A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #362
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For October 9-15, 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. The 2003 film Runaway Jury isn’t particularly good — though if you’re a fan of legal thrillers, and you’ve burned through all the canonical classics of the genre, you could do worse — but you know who is good in it? Gene Hackman. Gene Hackman’s pretty much always good in everything. Anyway, this is a roundabout way of saying, please keep an eye out for our new newsletter, “Gene Hack-fans”.
What We Enjoyed This Week
I’m the “Scoopy Daddy”: Clarifying My New Approach to Parenting by Andrew Humphries (McSweeney’s) Look, the phrase ”Scoopy Daddy” is just funny. It’s funny to hear. It’s funny to say. Scoopy Daddy. And the whole piece is a wonderfully constructed exploration of the Scoopy Daddy premise filled with similarly delightful prose: “When Scoopy Daddy yells at you, it is because you are yelling at me, your regular father. I (your father) would never scream at you. But Scoopy Daddy can and will.”
Scoopy Daddy.
I’m Not a Passenger Princess. I’m a Trunk Troll. by Editor (Reductress) And speaking of delightful prose and syntax: Trunk troll. “Passenger princesses are regal, chic, and captivating. Trunk trolls are in the trunk. Passenger princesses have opinions on how you’re driving, or advice to give on which route to take. Trunk trolls have a riddle for you.“
Trunk troll.
(And if anyone has info about who the author of this piece is, please let us know! We’d love to give them credit!)
I Wish I Went Before Mary Shelley in This Storytelling Contest by Mike Drucker (McSweeney’s) A clever riff on literary history and a very funny evocation of literary sour grapes. The narrator’s flailing, preemptive defensiveness in response to Mary Shelley’s obviously superior spooky story is hilarious—but also, who hasn’t been in a situation where they’ve suddenly found themselves way less prepared than they expected to be?
And while we're talking about eye-catching prose: Mike’s right to call out “Modern Prometheus” as an evocative phrase, but maybe a little unapproachable. But what a phrase.
Modern Prometheus.
-- AD --
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 Wednesday, October 23 at 7:30 p.m. at Greats of Craft in Long Island City and features:
Meghna Shah (HuffPost)
Art Cai (New York Comedy Festival, Caroline's, Diverse As Fuck Fest)
Luke Strathmann (McSweeney's, The New Yorker)
Cara Michelle Smith (The Onion, Salon)
Rick Paulas (author of MALINKO, The Guardian, VICE)
Chloé Caldwell (author of Women, Vogue, The Cut)(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 #94.
Corrections by Megan Amram (Tumblr) Not to be confused with The Corrections, the decidedly less-humorous Jonathan Franzen vehicle, Amram's piece isn't just very, very funny, it also does something easier said than done: This is a send-up of the NYT wedding announcement section. With a medium that has such a specific tone and style, it's common for humor pieces to simply heighten, and make it "cooky." What Amram does is use the style as a launching pad--creating characters and letting them play in this world. It's not a parody anymore. It's something much funnier and much more interesting.
A note from your editors: The original Tumblr post in which this piece appeared has been deleted, but thanks to the Internet Archive, you’re still able to read it. Make backups whenever you can. Unfortunately, it’s no longer possible to trust that a page or a site will always be available online.
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 just ONE spot left in his intro to short humor workshop starting on November 9th! He’s also got spots left in his advanced workshop starting November 12th. To see some of the work that’s come out of past workshops, check out this thread (on a social media site that isn’t run by someone actively trying to help Donald Trump to win the election)!
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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