A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #295
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For June 28-July 4, 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. Hope you had a great holiday, full of friends, fireworks, and good food! We once again lost a bundle betting on the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest -- we put all our money on the hot dogs winning.
What We Enjoyed This Week
Every Starter Pokémon Ranked by How Easily I Could Convince My Mom They’re a Real Creature by Kyle Duggan (Hard Drive) We tend to think of lists as a format for shorter, punchier ideas, something akin to a blackout sketch. But Kyle takes this one in the opposite direction, giving us an exhaustive list of all the starter Pokémon. Not only are there tons of fun beats, but it's impressive just how many Pokémon are here. Hard Drive has been doing a bunch of these longer, ranked pieces -- this one, a team effort, is particularly impressive -- and they're always fun. Maybe you don't read the whole thing in one sitting, but the fact that there's so much there is part of the joke.
Streetwear Brand or Eighteenth-Century Skin Condition? by Ellie Skrzat (McSweeney's) Another fantastic list, this one very brief. In a short piece, things need to click crisply and quickly. Here, Ellie has not just chosen brands and conditions that are such fun words to focus on (Furuncle! Milk Leg!), but the two sides of the premise are coming from such widely divergent places. The sharpness of the comparison is heightened by the dissimilarities between the two items. Also, Ellie is a really talented writer, director, and illustrator -- check out some of the other great stuff that she's made!
John Hancock Explains His Big Signature by Matt Stofsky (McSweeney's) This has an amazing kicker, one that perfectly pays off the anachronistic tone combined with accurate specifics that makes it such a fun read. Matt has a lot of fun imagining a reflective, defensive, and apologetic founding father.
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An Old Favorite
A Letter To My 15-Year-Old Self From My 25-Year-Old Self From The Perspective Of My Imagined 65-Year-Old Self Written By Me, A 43-Year-Old by Marisela Gonzalez (Slackjaw) A great meta-bit riffing on a essay trope that's packed with solid jokes and, in exploring each of the narrator's perspectives, twists itself into really fun pretzels.
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
With Twitter seemingly in its death throes, we just wanted to mention that you can also find us on Bluesky! We're @lukevburns.bsky.social and @jamesfolta.bsky.social. We haven't had time to do much else this week aside from setting up these accounts since we've been busy dodging the loan shark who wants our hot dog gambling money.
Other Humorous Writing News
And in WGA strike news: An encouraging message of resolve from the WGA West, via Jessica Scott. David Zazlav has quickly become not just one of the villains of the strike, but also one of the most hated men in Hollywood. This week, we all found out that he tried to bury a GQ story about how much people hate him; here's the archived story by Jason Bailey, and here's the meta-story by Will Sommer in The Washington Post about how Zazlav tried to kill it. And we found out yesterday why the editor of GQ may have agreed to pull the piece. The Hollywood Reporter's Katie Kilkenny covered one of the ways that strikers are keeping the picket line fun: themed pickets. And two other labor actions to keep on your radar and support: Southern California hotel workers and UPS workers!
And as always, there's lots of info and ways to show solidarity on the WGA's Strike Hub!
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!