A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #214
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For December 8-14, 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. A quick update on our show, Space Council. Out of an abundance of caution and an uptick in COVID cases, the venue we were scheduled to perform at, Super Secret Arts, has decided to postpone their live shows for the time being. It's a bummer, but we're hoping to reschedule the show as soon as we can!
What We Enjoyed This Week
5 Mug Cakes That Taste Like the Last Thing You Put in the Microwave by Sumayya Bisseret Martinez (Reductress) Sumayya weaves a series of very specific smells from a very busy microwave into a clashing tapestry of tastes. We're always happy to see a new entry in the canon of mug cake humor, an esteemed subgenre that includes this Nicole Silverberg classic.
Time to Learn About Drugs from Me, Your Dad Who Grew Up in the Early Eighties to Mid-Nineties by Daniel Kibblesmith (The New Yorker) Referencing an extremely specific period of American anti-drug education could be too opaque for some readers, but Daniel does a great job of explaining just enough for anyone to enjoy these jokes, but not so much that he tires those of us who grew up with low-budget, scared-straight VHSes. It's also a really smart choice to format this as a parent talking about their education years later--it adds a fun layer and shifts the focus to the imagined impact of this period of drug education.
A Romance Novelist Desperately Tries to Romanticize Midwestern Winter by Mary Spencer (McSweeney's) The "selections from" format is a big favorite of ours. It lets a writer move quickly between locations, times, and characters without having to worry about transitions or scaffolding connecting all the fun bits. This piece is a great example of the advantages of this format; Mary takes the reader on a tour of different scenes in a Midwestern winter, all written in excellent romance style, speedily moving from joke to joke.
Well, Well, Well, If It Isn’t the Woke Mob Here to Cancel Me for Loudly Farting at the Height of My Saxophone Solo by Pete Reynolds (McSweeney's) Can short humor do slapstick? Pete makes a strong case that it can, with really funny descriptions of a performance gone very wrong.
An Old Favorite
This week's Old Favorite is a Brian Agler Selection (TM)--a piece whose accompanying note was written by Brian--from Newsletter #106.
A Person with Extreme Anxiety Imagines What Will Happen If Seen Tripping on the Sidewalk by Rebecca O'Neal (The Rumpus) Rebecca O'Neal is the founding editor of Splitsider's Humor Section (RIP). She's also a hilarious writer in her own right. Don't believe us? Just take a look at this piece. Joke after joke after joke. What's impressive isn't just how funny it is, but how it does such a great job of finding new angles to play off of what is truly a minor, everyday occurrence--proof that with a strong conceit, there's always material to be found.
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
Again, we're sorry to postpone this weekend's show, but we're hoping that Space Council will be back soon in the new year!
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!