A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #305
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For September 6-12, 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. There's been a lot said recently about how people are starting to use and misuse language from therapy in their day-to-day interactions, and it got us thinking: could the same thing happen with short humor language? People accusing each other of having "bad premises"? Talking about how parties "heightened too fast"? Couples breaking up because "the format isn't working"? We shudder to think!
What We Enjoyed This Week
Types of Acting Still Permitted Under SAG-AFTRA’s Strike Rules by Tom Smyth (McSweeney's) Lists live and die by their individual beats and jokes, and Tom's got great jokes here. But we also want to highlight the callbacks, and little one-two, joke-then-sequel beats that Tom works in, which give the piece some nice depth despite its brevity.
All the Things I Could Do if I Had Backup Singers by Audrey Burges (The New Yorker) The breadth of beats makes this piece; This is a simple, but inventive premise, and Audrey explores so many of the implications and unexpected realities of life with constant backup singers.
Beyoncé Concert Report from Someone Who Only Knows Her from "Austin Powers' Goldmember" by Rodney Uhler (Points In Case) Pop culture premises can be overly reliant on references, but Rodney plays this premise as a character game that focuses on his narrator's reactions and opinions. This piece also has a really strong sense of place: instead of speaking in a vacuum, Rodney's narrator has plenty to react to in the concert and the crowd.
Plato’s Cave Regrets to Inform You It Will Be Raising Its Rent by Xu Mason (McSweeney's) Xu is a consistently funny writer, and this piece is an impressive example of her work. This is a fairly complicated premise, with a lot to explain and unpack, and Xu does a nice job of finding ways to use the premise as an entry to funny observations and world-building, and never gets bogged down in overexplaining.
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An Old Favorite
A Tour Guide Attempts to Salvage His Lecture On a Series of Recently Vandalized Cave Paintings by Django Gold (McSweeney's) Situational premises can be hard to pull off in short humor, since the spelling-out of the situation can get overlong, or feel forced, and take focus away from the fun. But Django's crisp descriptions of what we're seeing are succinctly couched within the guide's explanations ("And, before you ask, “Skrillex” is one of the lesser-known Chumash gods"). The strong character POV makes the guide's reactions directed, another move that lets Django move quickly to jokes without a lot of scaffolding.
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 an intro to short humor writing class starting on October 7th! It's the LAST intro class that he'll be doing until 2024, and there are only TWO spots left, so grab one now if you don't want to wait. (You can also check out the full schedule of his last advanced workshops of 2023 at this page right here.)
Other Humorous Writing News
And in strike news: You probably already saw that Drew Barrymore has decided to bring her show back, which constitutes crossing the WGA picket -- David Slack has a good thread on the specifics of what's going on. Josh Gondelman also explains why this is disappointing and bad. And thanks to the National Book Foundation for siding with writers and dropping Barrymore as the host of this year's National Book Awards. The Wrap had an interesting roundtable discussion about mini-rooms and how bad they are for writers. A fantastic piece in the LA Times on how the studios have already lost: "At this point, it’s difficult not to see the studios’ recalcitrance as pure ego." Hamilton Nolan on how we talk about strikes and their "cost." And let's go, VFX unions! Marvel's workers voted unanimously to unionize!
If you're looking to support striking workers from WGA and SAG, as well as Unite Here 11 hotel workers, Teamsters, and IATSE members, here's a great list of mutual aid funds that could use your donations!
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, a link, or a resource, or your personal thoughts or anecdotes from the strike, please reply to this email!)
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!