A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For July 25-31, 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. Gonna be a short intro this week! We're exhausted because we wanted to get caught up on all the plotlines before watching the Democratic debates these last two nights, so we binged every single presidential primary debate that has aired since they started being televised. When are they gonna bring back that Estes Kefauver character?
 

What We Enjoyed This Week

“Who All Goin’ Be There?” Asks Man On The Fence About Attending Funeral by Ronald Metellus (Flexx) We've all been in a situation where we've been invited to an event but don't want to commit until we know who else is going. (Speaking of which, even if you don't know anyone going to the next Evening of Humorous Readings, you should still come. You can always say hi to Brian and Luke and James!) This piece uses that very relatable feeling as its jumping off point and does a great job of exploring how it might work out in an unconventional setting.

How to Save Money By Wearing One Signature Outfit Like a Cartoon Character by Miranda Kronfeld (Reductress) Honestly, this is just a great idea.

Things to Do During Your Karaoke Song's Too-Long Instrumental Interlude by Claire Friedman (The New Yorker) Another all-too-relatable situation. Here's a tip from personal experience: Bruce Springsteen's "Hungry Heart" is only 3.5 minutes, but the last minute is basically just a bunch of "ooo yeahs" that the machine won't have lyrics for--so if you pick "Hungry Heart" for karaoke, make sure you have a plan for how to fill that time!

In Order to Become More Competitive In Our Sector We’ve Decided to Make a Series of Terrible Decisions That Will Make Your Job Way Worse by Chas Gillespie (McSweeney's) This is a very fine example of the "honest ____" subgenre of humor piece (in this case it's "“honest announcement from your boss”). It's got a pointed critique, but the desire to make a point doesn't get in the way of making great jokes.

An Old Favorite

Reasons My Puppet Show Pilot Wasn’t Picked Up for Television by Doogie Horner (McSweeney's)

One way to think about heightening is that you're adding new elements to a situation; another way to think about it is that you're ~revealing~ more information about a situation, and doing so in a way that makes the reader feel like it was right under their nose the whole time. It's kind of like the difference between finding $20 on the sidewalk and finding $20 in the jacket you haven't worn since last fall. This is a funny, clear, and concise example of the "revealing" version of heightening. It's also got one hell of a button.
 

Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show

Brian's show about speechwriting and speechwriters, SpeakEasy, is Wednesday, August 14th at 7:00pm at Caveat. It features Alex Song, Jonathan Appel, Chandler Dean, and presentations about rhetoric! Don't miss it!

Luke's weirdo romantic comedy sketch show, "You Can't Spell Love Without Cleveland, OH", is continuing its run at the UCB Theater in Hell's Kitchen. The next performance is Friday, August 16th at 7:30, so get your tickets now!

And our Friends of the Show over at Flexx are having an event! FLEXX: A Whole-Ass Live Show at Caveat (21 A Clinton Street) on August 8th at 9:30. It's gonna be a great time.

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.