January 24, 2019

A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #70

A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For January 17-23, 2019, 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. Did you guys catch that Lunar Eclipse earlier this week? Here at Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ), we tried to get up on our roof to see it, but ended up locking ourselves in the stairwell and had to experience the eclipse through photos on our phone. And in a cruel twist, the next morning a busful of kids in town for a Model UN conference all mooned us as we were walking to get a coffee. So at the end of the week, we got a lot more and a lot fewer moons than we wanted.
 

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What We Enjoyed This Week

George Soros Made A Bee Sting Me by Evan Waite (McSweeney's) Friend of the Show Evan Waite is always doing great work, but what's especially special about this piece is that he read it at our last show. How many times do we have to say it: the show is a chance to snatch the freshest warm humor pies from the window sill as they cool!

The Encyclopedia of Stepdads by Maddy Zauss (McSweeney's) The best list pieces have something that makes them feel cohesive, and not just like a list of jokes. That extra something can be a good throughline, or a few callbacks, that sort of thing. In this piece, what binds everything together is the simple choice to make it an alphabetical list of names from A-Z. It's just that easy, and it really elevates the piece.

I went to Spongebob the Musical on Broadway Alone by Casey McGowan (Little Old Lady) An inspiring tale. Next time you feel like you couldn't possibly stomach going someplace by yourself, just think of Casey and his solo quest to see Spongebob.

Famous Pieces Of Literature Reviewed By My Inner Critic As If They Were Written By Me
by Rachel Keller (Weekly Humorist) Inner critics always make me think of the word "pharmakon" -- when a cure and a poison are intertwined.

You Have to Watch This Show by Kelly Stout  (The New Yorker) Pieces that talk about things in general terms (here "TV Show," "Controversial Episode," "That Other Show," etc.) can be hard to pull off since they can get too detached or winky. Losing specificity in one place means you need to make up for it elsewhere. This piece succeeds by nailing the tone and voice of how people talk about TV and peer pressure each other. 
 

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An Old Favorite

The Jumping Frog: In English, Then in French, Then Clawed Back Into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil by Mark Twain  (Harper & Brothers)

Mark Twain, no one needs reminding, is a great writer. The first piece of writing to bring him attention and notoriety was "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." The piece was so popular that it was translated and distributed around the world. Twain got a hold of a French version of the story and published a collection with the original story, the French translation, and then his own translation from the French back into English while maintaining some of the French constructions and oddities. Skip ahead to page 39 in this PDF for the re-translation. It's full of great weird lines.
 

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Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show

If you're reading this newsletter, odds are you'll love The Satire and Humor Festival! It's going to be full of great events and workshops, and chances to meet and mingle with great humor folks! More info, tickets, and links are available at www.satireandhumor.com.
 

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!

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