A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #98
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For August 1-7, 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're in the market for a bicycle built for three for all of us to ride to and from Humorous Writing HQ (HRHQ), but we're having trouble finding one in our price range. There were some triplets that had a falling out and were going to sell us theirs, but they ended up reconciling while they were all teaching us to ride it. We had a line on another bike being sold by a small, three-person boy band, but they overpriced their bike because it was technically band merch and therefore a collector's item. And we're currently in a bidding war on another one, but we're up against three First Roman Triumvirate reenactors who seem more motivated to buy than us. Anyway, if you hear of anything, let us know!
What We Enjoyed This Week
The Top 5 Underrated Friends Episodes From Universe 42B by Nathan Spring (McSweeney's) These sorts of pieces that are almost fan fiction, and almost parody, really live or die by their specifics and this piece has so many good ones that point to a very rich, very funny alternate universe.
It's My Birthday Year! by Megan Kingsbury (Points In Case) This one is a rocket of heightening that starts with an annoying behavior and then lets it just unfurl into insanity.
Grand Unified Theory of Metal Music DNA by Drew Kaufman (Twitter) Now we're not really in the habit of posting threads as humor pieces here, but this thread on the elemental types of metal music is so well thought out and fun that we had to include it.
Susan Sontag’s Notes on “Summer Camp” by Robin Zlotnick (The Belladonna) A summery twist on a literary classic -- delightful. Read this one on the beach.
The Best Beach Reads for When You Left Your Book at Home by Alex Watt (The New Yorker) This piece is great and full of great jokes, but it also really appeals to us since the underlying message revealed in the last beat (spoiler) is that maybe you shouldn't have gone to the beach at all.
An Old Favorite
Summer Safety Tips: How To Avoid A Lion Attack by Kate Hahn (McSweeney's) All these summer pieces reminded us of this old seasonal piece. It's a very silly and mostly unjustified premise, but it gets away with it by having so much fun with the different imagined lion attacks and having a wide variety of situations and summer specifics in the beats to keep the reader on their toes.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
SpeakEasy, a show by speechwriters (like Brian) about speeches is at Caveat on Wednesday, August 14th, with special guests Jonathan Appel and Alex Song. Ask not what your show can do for you, ask where you can buy tickets to that show. It's here!
"You Can't Spell Love Without Cleveland, OH", the weirdo romantic comedy sketch show that Luke co-wrote, only has three performances left, and this is one of them! (Plus, this month it's paired with a parody of A Chorus Line!) Get your tix today!
Other Humorous Writing News
This piece in The New York Times, "Satire or Deceit? Christian Humor Site Feuds With Snopes," is another strange case study of the collisions between satire and social media.
News About The Next Show
Our next show is coming up at Caveat (21 A Clinton Street) on August 15th! We're going to have a hangout starting at 6:30, and then the show following at 7:30.
We've got three fantastic guests:
- Django Gold (The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, The Onion, @django)
- Kathleen O'Mara (McSweeney's, The Magnet, Little Old Lady, @omararules)
- Charu Sinha (McSweeney's, The Belladonna, The Rumpus, A Great Week For Women, @charulatasinha)
Get your tickets here and invite your pals! It's going to be a blast!
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!