A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #43
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For July 12-18, 2018, a roundup of the week's finest prose humor and prose humor-related news.
Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, the email propaganda arm of the acclaimed humorous readings show, An Evening of Humorous Readings. We pride ourselves on being honest here at Humorous Readings HQ (HR HQ) and in that spirit we're going to come out and say what everyone's thinking: there ought to be a hell of a lot more cold soups. Soup chefs and purveyors: all eyes are on you in these hot months. Simply put, we need more soups that will cool us down and fill us up. For fuck's sake, how hard can that be?
What We Enjoyed This Week
Bad News by Colin Nissan (The New Yorker) Friend of the Show Colin Nissan is the master of making a whole dang meal out of these simple premises.
Perfect Roommates You'll Never Find by Zach Zimmerman and Aubrey Nolan (The New Yorker) This is the kind of illustrated piece we love to see: It's well-illustrated AND well-written, with a clear premise and clean throughline that keeps all the jokes connected. It keeps surprising the reader, and builds nicely to a satisfying conclusion. More like this, please!
Riding Solo: The Oatsy Story by Simon Rich (The New Yorker) This piece is from Rich's book, Hits and Misses, which is well worth seeking out!
Self Improvement Or Sign Of A Crisis? by Mary Cella (Little Old Lady Comedy)
My Donald Trump Jr. Shadow Instagram Feed by Graham Starr (Slate) This is a bit different than our usual fare, but Friend of the Show Graham Starr wrote this really interesting piece about recreating Don Jr.'s Instagram and seeing what sorts of things the old algorithm spits out.
An Old Favorite
Snakes Eaten by Chris Sartinsky (Pendulous Breasts Quarterly: Madame Bainbridge's Compendium of Primo Dong )
We've made it no secret in the past that we are big PBQ fans. The thus-far two-part series features amazing writing in handsome editions. I dipped into my copy the other night (James here, if you're painting a mind-picture of this situation), and really fell for this "Snakes Eaten" piece. It's a funny, sort of sick premise that takes a weird Shirley Jackson-esque turn towards the end that really gets me. What can I say, I love a town turning on someone. Almost as much as I love a cold soup.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
Over on Points In Case, James has published more Hulk Hogan erasure poems. Did people ask for more of these? Are people reading them? Are "the social numbers there?" No's all around, my friends, but sometimes dumb projects must soldier on.
Meanwhile on Monday at 9:30PM, Luke's sketch team has another show over at the UCB Theatre in Hell's Kitchen. He's got two sketches going up, so that's twice as many reasons to go see it!
Other Humorous Writing News
The Belladonna editors' forthcoming book, New Erotica for Feminists, got a cover and a cool write-up! We're really excited for this book at HRHQ and can't wait to get it into our sweaty hands (this summer heat, am I right?). And hey, you're a fan of this stuff, why not preorder?
News About The Next Show
Thanks to everyone who came out to our Hangout of Humorous Readings last night! We had a blast and as long as you guys are still into 'em, well keep hosting 'em.
The show is almost here! We're excited to be back at (le) Poisson Rouge on August 2nd with these amazing guests:
-- David Guzman (The Onion, The New Yorker, McSweeney's, @davidjguzman)
-- Miranda Kronfeld (Reductress, @mirandakronfeld)
-- Sasha Stewart (The Fix, The Nightly Show, The New Yorker, The Belladonna, McSweeney's, @artfulstew)
We can't wait to see you there! It'll be the perfect place to have a drink, have a laugh, and enjoy long pulls from your personal thermos of cold soup. The perfect night. As always, keep an eye on this space for updates!
See you next week!
@brianagler, @lukevburns, & @jamesfolta
Did we miss a piece you loved? Did you love a piece we mentioned? Let us know! This is an experiment and we're hoping to continue to make it better and better. 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.
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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!