A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For November 1-7, 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. Now that the election is over, it's more important than ever to stay politically active. Here are a few organizations that are worth donating to/volunteering for/keeping tabs on so you can take action in the future:

-Planned Parenthood
-The ACLU
-Make The Road NY
-New Kings Democrats
-Swing Left

This isn't a bit, sorry! (And let us know if there are any organizations that we didn't list that you think deserve a shout out.)

What We Enjoyed This Week

Realistic Schedule for Election Day by Taylor Garron (McSweeney's) I think we can all agree that this was extremely accurate.

Top Ten Albums I Would Take to a Desert Island (Please Don’t Send Me to a Desert Island) by Avery Monsen (McSweeney's) This piece's simple, familiar structure works great as a foil for all the fun weird stuff that winds up happening. It heightens really well, and also doesn't get too caught up in explaining the situation or its own logic. It's easy to imagine a version of this piece that would spend a lot of time justifying how it is that we're reading this list, and you know what? It really doesn't need any of that!

Ted Cruz Erotica by Sylvie McNamara (Paris Review) Sorry in advance! Since he's unfortunately gonna be sticking around for a while, there's no time like the present to start mentally steeling ourselves for those inevitable moments when Ted Cruz unexpectedly pops up in our feeds and timelines. This piece should hopefully act as a kind of exposure therapy. It also has some interesting thoughts about whether there are limits to the usefulness of satire in our current moment, and provides a nice segue into our next section...
 

An Old Favorite

I Can't Stop Looking at Photos of Poop and Garbage on Government 311 Apps by Joe Veix (Vice)

In her book Powers of Horror, the philosopher Julia Kristeva writes, "It is thus not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite." The discomfort and disgust we feel in looking at these 311 apps stems not from their content, but from the way that they unsettle the categories that we use to organize our lives. We recoil when we realize that the apps, designed to facilitate the elimination of garbage and grime, have instead become a haven for them. We feel revulsion scrolling through these pictures, not because of the poop and garbage in and of themselves, but because the poop and garbage represent everything we are trying to hide when we post a photo on a social media app. What we find truly grotesque about these apps is that they reveal a truth we cannot bear: Every photo we upload is defined by the things we are trying to keep out of it, the things in in our lives that we are trying to conceal from our friends and followers. Or, as Kristeva puts it, "What I permanently thrust aside in order to live." lol
 

Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show

Luke has a little something that's going to be running on the McSweeney's Patreon tomorrow, so if you aren't already a patron, now is a great time to get on that.

We also want to take this time to remind you that if you ever have news or announcements you think we and/or other newsletter readers would be interested in, please send that info our way!

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.