A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #99
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
For August 8-14, 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. As you may have noticed from the subject line, this is the 99th issue of the newsletter, which (if our math is correct) means that next week's is our 100th! First off, to our longtime readers, thanks for hanging with us for the past 100 weeks. And second, to everyone, here's to the next 100! In service of making those next 100 as humorous as possible, we have a short survey we'd love for you to fill out--just a few questions about the pieces and writers you like, and how we can showcase them in newsletters to come.
What We Enjoyed This Week
Recent Articles of Mine by Jack Handey (New Yorker) Jack Handey is a master craftsman, and this piece is a great example as to why. While most short, list pieces tend to be collections of jokes loosely connected under a central theme, Handey uses his list to tell a complete story. And the form, rather than being a detriment, makes the narrative that much funnier. The staccato pacing adds a certain speed and rhythm, which reflects the narrator's personality--the high-status idiot that is befuddled by the whole situation.
Playbill Bios for the Cast of Your Recurring High School Nightmare by Sarah Garfinkel (The Belladonna) A standby of humor pieces is the ability to mimic (and heighten!) voice. It's why, for instance, the Onion is still going strong today. In that vein, Garfinkel's piece does a fantastic job of taking a hyper-specific style of writing and using it to ground her jokes.
5 Moments at Grandpa's Funeral That Were, In Retrospect, The Wrong Time to Set Up My LuLaRoe Pop Up by Laura Schwein (Points in Case) With a title like this, you know a piece is going to be good. There's a great history of humor pieces of narrators looking back to explain why "what happened" really wasn't "their fault." In fact, that's the basic idea behind the Handey piece. Here, we have a ridiculous situation from the get-go, and the logic, as it were, continues throughout.
Mysteries Involving the Rich and Powerful by Nick Hornedo (Points in Case) Hornedo does a great job of using structure to helps jokes land--the "Wow, I didn't see that coming!" point of view illuminates the real idea behind the piece: that we live in a capitalist hellscape and that life is, ultimately, meaningless.
Reminder!
Please fill out our survey! We want to hear from you. We are very lonely.
An Old Favorite
We Do Our Own Little Take on Ketchup by Seth Reiss (New Yorker)
You can always tell a Seth Reiss piece by how quickly it goes from "standard" to "absolutely bonkers." Other things to recognize: A hint of malice in the narrator's voice; expert pacing; and cultural references that you never would have thought of, but which, when you think about it, make perfect sense given the context. That all of these things, and more, exist in a piece that makes fun of something so mundane is what takes this to the next level.
Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show
"You Can't Spell Love Without Cleveland, OH", the weirdo romantic comedy sketch show that Luke co-wrote, is tomorrow night at the UCB Theater in Hell's Kitchen at 7:30! If you can't make it then, there are only two performances left after that on 9/5/19 and 9/23/15, both at 9PM. So get yer tix now!
Our friends at Slackjaw are putting together a humor writing challenge, and there's $2,000 in cash prizes. We know the ideas of "writing humor" and "getting paid" don't often go together, so be sure to check this one out.
If you're in Austin, Texas, be sure to check out Worded Funny on August 22nd. It's a humor reading show (which we love around here) hosted by Alex Baia, of Slackjaw editorial fame, Erica Lies, and Shruti Saran and featuring Wendi Aarons, Owen Egerton, and more!
News About The Next Show: It's Tonight!
We can't wait to see everyone at the show tonight! We'll start hanging out at Caveat (21 A Clinton Street) at 6:30, with the show to start at 7:30, with readings from:
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Django Gold (The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, The Onion, @django)
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Kathleen O'Mara (McSweeney's, The Magnet, Little Old Lady, @omararules)
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Charu Sinha (McSweeney's, The Belladonna, The Rumpus, A Great Week For Women, @charulatasinha)
See you tonight!
@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!