A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #278
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For March 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. Get your speeches ready: this weekend is movies' biggest night, and we've spent all week getting Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ) ready! We've hung decorations, prepped snacks, and laid out our outfits. We're of course referring to our yearly rewatch of 1992's "Freejack," starring Emilio Estevez, Rene Russo, and Mick Jagger driving a tank. This year is shaping up to be our best celebration yet!
What We Enjoyed This Week
Decode the Mystical Numerology of Your Student Loans by Kate Anderson (The Belladonna) This is a very fun premise, but one that, in less capable hands, could have been executed repetitively, by treating numerology as a punchline in and of itself. But Kate does an excellent job of surprising us and folding in narrative detail.
Etiquette Rules for Everyone—Not Just Rich People Like Me by Janie Stolar and Katie Barsotti (McSweeney's) Really solid joke writing from Janie and Katie, and a great reminder that a solid runner, like the Madonna beats in this one, can really give a listier piece a unifying arc.
I Am New Hampshire’s State Motto. Please Remember You Can Die While Living Free by Jus Kaplan (McSweeney's) James here: One time on a trip to New Hamshire, I went to a sandwich shop that offered a steep discount if you paid for your order in gold. What I love about this piece--other than its premise and voice--is that Jus articulates the feeling I had in that sub shop, of "can we just not take this motto so intensely?"
-- AD --
ABOLISH EVERYTHING: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS is at Caveat on Monday, March 20th at 7 PM!
Chandler Dean (Lovett or Leave It, The New Yorker) hosts a rapid-fire comedy debate show where comedians deliver monologues about societal scourges they want abolished--and a panel of improvisers from the “political establishment” grills them with questions.
This month is the TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS—every winner from the last year of shows is back, including hilarious humorists like Ben Doyle, Maeve Dunigan, Rima Parikh, Lana Schwartz, Charu Sinha, Lauren Spinabelli and more.
In-person and livestream tickets are available here! Get $5 off with promo code abolishhumor.
(Do you have an ad you'd like to place in the Newsletter? Fill out this form!)
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 #96.
Here It Is: The Exhaustive Breakdown of Every Shot In The CATS Trailer by Sarah James (Medium) This isn't a traditional piece, but it's definitely funny. And we're not so much about structural integrity over here; we're about those laughs! Also, horrifying cat-people hybrids. But mostly, laughs.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Newsletter
Happy "Freejack" Weekend to all! Have fun, and don't let McCandless trap you in his mind's trap!
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!