A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #384
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For March 12-18, 2025
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. Now that we’re halfway through the month we jut want to say that out of all the months that are verbs, March is the one to get excited about. It’s a command to set out and get things done, not like that lackadaisical, permissive, pre-summer May.
And thanks to everyone who came out to the hangout last night! We hope you had fun!
What We Enjoyed This Week
Re: The Jar I “Couldn’t” Open by Mark Cowling (Points in Case) This is a simple premise riffing on an insecure character who might not seem all that unusual at first. But what really sells this piece is the format, which lets the insecurity exist and change over time. Structuring this as multiple emails lets the situation evolve, and knowing that this person is repeatedly chiming in to keep harping on this jar incident is a very fun way to heighten.
We Are Mark Wahlberg’s Personal Trainers, and We’re Pretty Much Just Messing With Him at This Point by Seth Rubin (McSweeney’s) Seth’s stuff is always wonderfully specific and aggressive in chasing a slant premise on pop culture — we’re thinking of their “House of Girth” or Flubber pieces especially. Seth goes wild with this Wahlberg idea: it’s not just about the weird exercise and diet pranks, but also the way they mine the emotions of the trainers and their relationship to Mark for laughs.
All My Favorite Lines From ‘With Love, Meghan’ by Maitreyi Anantharaman (Defector) Speaking of fun pop culture premises, this is a great list of out-of-context sentences. What’s particularly enjoyable about this one, as two people who haven’t seen this show, is that each sentence is so plausible but also completely unpredictable — a really funny sweet spot.
-- AD --
Finally, a comedy show at a reasonable hour: Rima Parikh's DEATH THREAT is back at Caveat on Saturday 3/29 at 1:30 pm.
AND on top of that, it's a pretty good show about medical leave bureaucracy, mean emails, and what happens when a bitch gets pushed to the brink. For fans of violent Indian women or beautiful Indian women. DISCOUNTED early bird tix available until Sunday! Directed by Brandon Follick (perfect) and featuring opener Divya Gunasekaran (additionally perfect), with guest appearance by Noah Rocklin/@noahroasts (can you believe this? thank god).
Hosted by Lana Schwartz, Letters & Sodas 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 March 26 at Greats of Craft (LIC), starting at 7 p.m. and features:
Aimée Lutkin (Elle, Jezebel, author of The Lonely Hunter)
Josh Nasser (Comedy Central, Vulture, Story Pirates)
Pat Cassels (Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Adam Ruins Everything)
Lillian Stone (The New Yorker, GQ author of Everybody's Favorite)
Ash Diggs (Means TV, Don't Tell Comedy)
Ginny Hogan (The Cut, The Guardian, author of Toxic Femininity in the Workplace and I'm More Dateable Than a Plate of Refried Beans)(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 #TK.
Sorry Kid, But the Amount Of Cute Animal Posts I’ve Mainlined Has Numbed Me To Even The Most Adorable Content by Sean McGowan (McSweeney's) Is there an official ranking of cute internet content? What is, by the rule book, cuter: A puppy wearing a hat, or a kitten going down a slide? What about baby otter trying to compose a topical tweet? That's got to be #1, right?
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
Nothing from us this week! We’re too busy trying to figure out if any other months are verbs. (I September. You September. We September… No, that’s not working.)
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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