A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #415
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For October 14-21, 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. Sorry this week’s edition is arriving a little bit late today! We got caught up in an “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” situation, but instead of a cookie it was bagels, and instead of a mouse it was a particularly large and angry pigeon, and instead of “give” it was—look what we’re trying to say is we spent all day chasing around the pigeon that stole our breakfast.
What We Enjoyed This Week
I Am Legally Obligated to Play Billy Joel’s “River of Dreams” at Least Once During Your Dental Appointment by Katie Mazza-Phillips (McSweeney’s) Katie starts with an interesting observation (“What’s up with the music they play in dentists’ offices?”) and spins it into a terrific piece by making nice specific choices (Billy Joel’s “River of Dreams”) and by simply exploring the logic and logistics of her premise. (“Billy Joel’s people call every Saturday to ask your receptionist how many times you played ‘The River of Dreams’ in the office that week.”)
This instantly joins the pantheon of great humor pieces about Billy Joel. It’s an illustrious list that includes Michael Ian Black’s What I Would Be Thinking About If I Were Billy Joel Driving Toward a Holiday Party Where I Knew There Was Going to Be a Piano and Felipe Torres Medina and Dru Johnston’s Beware the Piano-Man! And for some great non-fiction about Billy Joel that is also often quite funny, check out Nick Paumgarten’s profile, Thirty-Three-Hit Wonder.
So, You and the Pope Both Showed Up to This Party Wearing the Same Hat by Tyler Gooch (McSweeney’s) This absurd situation is such a funny setup, and Tyler does a tremendous job exploring and heightening that situation as the piece goes on. This one goes to some truly unexpected places, but all the heightening is completely earned.
Quiz: How much of a real New Yorker are you? by New York Groove Staff (The New York Groove) This isn’t just a delightfully wacky quiz packed with fun New York City specifics, it’s also a spot-on satire of New Yorkers’ tendency to try to one-up each other about who’s got more of a connection to the city. Oh, you live in New York but have never one-upped someone else about who’s more of a real New Yorker? I guess you’re not a… well…
— AD —
Hosted by Lana Schwartz (The New Yorker, The Onion, McSweeney's) 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 Wednesday, 10/29 at Greats of Craft in LIC at 7 p.m. and features:
Bob Powers (Tooning Out the News, Our Cartoon President)
Kate Mooney (New York Times, GQ, Vox)
Max Higgins (Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Talk Show with Max Higgins)
Rima Parikh (The Onion, Going Down with Ella Yurman, It Girls: A Comedy Show)
Miriam Jayaratna (The New Yorker, McSweeney's, The Wall Street Journal)
Kate Sidley (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, author of How to Be a Saint)
Tickets here!---
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An Old Favorite
How to Kiss Someone Even Though That’s Gross by Freddie Shanel (Reductress) This is just an all-timer of a headline. Sometimes the headline or title of a piece is so good that the actual content can’t possibly live up to it, but that is absolutely not the case here. This one is filled with great lines. For example: “Remember that just because something is gross, it doesn’t mean that it’s bad.”
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
Luke’s got just ONE spot left in his advanced short humor workshop that’s going to be running on Wednesday afternoons in November. (He’s also got spots left in his November Thursday night workshop and Saturday afternoon workshop too!) These are the last three workshops he’s got scheduled for 2025, so grab a spot now if you don’t want to wait til the new year!
James wrote about Fall of Freedom, “a nationwide wave of creative resistance” to authoritarianism, for Lit Hub. He spoke to Laura Raicovich and Hari Kunzru about the initiative, which is open for all to participate. Let us know if you plan any humor events or publications for it!
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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