A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #274
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For February 1-7, 2023
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. Thanks to the dozens of you who filled out our Reader Survey (not too late to add your two cents, if you want)! Your responses are full of great feedback, and we really appreciate the time you took to give us your thoughts!
And with 21% of the vote, the two-person sport/activity that you all thought we would be best at is "Tandem Bike Racing!" Honorable mentions for the write-in answers, "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man," "competitive good cop/bad cop interrogating," "competitive see-saw," "chicken fight team," and "synchronized swimming." We hear you, and we're scouring Craigslist for a gently used racing bicycle-built-for-two to make this a reality.
What We Enjoyed This Week
A Literary Agent's Manuscript Wish List by Kathleen Founds (The Rumpus) Our favorite jokes in this piece are the requests that are incredibly specific but also impossible to execute. Kathleen perfectly captures the way that certain types of descriptive language can sound intelligent but be maddeningly useless and impenetrable.
Am I Smiling Correctly? by Ruyi Wen (McSweeney's) Ruyi writes some incredibly sharp lines ("I want to show that I’m not hiding weapons between my teeth") and also manages to stick the landing on the hardest version of a short humor monologue: one where the speaker is responding and reacting to another person who we never hear from. Those one-sided dialogues are very hard to write in a non-clunky way, and Ruyi nails it.
Oh, Look at Mr. Fancy Pants Over Here Eating His Eggs by Kristen Mulrooney (McSweeney's) A great character voice, and such a great last line, just a killer kicker. This is a riff on current events that we expect to have more staying power than the average topical piece because the character is so strong and specific.
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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 #48.
My Mega Millions by Larry Doyle (The New Yorker)
Have you ever played the arcade game Asteroids? You're a spaceship, and you have to shoot down asteroids (hence the name) coming at you from all directions. Everywhere you turn, Asteroids. Wham! Bam! There's one! There's another! All different directions. You can't predict them or stop them, they just keep coming.
That's what reading a Larry Doyle piece is like.
My Mega Millions is a perfect example. The jokes start fast, they pop up everywhere, and they don't stop until the end. And even though you never see the punchlines coming, the piece just makes sense. That's because Doyle does a great job maintaining a clarity of voice and character. And so, the piece feels smooth and cohesive--even logical, in a bizzaro way--while it's throwing jokes at you from all sides. Threading that needle is tough, but when a writer can do it, the results are always amazing.
*Also, check out the reference to a certain current president, and then check out when this was published
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 Newsletter
Nothing from us this week! We're hard at work building a shelf to hold all the trophies we're sure to receive once we hit the tandem bike racing circuit.
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!