The Lampoon

Lampoon material usually falls into four types of humor and each is represented in the current issue. The first is the "technique of thrusting the unnatural into the natural situation." In this group are Eric Wernt worth's High Water and Dick Elwell's The Man Who Saved the World. Wentworth begins with a fairly commonplace event a spring flood. What make this deluge different is the appearance of an eighteenth century English ship which is looking for the Northwest Passage. The flood releases the ship from a sandbar and it floats into a town crew and all. I think Wentworth has gone much too far here. There is nothing at all funny about an eighteenth century ship; in fact the idea immediately suggests ghosts a possibility Wentworth never even mentions. His crew merely abandons ship purchases and old truck and heads for the Northwest Passage via route twenty leaving the reader unamused and quite puzzled.

Elwell's story isn't strictly a "natural unnatural" type since it rests on a flimsy device a dream which the reader will immediately suspect. The "it was all a dream" explanation has long outlived its usefulness to authors and it leaves one extremely unsatisfied with the feeling of having been duped.

Charles Osborne's Dry Comb the entry in the second group is far more successful. Osborne employs the "beating the system" technique used to great advantage by Stephen Potter. The trick here is to discover a way of showing one's superiority over either people or institutions. Osborne has picked on the barbers. Like many others he dislikes the conversation that inevitably accompanies a haircut. His method of silencing barbers is both amusing and plausible.

Osborne has another story in the issue Sensible Things a piece which straddles the line between comedy and serious fiction a third category of 'Poon Writing. Osborne describes a young husband's first contact with infidelity and again the story is well written. It fails however in a jarring ending where Osborne shoves his hero into an action inconsistent with the character he has built up to that point.

The final two stories represent the most obvious and most used type of humor distortion of events or other literature. Norman Pettit's Island Sunset is. I think a satire on Hemingway's style. Petit uses the same short action packed sentences to build and atmosphere which would not be out of place in a Hemingway work. It is however very easy to imitate Hemingway's style without touching his character and plot development and that is all Pettit has done.

Charles Flood's fantasy is a much more skillful job. Starting with an item in the CRIMSON'S Notice Column, which threatens absentee glee club members with drastic action," he sees a glee club police carrying off a negligent member. Flood has a talent for picturing undergraduates wryly. For this reason a Harvard audience ought to enjoy the story.

Fitzgerald's gay cover heads the issues art work. Charles Robinson's two full page drawings represent good ideas, but are cluttered and often fail to place the center of action where it should be for the maximum effect. On the other hand John Up likes sketches are perfectly balanced and amusingly drawn. An editorial on college weekends is also excellent.