letters
to the
entertainment
editor
Sirs:
Your father is the butcher. Your mother cuts the meat.
And you're the little wienie That runs out in the street.
Yours,
Paul Peterson
P.S. Tel! Carl Betz Hi.
Dear Sir:
The truth will o-jt. And this time it did. Too bad you
didn't have the chutzpah to print it. .
Sincerely,
Sol Einstein
Sir: .
I didn't even have to go down to the Administration
Building to see Willie McCarty's 3-D sculptures. I could tell
right away who that one was. It was Meg Greene. I could
recognize her bazongas anywhere.
Yours till Niagra Fallls,
Meatloaf
Sirs:
One night I was sitting here thinking about how much
better the world would be if everyone would just try to
relate to everyone else. I mean, can you dig how beautiful it
would be if people just opened up and loved one another.
So I thought I'd tell you some of my fantasies. My best one
is I'm driving out into the country and my little roadster
breaks down. So I'm standing there with my back to the
pond. MY BACK TO THE PONDI Then this giant frog
comes out of the water and rapes me. Now let's hear one of
yours.
Yours in Truth,
Ralph Bunche
Dear Sir:
We are holding Willie McCarty's busts. You know, those
3-D things he left out on the college lawn. Yeah, that's
them. Well, if you want them back, call off the fuzz, and
we'll give you back two of them. But we're keeping the one
of Meg Greene. Yeah, we knew it was her all along. We
could recognize her culminating casabas (if you get our
meaning) anywhere.
Signed,
' The Zambianese Libation
Army starring Captain
Admen, j
Summer Penney's plot weak;
t -
(don't miss Women's Apparel')
Books by Beef Landgrin
Summer 1974, the Penney's Catalog. J.C.
Penney Co., Inc.
We had planned to devote this space to a
close look at the mammoth spring catalog, the
colossal paperback masterpiece everyone is so
fond of. But the truth is (and I announce the
truth with mixed emotions), the 1,000-page
behemoth is sold out, er, given out. Not even a
reviewer's copy is to be found in Lincoln.
However, there are copies available of a
lesser volume, the summer edition. It's not so
cumbersome as the spring number, though
comparably priced, and it may be a better book
generally. It may be a better book, but it isn't.
The new Penney's will be panned by some
critics for the looseness of the plot, which
seems, sometimes, to border on confusion. But
Summer 1974, it must be remembered, is a
book about American capitalism and in that
context, it isn't bad. Doesn't capitalism, after
all, seem a little confused sometimes?
beef land
Gf in
But to the book. Chapter 1, "Women's
Apparei," obviously is calculated to draw the
reader into the book. Frail, underfed,
multiracial models pose, stiff-limbed and
overpaid, in all manner of shorts, slacks, and
peda! pushers.
The theme of Chapter 1 is "Make This a
Standout Summer" and if these darlings can't
make this summer precisely that, God help us.
(The good parts, guys, are these: swimwear,
payes 8-15; dainty underthings, pages 81-86.
And also, because I know there are a few of
you out there: shoes, pages 67-75.)
Chapter 2, "Outdoor Summer Stuff," is
mercifully short, cunningly des'igned to develop
tension fur the latter half of the volume. The
main characters in this pastoral drama are
swings, swimming pools and lawn mowers. The
measured prose ("Fast electric key-start" and
the delightful "Keep pools clean") fairly
crackles with tension. I knew something big was
in store.
And there it is, the best darned Index in
modern cataloging, right in the middle of the
book. So concise and well-designed, it occupies
a mere 23 of page 100, it hardly needs the
Order Blank next to it on page 101. That the
Order Blank is there is a tribute to the editor's
skill: anywhere else it wouldn't have nearly the
power it has.
Chapter 3, "Housewares," is a complex
tapestry of chairs and lamps, but it's certainly
the weakest part of the book. Aside from the
chairs being at least two years behind what
people actually are sitting 'on, bicycles are
unaccountably in the middle of the chapter.
Bicycles, it seems to me, belong in "Outdoor
Summer. Stuff." They are housewares only in
the larger homes.
The last fourth of the book is hard to
define. It moves haltingly from "Little Girls'
Clothes" to "Little Boys' Clothes," then wraps
up with the disappointing "Men's Clothes."
I probably understand "Men's Clothes"
Better than J understand anything in Penney's
new book, arid I don't understand them very
well at all. Where are the blue jeans, the cleverly
captioned t-shirts, the cowboy boots? Tennis
shoes are on the back page, a bad place because
little brothers always rip the backpage to shreds
and eat it. None of the guys wearing the clothes
have beards or long hair, and none of them look
at ail like they'd be fun to drink beer with.
Summer, 1974 doesn't raise ' any hard
philosophical questions and maybe couldn't
handle them if it did. The plot needs some
tightening up, but the prose is adequate and the
color is good, something you don't find in
many novels these days. Most of the models are
pretty average, but there's a blond on page 65
who's something else. Summing up, Summer,
1974 isn't nearly as bad as it could be, but it's
certainly not going to make the splash the
spring edition did.
LEADING IMPORT
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Due to renovation of the main bookstore,
all summer textbooks will be carried
in the Freshman Bookstore.
pn(jt
Lower Lcvoi
Ly Vid L u
llobroikcs Union'
frid.jy, may 3, 1974
daily ncbraskan
pa i)o 13
