A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #298
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For July 19-25, 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. Perhaps you saw yesterday's House Oversight Committee hearing on UFO/UAP that featured testimony about encounters with unknown craft and allegations that the government has hidden alien corpses. It was interesting stuff but it unfortunately overshadowed our own testimony at the same time in front of the House Committee on Writing's subcommittee on Short Work (currently with no members). All of CSPAN's cameras were "busy" so you'll just have to take our word that we gave some really good testimony on premise, heightening, and the issues facing short humor!
What We Enjoyed This Week
The Little Mermaid if it Were Scientifically Accurate by Celia Mattison (The Stopgap) A really wonderful crystallization of what short humor does best: taking a funny observation and exploring it as thoroughly as possible. This one has great heightening too, slowly moving from changes that would keep a mermaid mostly recognizable, to changes that would make a mermaid into something way, way different. It's also got some great illustrations.
Grab a Quick Lunch at Our Fast-Casual Slop Trough by Henry Block (McSweeney's) A really great skewering of a very specific kind of restaurant that specializes in meals that are fast above all else. ("If everything goes right, you can be in and out in forty-five seconds flat having only spent $22.50.") And if you were at the Some Fun Lines satire mic, you saw Henry read this one live -- it reads really well, and Henry's performance did a great job capturing the piece's marriage of blustering marketing language and over-the-top contempt.
The Sun Also Rises Drinking Game by Elizabeth Collins (McSweeney's) Extremely good and well-articulated specifics in this one. Elizabeth packs an impressive number of Hemingway details in a tight piece!
An Actual Boy Genius Finds Out About the Band boygenius by Rose O’Shea (McSweeney's) Unlike the previous piece, the references here aren't always the laugh line -- rather, the band references serve more often as grounding for the part of the piece that is most fun to us: the exploration of Rose's boy genius character, which is so well done ("A toddler using the refrigerator magnets to do chaos math").
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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 #56.
Please Purchase My Data From Me Directly by Lucas Gardner (McSweeney's) Friend of the Newsletter, Lucas Gardner, does it again. Not only is this piece jam-packed with great jokes, it also makes you wonder--would you trade the current capitalist hellscape of the internet for this, newer capitalist hellscape?
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
Luke's got a single-session short humor workshop coming up on August 19th at 12 PM Eastern! In it, you'll do some fun, funny, low-pressure writing exercises as a way to explore different forms and different types of narration you can use in your short humor writing. (Luke also just posted his September workshop offerings on his site!)
Other Humorous Writing News
And in strike news: A rousing reminder from WGA negotiating committee co-chair Chris Keyser that the studios' continued refusal to negotiate is a “mutual suicide pact” that has been a “spectacular failure.” Tech writer Brian Merchant has a very interesting column in the LA Times on how Silicon Valley's magical thinking has infected Hollywood, with business practices that "too often amounts to a smokescreen that lets executives and investors line their pockets and risks leaving workers holding the bag." Hamilton Nolan has a concise and clear-eyed piece in The Guardian on the strike's larger reverberations: "The strikers in the streets are taking upon themselves the responsibility of drawing a line in the sand, saying that the excesses of inequality must stop here and now." Check out SAG President Fran Drescher's inspiring and informative chat with Bernie Sanders. And whoa, the stunt people are on the picket line and it's very cool.
If you're looking to support striking workers from WGA and SAG, as well as Unite Here 11 hotel workers, Teamsters, and IATSE, here's a great list of mutual aid funds that could use your donations!
And as always, there's lots of info and ways to show solidarity on the WGA's Strike Hub!
(A few of you have shared links and updates from the picket line with us--thanks! If there's anything you'd like us to share, including any of your personal thoughts or anecdotes from the strike, please send 'em along!)
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!