A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For March 28-April 3, 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.  We here at the newsletter will be the first people to say that there's a ton of great music being produced right now, so we hope we don't sound curmudgeonly when we ask the following question: Why is it that musicians these days can't seem to write a decent song about how going to sea ruined your life? If you have any recommendations, please pass them along!
 

What We Enjoyed This Week

Things I Wish My Therapist Would Say to Me But She Never Does by Linda Acus (McSweeney's) When a piece's narration gets more complex, it's easy for writers to lose their way, or just flat-out to abandon and sell out the focalization they started with. But this piece--which reveals the narrator's character by filtering her POV through things she's imagining her therapist saying--is crystal-clear from start to finish (and it's also very funny).

It’s a Flat Earth by Gary Richardson (The New Yorker) This piece has an unconventional structure, but it works. It has solid laughs throughout, but it's mainly working to set up one big reveal, and once that punchline is delivered, it gets out fast and doesn't overstay its welcome. While you might not want to use this specific structure in your own writing, it's a good reminder that there are many different ways to frame premises and generate surprises.

How to Carry on After Reading Two Contemporary Romance Novels in 24 Hours by Charlotte Wilson (The Belladonna) There are a lot of great specifics in this piece, and it does a great job of nailing that romance novel tone, but it's doing something more subtle than your usual genre parody--it's almost more like a short sci-fi story. The premise of the piece is never explicitly stated, which is often a hindrance in a short humor piece, but it never feels confusing, and Wilson does an elegant job of slowly letting us in on what's happening. Throughout, she gets good laughs from the aforementioned romance novel tone, which takes over the narration in the same way that the romance novel specifics and plot details take over the world of the main character.
 

List: Words That Would Make Nice Names for Babies, If It Weren’t For Their Unsuitable Meanings by Stephany Aulenback (McSweeney's)

This year, McSweeney's Internet Tendency is planning to do some special celebrations in honor of its 21st anniversary, which means it's a great time to take a look back through the Tendency's voluminous archives. The site has 233 pages of "list pieces" going back to September 1999, and reading those early lists is a quick way to see how internet humor has changed in 20 years. There are, of course, some big differences: The older lists are a lot weirder and more conceptual; they contain archaic references to things like "Borders Books and Music" and "video rentals"; and while Google comes up relatively frequently, back then it was mostly seen as a fun way to engage in kooky search engine shenanigans, rather than as an enormous company that profits from our personal information, dominates our daily life, and is accountable to no one.

However, some things were very much the same as they are today: References to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a general fascination with internet culture, jokes about how people aren't actually laughing out loud when they type "lol," and so on. 

While you're browsing, you might also come across gems like this one. It's a classic list piece: A very specific concept executed clearly and quickly. And hey, if you find any other treasures from the early days of McSweeney's Internet Tendency, send 'em our way and we might feature 'em in the newsletter!
 

Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show

James was included on Paste Magazine's list of "15 of the Best Humorists Writing Today"! Damn! (And congrats to all the other great people--many of whom are Friends of the Show--on the list!) He also has a new piece up on The New Yorker today, and, appropriately enough, it's about newsletters! Check it out and let us know if we should be including gifs in our newsletter.

Luke's sketch team A Few Sandwich Lovers is putting up their romantic comedy sketch show on April 15th at 9PM at the UCB Theatre in Hell's Kitchen. They're paired with the wonderful musical improv team Rumpleteaser, so it's sure to be a fantastic evening all around. ALSO: Clementine, the sketch team Luke's been directing, has their new show going up this Friday 4/5 at 9:30 PM at the PIT (AKA TOMORROW). Why not get tickets for that as well?

Last but not least: Friend of the Show Lucas Adams did a daily cartoon for the New Yorker last week. If you love/are weirded out by Mr. Met, you'll want to click through.

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.