A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #91
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For June 13-19, 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. Now that it's iced coffee season, we wanted to share our secret to homemade cold brew -- it's easy to make at home and great to have around for warm mornings and hot afternoons (if we drink it after 3 pm we are cranky for a week.) We make the cold brew in a french press; let coarsely ground coffee and water sit for 22-24 hours and then pour over -- and here's our secret -- ice frozen into letters and arranged into our favorite P.G. Wodehouse lines. The key is to have a gigantic glass to fit full passages of ice into!
What We Enjoyed This Week
Your Dad's HBO Stand-Up Comedy Special by Cara Michelle Smith (McSweeney's) The second person is probably the least used in short humor, and it's a shame!
Mr. Peanut Addresses His 23andMe Results by Dru Johnston (Points In Case) If you were at our last show (if not, please let us know at your earliest convenience why and how sorry you are to have missed), you heard this piece read by Dru and heard it burn the house down. Now, thanks to the 'net, you can read it out loud and burn your own house down!
Coolhaus Balsamic Fig And Mascarpone Ice Cream by Kevin Tasker (McSweeney's) Next time you're stuck with no ideas, remember that even taking a break to try the weird food you bought yourself as a treat can be the inspiration you need.
The Six Remotes in Your Dad’s Entertainment Center by Evan Allgood (The New Yorker) That old aphorism really is true: when cellphones started losing buttons, dads started hoarding remotes.
Things Bougie Customers Say To Their Server At An Overpriced Seafood Restaurant On the Jersey Shore by Lindsay Haber (McSweeney's) Formatting the customers' reactions as parentheticals is a nice way to avoid screenplay formatting, which can look a little clunky in short humor, and still deliver some visual punchlines in a list piece that would otherwise be all dialogue.
An Old Favorite
Hot Erotic Fiction by Kelly Hudson (The Occasional)
The Occasional was a criminally underrated, gone-too-soon humor publication from Funny or Die that was a real murderers' row of comedians and writers. This piece from Kelly Hudson is just one great piece from their run -- a fun genre parody that descends into madness. Enjoy it and then have fun poking around the rest of the archive -- lots to enjoy.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
In just under a month, James' class on parody writing is happening at the Magnet Theater! It's going to be discussion, brainstorming and group-writing, and writing-exercising. In short: fun and informational as hell.
Other Humorous Writing News
The Satire and Humor Festival and Kickstarter are hosting a free event on Saturday, June 29th at Kickstarter HQ in Greenpoint on creating independent comedy! From 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm, there will be talks, panels, and conversation about making comedy and staying independent. More information is here on this flyer: here's the front and here's the back.
There will be free drinks and snacks in between, and a happy hour after! RSVP is required and there is limited space, so email satireandhumor@gmail.com if you'd like to come!
News About The Next Show
Our next show is July 23 at Caveat (wooo!) We've almost got our line-up confirmed and lemme tell ya, it's looking great so far. As always, keep an eye on this space for updates!
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!