A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #85
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For May 2-8, 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. The Met Gala was this past weekend and since the theme of "camp" lent itself well to satirical and wry outfits, we naturally were invited to attend. But wouldn't you know, we were double-booked that night with the Mets Gala, at which we were being honored by Mr. Met for our work writing fun chants for the roving snacks vendors. Hopefully we can make it next year!
What We Enjoyed This Week
Social Justice Organization Seeks Summer Interns Who Can Afford To Be Unpaid Due To Privilege by Dayn Rond (McSweeney's) Dayn does a nice job of maintaining the tone and language of the writing being satirized, while also breaking the fourth wall just enough to call out the joke, but not so much that it completely deflates the narrator's plausibility.
My Truck Hauls Ass by Gary M. Almeter and Andrew Knott (Points In Case) Pieces that riff on a specific turn of phrase can be hard to get a lot of mileage out of, but this piece is a great example of how rewarding it can be to really give yourself the space to explore. In short, this piece hauls ass.
That’s What I Call Progress! This Game Rewarded Me For Using Violence To Solve My Problems, But It Also Told Me I Should Feel Kinda Bad About It by Tim Colwill (Point & Clickbait) Don't forget to take a second in your day to mourn all the digital lives cut short by gamers.
Nine Times I Got Excited Because I Thought I Saw a Dog, But It Was Actually Something Else—Ranked by How Disappointed I Felt by Jonathan Zeller (The New Yorker) A simple premise and format lets you get the reader on board quickly, and build expectations and patterns that you can undercut and mess with. One thing that this piece does really nicely is find silver linings in the disappointment -- so many pieces that are negatively framed often heighten by having the thing that sucks get suckier as the piece goes on, but Jonathan uses his earlier beats to find nice little moments of positivity.
An Old Favorite
Haunted House-Sitting by Emma Rathbone (The New Yorker)
A piece from the early days of Daily Shouts. This one gives the weird thing -- the ghost and the hauntings -- enough specificity and personality that the piece has a clear continuity and throughline. This added layer makes something that would otherwise be a list of weird hauntings into a funny, somewhat tragic story of a heartbroken ghost trying his best.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
On Monday, May 13th, Brian will host SpeakEasy--the only comedy/speechwriting show on the planet--at Caveat. A former speechwriter to Bill Clinton is going to talk about the power of analogies...a diamond in the rough in the sea of comedy shows that aren't speechwriting-based.
There are still spots left for the humor writing workshop that Luke's teaching at the Magnet on June 19th! (If you have questions about the workshop, feel free to drop Luke a line!) Also, next Friday, 5/17, at 9:30 at the PIT Theater, you can catch a sketch show directed by Luke, written and performed by the team Clementine. It's the Clementine's second-to-last show of the season, so don't miss what might be one of your last chances to see a very good show from a very good team.
Friend of the Show Ginny Hogan has a book coming out in September called Toxic Feminity in the Workplace and it's available for preorder! We're big fans of Ginny and her writing, so naturally we can't wait for this book!
Other Humorous Writing News
In other book news, academic Terry Eagleton has a new one coming out soon called Humor, a theoretical exploration of humor and its place and function in culture and society. If you want to hear more, Harper's has a nice review of the book. This one might not pack as many jokes in as our usual recommendations, but if phrases like "Marxist academic and theorist" and "acclaimed essayist dealing with postmodernism and other topics" get your motor going, this might be the book for you.
And Friend of the Show Steve Young's documentary on the weird genre of corporate musicals, Bathtubs Over Broadway, is streaming on Netflix today!
News About The Next Show
It's coming up on May 23rd at 8pm at (le) Poisson Rouge. We've got a great lineup, including Caroline Doyle, Dru Johnston, and Taylor Kay Phillips! Make sure you're free that night so you can make it out! Let us know if you need some any help coming up with excuses to get out of prior commitments.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!