A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #262
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For November 9-15, 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. Thanksgiving is next week and you know what that means: we're headed out of town this weekend to hunt our cornucopia! Store-bought is fine, but we feel that tracking your own through the forest, killing it, and harvesting its woven carapace puts us more in touch with nature and the natural rhythms of Earth.
What We Enjoyed This Week
A Parent’s Typical Day, as Envisioned by My Child’s Preschool by Ruyi Wen (McSweeney's) This is full of wonderful and sharp details, but the specific and well-justified runner about the parent being a "freelance neurosurgeon" really cinches it. It's a bit of heightening that not only fits with the premise, but also allows the piece to roam into a different world, so that everything isn't purely focused on preschool and child stuff.
Other Signs, Besides Having A Map In The Front, That The Fantasy Novel You've Just Picked Up Will Be Good by Daniel Lavery (The Chatner) A wonderful list that is full of precise observations that will be familiar to anyone who's read a book that is part of a "cycle" or an "-ology." This sort of loving-yet-unsparing treatment of the niche is such a treat, and the whole thing is marked by Daniel's great writing and trademark literary and historical fluency.
The Model Is Wearing a Size Small by Rachel Kaplan (The New Yorker) Rachel combines a fun parody of the language and tone of a certain class of clothing ads with great, snapshot details of the situations when such clothes are worn and the people who we're made to imagine wear them.
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 #45.
Whoops! by Mike Sacks (McSweeney's) Mike Sacks is, in many ways, the godfather of humor writing? Cool uncle of humor writing? We don't really know how family trees work, but whatever the family member is that paves the way for a lot of what is happening today--that's Mike. There's a lot we could have chosen from, but "Whoops!" is too good not to highlight. Featured in the Best of McSweeney's, "Whoops!" is a pitch-perfect piece. The premise is clear right away, and straight through the end. It builds, and it takes a new twist with each entry. Also, it takes a tough format (seriously, the email format seems easy, but it's hard to pull off) and nails it. As the universally-agreed-upon third-cousin of humor writing, this is what we all expect when we see a Mike Sacks byline.
Speaking of bylines, in addition to humor collections, Mike wrote the seminal, Poking a Dead Frog and Here's the Kicker.
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
Nothing from us this week! You know how it goes when you pop over to the public library's map room to look up funny town names, and then suddenly the week's almost over and you only have Greasy Corner AR and Ketchuptown SC to show for it.
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!