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Monday, October 20, 1941
Defunct?
“SCW shows every sign of being THE successor to Babcock,” sez Wma. Successor, indeed! I refuse to be killed off that easily. Uncle Sam may have shanghaied me for 30 months (or so…?) but I’m not among the missing yet – as this paper testifies.
To Lois Grimes, who was “exotic and stunning in a high-necked Oriental gown”:
Three months in the Army leave one all the more in favor of bathing suits and low-necked gowns. You know, until recently I never cared much for the neck of a chicken; but now… almost any chicken with a neck will do – alive and preferably boiled or fried. I died a lingering death last week when Dinah Shore left the stage of our Fort Bragg cinema after singing three songs for the boys. She was gorgeous. And then to walk out alone into the night – into the light of a full Carolina moon! You and your high-necked gowns!
How do I like the Army? ‘S wonderful! Perfectly marvelous! Just like a breadline – we spend more time waiting in chow lines (and waiting for everything else) than we do eating. It may be invaluable training, even so, considering what business conditions may be when our sentence ends. But don’t tell me your troubles, Mac; I like the Army.
The Coles are grand friends, perfect hosts. EHC has a dandy printshop. Yet even that didn’t stop me from acquiring a fiancee May 5 last. August 16 was set as The Fatal Day. Then the Draft Board wrote: “Bud, you’re working too hard you need a rest.” So Uncle Sam shipped me off to North Carolina on an extended all-expense vacation where I broiled all summer on the defense version of the WPA (we piddle along). Personally I think ‘t was rushing things a bit, for the social season thereabouts (Pinehurst and Southern Pines are only 10 miles west of Ft. Bragg) doesn’t start till mid-September. So here I am, still innocently single, and howdya like that?
Greetings to Sir Miguel
by Burton Crane
No one can say truthfully that the new Bavardage is an improvement on the old, or the reverse. This is an entirely new paper, with a new and more robust personality. Somewhere in the transition the gentle, philosophical rambling of Charley Parker has been lost. In its place we have a grand but sadly inaccurate paper. Imagine describing the staid and sober Crane as an erratic genius and that old china shop bull as “Cole the cautious reckoner.” Some day I may decide to sue.
“Bricks Through the Front Window”
Chapin is entirely correct in saying, “Editing and printing are not synonymous….” That’s all the more reason for having both editorial and printing laureateships.
But when he admits, “we were judging nothing more or less than editorials on the basis of newsy well written items beyond the scope of childish prattle, void of all slams and funny stuff…” he shows his abysmal ignorance of the NAPA constitution, which requires:
[Art. XI Sec. IV] “The editorial laureateship shall be conferred on the active member who… has shown the highest ability in the work of editing and publishing….”
Not editorials alone, but editing and publishing.
Classified Advertisements
LOST – A President. Finder please wrap carefully in copies of the monthly Brooklyn Sun. Never mind returning. NAPA
NOTICE – Unless SCW relents and prints credentials in his cooperative paper regardless of their quality, I’m going to sic Dunlap on him. Crane
FOUND – Where Crane keeps his hyphens. RB
PERSONAL – LJ: All is forgiven. Please come home. We guess we can stand glamour if we hafta. But pa-leeze hurry. Willametta is being cold to us and we’re afraid she’s gonna form another committee with Dunlap. RLS WHG SCW
Manners
by Burton Crane
Success? Oh, yes!
He’s going places,
Stepping on faces,
Trading on friendship, picking others’ brains,
Looking on life with predatory eyes.
He’ll get there, if he doesn’t end in chains –
No one has taught him to apologize.
Sucess? Oh, yes!
Look what he’s done
For Number One:
Knifing the trusting, living easy lies,
Proving that Love is just a sucker, too.
He’ll get there. That’s the type that’s sure to rise –
No one has taught him to say, “After you.”
Once again I sigh and wonder why official convention minutes in The National Amateur must be such stuffy stuff. Can’t you imagine Willametta, Wesson or Burton Crane in charge of writing the minutes at New York next year? That would make history.
Here endeth another of Ralph Babcock’s Moments, the sixth Weaker one, in fact. Perpetrated with the assistance of Burton Crane and his Bilious Bull-Press, on the second day of RB’s first furlough, Address, Great Neck, N. Y., until further notice.