United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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contributors pen the book reviews, with more or less pleasing results, depending, oddly enough, upon whether or not you have read the book. What appear to be objective, and certainly clever, summaries are to be found in the Letters from various foreign and American points. Regular correspondents include one Genet and Mollie Panter-Downes, who customarily haunt Paris and London, respectively. The Reporters At Large series turn this objectivity upon human interest stories, often with an innocent¬ appearing tendency to satirize that type. To anyone desirous of improving their conversa¬ tions with references, say, to the recent James Joyce exhibition in Paris, these reports and letters are just the thing. In fact, I’m saving up that particular one to use on Prof. Hallstead. For cartoons the New Yorker is unbeatable. Steinberg’s naive style and Whitney Darrow’s peculiar form of humor are sheer art. (At one time I considered movies and radio arts, too). And the reprints of bits from other publica¬ tions, plus comment, is another New Yorker special which fails to pall, unlike its imitators. A sweeping criticism of the short stories is of course the only possible kind, a fact which probably saves me from making an utter fool of myself. The stories are inconsistent in their quality, but usually provide sufficiently good reading. There, that’s safe enough. Finally, a word to anyone wishing to read the New Yorker despite. If you cannot afford to purchase one, drop by the Winnipeg Book Store any Friday afternoon and borrow Prof. Hallstead’s copy, which he usually neglects picking up till Saturday. COMPLIMENTS OF S’taUauDS’mtlGti). Manufacturers of fine clothing WINNIPEG CANADA 33 234 TWO PHONES 235 UNITED TAXI ALL PASSENGERS INSURED WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS COUNTRY TRIPS PROMPT SERVICE 479 Portage Avenue West of the Mall CAREFUL DRIVERS Page Twenty-three

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Eulogy to the New Yorker By Lorne Wallace rFHE New Yorker is a magazine printed in N.Y. for N.Y.’ers, and only a limited num¬ ber of copies are available in less civilized re¬ gions. That it should be discussed in Vox is per¬ haps questionable, but our editors are some¬ what short of material. On second thought, if you read this I shall be very much surprised. As to the general quality of the New Yorker — why, it is pretty fine (for an American maga¬ zine, of course). The cartoons are excellent, and there are satirical comments on LIFE, and some articles and short stories and reviews to satisfy the less healthy readers. Every other page or so, there are little drawings by the editor’s seven-year-old, which lend a sophisti¬ cated atmosphere. And just about as much ad¬ vertising as you can read is included in every issue. For those Winnipeggers who follow the national habit in berating their own lot, a calen¬ Your Bank Book is the mirror of your future THE ROYAL BANK OF CANADA dar of goings-on in New York (where night¬ clubs are open on Sunday) can be found each week. Probably the best-known features of the New Yorker is the humorous article, and James Thurber is its leading exponent. His work has a delicacy of touch, a satirical shrewdness — well, anybody who saw the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, starring Danny Kaye, knows what I mean. Indeed one critic has ex¬ citedly compared Thubber to Stephen Leacock. Hmm. However, since Mr. Thurber seems to write only under personal financial pressure, his place is usually filled by several shadows who are paid less per article. Talk of the Town, a department whose middle-brow replica s are labelled Pot-Pourri or In the Editors’ Confidence, contains observa¬ tions upon current affairs, written in a style which is light-hearted and witty. Unless one happens to be greatly concerned about N.Y.’s heavy snowfall or the city’s water shortage, however, it is apt to prove rather heavy going, and somewhat dry. The same criticism, that they are limited in appeal, can be applied to several of the regular columns, including sports by the talented John Lardner, who should know better. Four of the New Yorker’s feature reviews are well worth the price of the magazine, which, for you literally minded, is twenty-five cents. And probably the reviewers receive even more than thau Wolcott Gibbs, theatrical critic, though often flirting with downright flippancy, is customarily refreshing. Crowded by adver¬ tising into a couple of columns, John McCarten is frank and discerning in his criticism of films, and constitutes a welcome relief for anyone accustomed to Frank Morriss’s effeminacy or Gilmour’s brand of the aside. For CBC listen¬ ers to the Met and the Philharmonic, Winthrop Sargeant holds some interest, though one often receives the impression that New York is as musically barren as Winnipeg seems to have been in that dark pre-Symphony age. Various Page Twenty-two

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Fortune’s Fool Herbert V. Friesen “T OOK, Oswald, you know the rules. No one gets into the club without a rejection slip. Now run along and try a little harder. Maybe next time.” Oswald pushed back a dangling orange- colored hank of hair with resignation, and ad¬ justed his bi-focals for one last attempt. “Well, I—I’m sure my last story was good enough to me ...” “Run along, Ozzie,” interrupted the cruel angel guarding the gates to Paradise. Oswald turned and dropped out of the yard. With increasing distance from the club house, his stifled emotions slowly grew into frustrated anger. In fact a rather dirty personality bared itself as 1 he approached the bus stop, elbowing aside worn-out old women and little children. Once aboard the bus, he strode the length of it like the Grim Reaper, leaving a harvest of bruised shins and indignant squeals of pain in his wake. “I’ve tried as hard as any of them,” he brooded. His face gradually turned a purplish hue as he recalled the short stories and novels he had submitted by the bale to the publisher, but which had all been returned in th e next mail with such comments as ‘Must be type¬ written’, ‘Must be double-spaced’ and ‘Must have a plot’. Not once, however, had they the grace to send a formal rejection slip. It was the rejection slip that actually bother¬ ed him, for without it he had no hope of joining the Unappreciated Writers’ Group of 1950, whose sole qualification for acceptance was at least one rejection slip. By the time he arrived at his home, his head was seething with wild thoughts, and he stared balefully at the bus conductor as he alighted from the bus. “Oh Hello, Oswald,” carolled his mother. “Come say hello to Mrs. Jones-Worthington.” “I think you’re growing more every day, Oswald dear,” said Mrs. Jones-Worthington sweetly. “And do you still write those cute stories?” “Oswald’s growing out of that stage now, Bess,” replied the mother. “He criticizes books and plays and things. Why, just last week he wrote a tremendously good thing on Shakes¬ peare, or was it Hamlet. . oh yes, it was Hamlet. And it was so good. Tell Mrs. Jones-Worthing¬ ton what you wrote, dear. You know, he seems to analyze everything so well. Of course I read Hamlet when I was going to school, but that was a long time ago .. . well, of course it wasn’t really that long ago . . . but anyway I didn’t notice half the things Oswald did. You know where that old . . . what’s his name . . . that old Pnewmonious ... no, what was his name, Oswald?” “Polonius,” grumped Oswald. “Yes, Polonius, surprising how you forget those things, but then as I said before I’ve been out of school so long, no I didn’t say that either . . . well anyway, you remember how Polonius met Hamlet in the hall and asked him what he was reading? If you haven’t read Hamlet you won’t remember, naturally, but nowadays everybody seems to have read Hamlet. But Polonius asks him what he is reading, and he says ‘Words, words, words’. Well, Oswald just proved that Hamlet had a terrible affliction, he stammered, and he was really trying to say ‘Wordsworth’. I told Bill about it, because Page Twenty-four