A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For February 24-March 2, 2021, 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.

STOP THE PRESSES: We are very excited to announce that we're going to be doing our first show in over a year! It's a SPECIAL (AND VIRTUAL) EDITION OF AN EVENING OF HUMOROUS READINGS on Friday, April 2nd at 8pm EST to celebrate the release of Friend of the Show Jen Spyra's new book, Big Time. It'll be streaming live via the wonderful Squirrel Theater's Twitch and YouTube pages, and it's going to be a simply excellent time.

What We Enjoyed This Week

A Grizzled, Months-Old Chrome Tab Welcomes a Fresh-Faced New Tab to My Browser Window by Simon Henriques (McSweeney's) This piece does an excellent job of subtly laying out the rules and logic of the world of the piece. It builds by exploring more and more aspects of this world, and the tone and characteriness of the narrator pull it all together.

Exactly How Famous I Want to Be by Danielle Kraese (The New Yorker) The details and level of specificity of each fantasy are so much fun. There are also a nice bunch of callbacks and runners that give this piece shape and add payoffs that make it an even more satisfying read.

A Graduate School Rejection Letter As Written by My Anxiety Disorder at 3 AM by Mary Ann Barfield (McSweeney's) A wonderful addition to the "my worst fears have come true" genre of humor piece. (A category which includes greats like A Person with Severe Social Anxiety Imagines What Will Happen If Seen Tripping on a Sidewalk, An Imagined Conversation Between the Construction Workers Upstairs From Me, and Surely Nothing Could Go Wrong On This Leaf-Peeping Date.)

Grammar Tips from a Thirty-Eight-Year-Old with an English Degree by Reuven Perlman (The New Yorker) The "grammar tips article" structure and tone provide a great contrast to the details about the narrator's life, which are doled out at just the right pace, with just enough rest time in between. And the rhythmic qualities of the sentences help ensure that the jokes hit extra-hard.

An Old Favorite

River writes: Almost eleven years later, the sole McSweeney's piece by Greg Paulos is still one of the funniest things the site has ever published. The plot of the piece, which reimagines the gods of Olympus as members of the pot-smoking canon—Cheech, Beavis & Butthead, the Dude—is actually kind of complex. But Paulos makes sure that the reader is never lost, expertly combining exposition from Arwen with a hilarious diction that nails the epic Greek style. (Another thing? He's great at dropping little character digressions into the speeches—the bit about how Greg's wife is "worried they are doing something wrong as parents" is really something to study. It's also the kind of weird rabbit hole Homer sometimes went down.) And then there are the speeches from the gods themselves. They're all funny and memorable, with each character's unique attitude coming through. Jerry Garcia's "My dear Butthead" tirade is a highlight. But really it's the little things that set this piece apart. The angst that comes from parenthood. The understanding that it's funnier and more ancient-sounding to say "And Jerry Garcia was angry and answered..." instead of "Jerry Garcia angrily answered..." The phrase "hatching mischief." There's just so much here.

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

In case you missed it up top, we are doing a special livestream edition of An Evening of Humorous Readings on Friday, April 2nd at 8pm EST to celebrate the release of Friend of the Show Jen Spyra's new book, Big Time. Keep scrolling for even more info, baby!

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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