny turn of phrase, and the whole piece ends up as a long set-up for one punchline. That one joke has to be good enough to be worth the wait. Jen's story is fun because it heightens and explores so nicely--the story itself has beats that build and repeat, so the story heightens naturally. But Jen also heightens the internal monologue, building the stress and tension, adding weight and humor to an otherwise mundane interaction.
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
There's a new website on the humor scene: 251! The site is under the umbrella of The American Bystander media empire, and the premise is all in the name: 251 specializes in short humor and cartoons with less than 251 words. Give it a read--their debut pieces came from a great crew of contributors. And if you're looking for a place to send your work that is longer than a tweet but shorter than a full piece, editors Ben Doyle and Adam Chase are eager to read 'em!
Because the first one sold out, Luke has added a second section of his Short Humor Editing Workshop--and there are only two spots left! It's this Saturday 12/19/20 from 3:30-5:30 PM EST via zoom, and it's all about editing and polishing your short humor drafts to get them ready to submit, and how to get and give helpful feedback when working with others on humor writing.
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.
This newsletter is free, but if you enjoy it and want to support the work we do putting it together, you can send us a tip here. Any amount is greatly appreciated, and 1/3rd of each donation will go to Stand Up To Cancer.
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.
This newsletter is free, but if you enjoy it and want to support the work we do putting it together, you can subscribe to our paid tier, or you can send us a tip here. Any amount is greatly appreciated, and 1/3rd of each donation will go to Stand Up To Cancer.
If you'd like to place an ad in the Newsletter, please fill out this form.
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!