August 31, 2021

A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #199

A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For August 25-31 2021, a roundup of the week's finest prose 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've been trying to come up with a good mascot for our Newsletter, but all our designs have come out a little too horrifying: a huge book-man covered in mouths that never stop laughing, a spider with pens for limbs that writes funny jokes wherever it goes, a pair of glasses with arms and legs that lets you see the funny side of things, etc. We're really having a tough time with this, so any advice is welcome!

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What We Enjoyed This Week

A Guide to Purchasing Your Very Own Los Angeles Bagel by Joanna Bradley (The New Yorker) This piece shifts in tone and format, from a chipper Q&A to a defensive dialogue, which lets Joanna explore LA's bagels from a few different angles, and moves the piece forward to new and interesting places. We also weren't aware that LA was claiming to have good, let alone better bagels, so this piece is also journalism to us.

Hang Out with Me, a Teacher, Before Summer Is Gone by Kerry Elson (McSweeney's) Though this isn't an advertising parody, Kerry uses the yelping language and domineering capitalizations of ad copy to really drive home the desperation and urgency of the piece.

Signs Your Skeleton is Tired of Bringing You Along Everywhere by Dima Kronfeld (Reductress) Some wonderfully specific observations in this one ("quart size Ziploc of leftover lentil soup") and leaps of heightening, but mostly this is good because it's so fun and silly.

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An Old Favorite

This week's Old Favorite pick and writeup come from Ellen Haun, who wrote a short play called "The Sands by Willa" debuting at Caveat, as well as streaming live, next week on September 8th at 9:30 pm. Thanks for writing in, Ellen!

Introducing AXE Body Spray’s “Real Greatness” Bottles for Men by Jess Keefe (McSweeney's) Ellen writes, "I love this piece because, while it was a hyper-topical response to a terrible Axe body spray commercial from 2017, you don’t have to remember or have seen the commercial to enjoy it. The whole thing holds up four years later because companies really do keep trying to sell us products with socially conscious yet deranged marketing campaigns! I love the construction, where different bottle shapes reflect different types of terrible men. It’s a simple parallel, and it works so well because the jokes are sharp and barbed throughout. My personal favorite is the 'long, spindly bottle' of Axe body spray which is '60% full of hot air.' I’d buy some! Actually, no, that sounds terrible!"

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.

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Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show

Luke has three spots left in the September edition of his workshop "Let's Write a Short Humor Piece"! In it, you'll... write a short humor piece, going from idea to draft in four weeks. Full schedule and signup form here. (And if you have any questions, you can always drop Luke a line.)

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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

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