A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #211
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For November 17-23, 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. To our American readers, happy Thanksgiving! Hopefully you're already having a restful holiday, and get to have a slice of your favorite pie or, if you prefer, cake (Humorous Readings Headquarters [HRHQ] has always been riven by debate over whether hot fruit is good or bad). We hope you get to spend some time with friends and family, and that they have some good feedback on premises you've been trying to crack!
What We Enjoyed This Week
She’s an Old Soul by Sarah Hutto (The New Yorker) We're thankful for pieces that find heightened and wide-ranging specifics, like this one. Sarah starts with a common phrase, and finds plenty of fun tangents, but always manages to bring us back to the simple, satisfying premise.
We Saw Your Profile On Indeed And Think You’d Be A Great Match For Our Greasy Oaf Position by Ryan Ciecwisz (Slackjaw) We're thankful for pieces that are full of jokes and silly details. Ryan is so good at wacky, hyper-specific premises that are packed full of jokes and non-sequiturs. This one is particularly successful because the format of a job posting keeps the whole piece organized.
Bring back the Taco Bell Mexican Pizza, cowards by Rima Parikh (The Takeout) We're thankful for funny, short-humor-inspired writing in unexpected places. Rima takes a lot of cues from short humor for this piece begging for the return of Taco Bell's Mexican Pizza: a clear, funny premise, great specifics and jokes, and lots of exploration and heightening.
An Old Favorite
You Will Never Escape This Fancy Food Hall by Brian Agler (The New Yorker) We're thankful for Brian's work, and that we still get to read it. This piece about food, and confusing and overwhelming food halls, feels especially relevant today, a holiday where the expectation is that you eat so much that it's probably unsafe for you to drive. Brian really heightens the sense of confusion and claustrophobia as the piece goes on, turning a chic-chic food hall into a kaleidoscoping parade of madness.
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
And we're thankful that you're coming to our new show, Space Council, on December 8th and 18th at 7 pm! The show is an interactive sci-fi comedy where the audience plays as advisors to the King of Mars, and must tackle a crisis facing Mars! Check out this all-star cast:
Dylan Adler as the King of Mars
Nicole Adsit as the Speaker of the Space Council
and Corin Wells as Every Other Character You Meet Along the Way
The show is at Super Secret Arts, a new venue in Gowanus, Brooklyn! We've been hearing from a few of you that the ticketing system is a little confusing so: there aren't any a la carte tickets, but with a one-month membership (just $25), you can get into BOTH Space Council shows as well as every other show at Super Secret Arts until the end of the year!
There is also a Black Friday membership special for 24 hours starting at midnight tonight! If you buy a membership tomorrow, on Friday, it's only $20! Click HERE for more.
And once you have a ticket, send us an email and let us know--we've got some fun bonus material to send your way!
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!