A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #354
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For August 14-20, 2024
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. One last reminder! In less than a week James and Luke are hosting another Hangout of Humorous Writing! We hope you’ll join us to say hi and talk humor at Peculier Pub (145 Bleeker St.) on Wednesday, August 28th at 6 PM!
What We Enjoyed This Week
Girl Ransom Note by Megan Amram (McSweeney’s) We’ve featured Megan’s work a number of times over the years—her writing is always high-energy, delightfully bonkers, and packed with great jokes. This piece is no exception: “To prove that we have her, we’ve enclosed some hair—that’s right, we gave her bangs. She is going through a tough time right now because she is kidnapped.”
According to Trader Joe’s Grocery Bag by Monica Dobos (Defenestration) Not a traditional short humor piece, but a very fun breakdown, in poetry, of all the weird stuff happening on the Trader Joe’s bag. It’ll make you want to take a closer look next time you’re carrying your groceries home.
Lines from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” if T. S. Eliot Had Been Mentored by the Three Stooges Instead of Ezra Pound by Larry Gaffney (McSweeney’s) A classic McSweeney’s highbrow-lowbrow mashup, immaculately executed. Larry knows to wrap things up before the premise overstays its welcome, and makes sure that each beat contains a great new Stooges specific. The title is also wonderful. You could easily imagine any number of simpler, shorter, variations, like, “The Three Stooges write ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.’” But this version gives us the hilarious image of T.S. Eliot being taught poetry by Larry, Curly, and Moe.
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Hosted by Lana Schwartz (The New Yorker, The Onion, McSweeney's), Letters & Soda brings together standup comedy, humor pieces, fiction, and essay readings in a way they never have been before (or at least not in recent memory).
The next show is Thursday, August 29 at 7:30 p.m. at Greats of Craft in Long Island City and features:
Emma Davey (Greenpointers)
Swati Sudarsan (Catapult, Maudlin House)
Evelyn Frick (Reductress, Vulture)
Michelle Cohn (McSweeney's, Electric Literature)
Matt Mancini (Unsane)
Pooja Reddy (Kutti Gang)Tickets available here!
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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 #75.
Is Kirsten Gillibrand Likeable, Tough, Driven, Soapy, and Metallic Enough? Or Is She Too Glittering, Muscular, Serpentine, and Tangy? by Sean McGowan (Points in Case) What makes this piece stand out from the rest of the topical 2020 pieces is that, rather than wagging its finger, it gets right to the absurdity of everything that is American politics, and then it lives there. It's silly and refreshing, but also makes a point--which is a much tougher trick to land than you might imagine.
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 Editors and Friends of the Newsletter
In case you missed it up top, one ACTUAL last reminder that our Hangout of Humorous Writing is taking place NEXT WEEK on Wednesday, August 28th at 6 PM, at Peculier Pub (145 Bleeker St). Hope to see you there!
Luke’s got advanced humor writing workshops starting on September 3rd and September 7th! Writing from previous workshops has gone on to be published in The New Yorker (print and online), McSweeney’s, and more!
Other Humorous Writing News
This week brought two pieces of exciting news from The Onion: First, they’ve put the entirety of their classic book Our Dumb Century online. Those of you who read our recent subscription edition focusing on The Onion know that we think Our Dumb Century is one of the best things The Onion has ever done, so go give it a read!
Second, you can now purchase an Onion membership, which includes a 12-issue subscription to their newly resurrected print edition. We’re very excited to see what they have in store.
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.
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