A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #263
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For November 16-22, 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. Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers. We're thankful for your continued support of the Newsletter! Also, we're composing this edition in the kitchen of Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ) as we prepare our meal, so we're sorry if this edition arrives in your inbox soaked in gravy. A little club soda should get that out.
What We Enjoyed This Week
I’m the Owner of the Car Aboard the Titanic, and I Demand to Know Who Had Sex in It by Nick Guadagnino (McSweeney's) This is a fun premise that digs into a glossed-over or unexamined detail (see also: Brian's piece on a weird Pink Floyd lyric, "How You Can Still Have Your Pudding If You Don’t Eat Your Meat"). The specifics of the owner's outrage are really well done, but the dramatic irony looming over the whole piece gives it something extra--the Iceberg of Damocles, if you will--which is a great source of tension, and makes for a fun button at the end.
Diana puts it wide by Ashley Clark (Keeping Up) It's World Cup time again, and this edition of Ashley Clark's newsletter resurfaced the 1994 Cup's opening ceremony, which is a wild one to say the least. Ashley's description of the performances and screw-ups is full of great observations and asides, and it's a treat, especially for fans of Diana Ross and malfunctioning stage doors. We highly recommend subscribing to this wonderful newsletter from Criterion's curatorial director--it's consistently full of great writing and recommendations.
Is Cereal Soup? Let’s Look at the Evidence by Laura Wheatman Hill (The Takeout) This is a very fun, highly informative article. Laura does a great job of laying out all the facts and factors in the debate, and gets in plenty of fun observations along the way. It's like watching over the shoulder of a master detective at work. This is also potent inspiration for Thanksgiving table discussion -- maybe print out some copies to have on hand?
An Old Favorite
Hemingway or My Mother’s Email? by Jen Girdish (McSweeney's) This mash-up of the literary and the pedestrian is the sort of classic McSweeney's premise that remains a staple of the site to this day. Jen does an excellent job of threading the list-premise needle, making sure each list item is equally plausible as a Hemingway line and as a line from a mom email. Jen heightens the piece nicely, despite the brief word count, and the last sentence manages to be the most Hemingway of the bunch, and a reversal at the same time. Pieces like this, playing with the juxtaposition of tone and subject matter, especially ones this cleverly done, were some of the first things we were reading back in the day, and were a big inspiration for our writing; Luke's first McSweeney's publication, as well as James' first, were in this vein. And a few years later, Brian wrote the ultimate, meta-version of this sort of premise. So much to say, this piece is an old favorite and a nostalgic one too. We're just full of thankfulness in this edition, huh?
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
Nothing from us this week! Too busy cookin'!
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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
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!