A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For August 3-9, 2022.

Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, a roundup of the week's finest short humor pieces and funny articles, and a celebration of the fantastic writers who wrote them. SPACE COUNCIL, our interactive scifi comedy show is just one week away, on August 18th on Zoom. The show is different every performance, so even if you've seen it before, there's no reason not to reserve your (pay-what-you-like) tickets now!

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What We Enjoyed This Week

For My Next Death-Defying Stunt, I Will Ride My Bike in This Bike Lane by Joe Wellman (McSweeney's) Joe expertly captures the voice of a stunt performer hyping up a crowd, and a marshals a great batch of spot-on specifics about the perils and frustrations of riding a bike in (gasp) a bike lane.

Wedding Dress Codes, Decoded by Ali Ruth (The New Yorker) There's such an impressive number of highly creative beats in this piece, everyone is sure to have their own particular favorite (ours is "Synagogue-Appropriate Scuba Attire")--a real testament to Ali's originality and how well this premise is constructed.

Wow, I Didn’t Expect to Run into You While I Was Wearing This Stupid New Bucket Hat by Alexis Pooley (McSweeney's) A very funny, painfully accurate rendering of what your internal monologue is like when you run into someone you weren't expecting to see at the worst possible moment. Extremely relatable, even if you've never worn a bucket hat in public. Alexis also does a great job of revealing more and more details about the hat as the piece goes on.
 

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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 #42.

The Complete "Skeleton" Film Franchise by Joe Scott (Points in Case) Props to Joe for taking an interesting and funny premise and elevating it to the next level with a unique and creative structure.

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

As we mentioned at the top of the email, SPACE COUNCIL, our interactive scifi comedy show where the audience determines the ending by voting, is just one week away, on August 19th at 8PM Eastern via Zoom. The show is guaranteed to be a good time now matter how you participate, or how much (or little) you participate. Reserve your tickets here!

James had a new piece up on McSweeney's this week! It's called I’m Starting to Realize I’m Watching The Bear (1988) Not The Bear (2022) and it was co-written with the excellent Ed Park. Fingers crossed for a sequel piece involving The Bear (1984) (a movie about college football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant starring Gary Busey). 

The first of Luke's September short humor writing workshops is open for enrollment, and you can sign up right here! And check out some of the work that's come out of previous workshops--including a piece that just got published in the print edition of The New Yorker.
 

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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.

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