A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #49
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For August 23-29, 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. Hey guys, how's it going? We--well, this is embarrassing but you're catching us a little unprepared. The power's out at the Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ) and we're having to do all our reading by candlelight. At first, it was really fun, pretending we were old-timey humor writers, but then our landlord got mad and raised a big fuss and it actually took longer to read things. Anyway, on to the newsletter.
What We Enjoyed This Week
My Latest Findings in Brain Research by David Guzman (Points In Case) Friend of the Show David Guzman read this piece at our last show before it was published, proving once again that only Grade-A suckers and fools don't come to our show and get the hot new humor straight from the dang oven.
Yes, I Built An Exact Replica Of The Bar From Cheers In My Basement And No, You Are Never Coming Down Here! by Sam Weiner (McSweeney's) Friend of the Show Sam Weiner knocks it out of the park with this--also the hot water at HRHQ has been out! We really stink, it's been bad. Anyway, sorry.
Books Quotes in Which I Replace the Word “Books” with “Boobs" by Leigh Anne Jasheway (The Belladonna) Sometimes, the simplest pieces are the best. Electricity, too. Electricity is also the best.
A Line-By-Line Translation of a White Politician's Spanish by Lautaro Grinspan (Points In Case) What's great about this piece is that everyone who reads it will get to imagine their own, personally-relevant, awkward politician of their choice. Of course, imagining things is how we pass the time around here because the batteries ran out on our emergency radio.
The First Paragraphs Of “It Girl” Articles Throughout History by Achilles Stamatelaky (McSweeney's) We love a good historically imaginative piece. Our favorite history to recall at the moment is one where we still have power, water, and wifi.
An Old Favorite
If The Bees Go Extinct, How Will I Talk To My Child About Sex? by Mia Mercado (The New Yorker)
If you were on the website/hell-mouth called Twitter over the last few days you may have seen that story about all the bees swarming a hot dog vendor in Times Square. Personally, we were reminded of this fun piece by Friend of the Show Mia Mercado that is a fun vehicle for fun descriptions of sex. We're suckers for pieces that take a common turn of phrase and use it as a vehicle to explore.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
Did one of you guys forget to pay the bill? Is there something wrong with our mail? What gives?!
News About The Next Show
Despite the technical difficulties we're experiencing--now the water won't drain in any of the sinks--we're still hard at work getting the details ironed out for our next show. 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!