The Lampoon

The current issue of the Lampoon has touches of pathos, murkiness, and banality; everything, in fact, except humor. Except for the traditional introductory poem there is almost nothing in the issue written with a gloss of genuine with, a bad state of affairs for what is ostensibly a humour magazine. Perhaps its crusading editors, saddened by the results of the recent elections, decided that frivolity would be out of place in the November issue; at any rate the whole magazine has a decidedly sombre tone.

Douglas Bunce's brightly-drawn cover may fool some readers as to the true nature of the 'Poon this month, but the first story in the issue should dispell all naive notions. Titled "Enlightenment," its only virtue is John Updike's ability to catch the subtle pomposities of faculty conversations. As a story or essay it is inscrutable, and one puzzles as to how it worked its way into the pages of the 'Poon.

The afore-mentioned introductory poem by Harry Ziegler is followed by a long, exaggerated satire on the admissions policy of the Harvard Hygiene department. Charles Osborne is one of the magazine's best writers, and when one of the characters remarks, "We here at Hygiene are dedicated to the belief that medicine, since the eighteenth century, has gone soft--needs a shot in the arm," his satire is effective. Most of the story, however, is too grossly ludicrous to have much impact.

A pierce by John Limpert picture the death of Harvard in 1958 when a proud, but poverty-stricken University rejects an offer of $5 million on the condition that it must build "a non-sectarian chapel for the Worship of Money." This single idea is a basically funny one, but the story fails because it has no present-day point of departure. It is written as a satire, but it is impossible to tell of what.

Another short poem by Ziegler--who does very well at this--and a well-written but tedious account of a fox hunt from the fox's eyes lead the reader to the last two stories, both of which are rather mis-begotten efforts. One is about a dour Maine lobsterman who waits patiently for his father's death to be willed his fishing boat only to have the will leave the boat's engine to his uncle. This is hardly an intrinsically amusing situation.