A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #58
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For October 25-October 31, 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. Happy November! Rarely does a newsletter fall on the first of the month so we'd like to tak--oh holy crap we forgot about rent! Dang, if we're late once more, we'll get kicked out of the Headquarters of Humorous Readings (HRHQ). We're gonna have to sell some of these leather-bound books and fancy feathered quill pens.
What We Enjoyed This Week
A Resolution by the Philadephia City Council by Helen Gym, Councilmember At Large (Philadelphia City Council Website) Keep your eyes peeled, dear reader, for humor writing is all around us, lurking everywhere you look!
How to Read Infinite Jest by Claire Friedman (The New Yorker) Simply nothing better than dunking on this giant brick of a book.
I Have Commandeered This Haunted Hayride by Lucas Gardner (The New Yorker) Friend of the Show Lucas Gardner is great at writing narrators who are confident and dumb, which by our calculation, is the best type of narrator there is.
Why It's Too Difficult For Me To Vote, And How Many Beers I Can Butt-Chug In Under 60 Seconds by Cara Michelle Smith (McSweeney's) and Why I, a young person, probably won’t vote by Alexandra Petri (The Washington Post) Two pieces on the same premise are a great chance to think about format and angle. Petri's piece is the simple approach: multiple beats from different voices with a similar POV to thoroughly explore the piece's main funny thing. It's a nice way to explore something that is inherently absurd, but can be tough since pieces like this are often only as strong as their jokes, and can sometimes feel more like a disjointed list of beats if they don't have running bits or callbacks. Smith's approach is a bit more formally complex, with an overarching and repeated joke that in itself highlights what the writer finds absurd about the thing being satirized. Pieces like this are often more satisfying as a whole, but can sometimes be too complex or overly contrived to be out-and-out funny and sometimes don't land as hard as a result. Both of these pieces ARE successful, and are good examples of how there is often more than one approach to an idea.
An Old Favorite
Jazz: A Few Definitions by Riane Konc (The New Yorker) Friend of the Show Riane Konc is a fantastically prolific writer. No one understands jazz and anyone who tells you they do is trying to sell you something, likely a box set of jazz records. Save yourself the trouble and read this piece.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
Luke directed yet another sketch show that is going up tomorrow (Friday, 11/2) at 9:30 at The PIT (123 E. 24th Street). The team putting up the show is called Clementine, and it's full of wonderful writers and performers and the whole thing should be quite a good time indeed.
Other Humorous Writing News
Friend of the Show River Clegg is teaching a workshop called "Think Weird: A Short Humor Writing Workshop" on Thursday, December 13th at 7 pm at The Magnet. If you want to learn from the absolute best in the biz, sign up! And be quick, there are only a few spots left.
News About The Next Show
The show is tonight! Please come to An Evening of Humorous Readings. Doors're at 7 pm, show's at 8 pm. Free and at (le) Poisson Rouge!
We'll be welcoming this all-star line-up of guests:
-- River Clegg (The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, The Onion, The New Yorker, Clickhole)
-- Bizzy Coy (McSweeney’s, The New Yorker)
-- Milly Tamarez (Creator of Flexx Mag, Co-creator and producer of the Diverse as Fuck Festival)
-- Jen Spyra (The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, The New Yorker, The Onion)
See you tonight! And be sure to also mark your calendar for our next Hangout of Humorous Reading, on November 15th at Peculiar Pub at 7 pm! This hangout, and our future shows and hangouts will all be on A Calendar of Humorous Readings which you should subscribe to.
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.
This newsletter is free, but if you enjoy it and want to support the work we do putting it together, you can subscribe to our paid tier, or you can send us a tip here. Any amount is greatly appreciated, and 1/3rd of each donation will go to Stand Up To Cancer.
If you'd like to place an ad in the Newsletter, please fill out this form.
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!