JESTER'S BELLS FAIL TO TINKLE AS LAMPY NAPS

The following review of the current number of the Lampoon was written especially for the Crimson by a member of the senior class at Radcliffe College, who does not wish to disclose her identity and signs herself Alma Vera Soror '27.

Lampy's sprightly jester grew tired the other night. His bells lost their occasional merry tinkle. His tongue refused to shape glowing, satirical, malicious phrases. Lampy laid himself down upon his not too smooth bed of humor, imbibed a long draught of sleeping powders, we presume, for nothing else could possibly soothe the torpid vapors of his mind. He pulled the too heavy coverlets of subdued intellect about his ears, and set the clock ticking backwards.

Recent close association with the efforts of famous men had somewhat addled his brain. He did not realize that clocks do not run backwards smoothly. And so his glorious historical pageant merely peeps groggily from behind the swinging pendulum. We catch a fleeting glimpse of Arthur's nightshirt and Cyrano's nose, but they are distorted to no effect. Yet Lampy slumbers on. He snores. He wheezes. The shades of the past present themselves in a villianous, not to say poisonous, gallimafray.

A merry ditty on the hunt introduces us to the Hall of Fame, which is unfortunate in itself because the lead is not characteristic, and the rhyme scheme, borrowed from the "Night Before Christmas" (we suppose with apologies to Santa Claus) lacks ingenuity. This is the first vision in Lampy's nightmare. We turn the page and the inconsistency staggers us. Herman's wife, William Tell, Cyrano de Bergerac and something indelicate about women undressing in newspaper headlines, poke the spectator feebly in the ribs but no responsive laugh comes forth, because there is no sense of reality.

The past and the present do not mingle gracefully. The present is too red-blooded. And so we see a dismal parody of Kipling, a delectable burlesque of Oscar Wilde, and a really amusing, if somewhat overdone, page of history with undergraduate notations, push a bit of Chaucer and a rather dull ballad of a questionable source, from the center of the stage. Now Lampy does not snore so loudly. He knows the present best. But Pity of Pities! The clock ticking backwards leads his mind down into chaotic, confused imaginings. We find Diogenes in a humorous vein. Descartes would die all over again, and probably has, at the incoherent paragraph written in his honor. Shades of his Mathematical System!

As for the literature, it is entirely out of keeping with the idea of the Hall of Fame. What else could one expect from a tired jester under the influence of a bad nightmare? We choose to disregard this absolutely.

Finally, Lampy has one brilliant vision--Great Caesar's Ghost! It is by far the best and cleverest in the whole magazine. (Fame for the angel who then hovered over Lampy's dull bed.) Next, we should place the bit of sparkling by-play between Boccacio and Shakespeare. Next, we should place the delightful extract from a disciple of Carl Sandburg. From these three elections, you see the present holds the rubber, and Lampy's costume party is not a success.

We realize that after all, humor is limited and minds even of jesters will grow tired. But may we offer a suggestion? It is not wise to make a clock tick backwards. The past cannot be idly conjured up. It would be better, perhaps, to reiterate time-worn subjects, and to wring out mirth from the present at the expense of other colleges, cities, and societies, than to revert to the past, and bring to light only stuffed caricatures.

We shake our heads over the prostrate form of a weary jester. Next month, perhaps, he will not have recourse to sleeping powders. Perhaps his humor will be spontaneous and fresh--perhaps Spring will offer prolific inspirations, for Cambridge Common is not so boundless