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University Daily Kansan
Thursday, May 5. 1952
Tickle My Ribs, Son
If This Is Humorous We'll Take Vanilla
If you think the folks would disapprove of the current issue of the Jayhawker what do you suppose they would think of any issue of the Sour Owl?
Not that it matters to me what anyone's folks would think, because I'm not objecting to the magazine on moral grounds. My reasons are more practical. I think it's a waste of time and money and a sad reflection on the stage of our campus.
Let's examine the Owl systematically.
Let's examine the Owl systematically. The cover isn't bad. It portrays some trees, a fence, and on the fence a funny-looking brassiere, some polka-dotted men's shorts, a pair of men's pants and a shirt. It's spring and such things are only natural.
The inside cover has a letter from someone named Elizabeth who is writing her folks to tell them she is following the example of the couple on the cover. Page 4 and 5 have a story about "CRAP," and it couldn't have been more aptly named.
I didn't bother to read pages 6 and 7 except for the cartoons, which are badly drawn and not funny anyway. Page 8 has jokes which I'll deal with later. Page 9 is a picture of what is. I suppose, an inebriated female. Most college girls are too conscious of their reputations and their sorority pins ever to be seen in such condition.
Pages 10 and 11 are a hodge-podge of short stories and more jokes. Pages 12 and 13 have more jokes and a story called "Steve Wolfboy" about somebody of that name and someone called Lorelie Killjoy. I'm not clear what it was all about, but then I don't imagine the author was either.
imagine the author was either More jokes on 16 and a questionnaire supposedly from Marriage and Family class which seems to prove that someone likes to play with a yo-yo.
Page 17 is a learned dissertation on how to take notes and page 18 simply says, "Women! Do you need MONEY?" As a college girl who has waited tables for three years to put herself through school the answer is, "Yes."
More jokes and on page 20 a badly taken pin-up picture of a girl with a chest. The headless pin-up on 23 is really much better.
The jokes contained in this volume can be dispensed with easily. They fall in three categories copied from three sources. (A) a few are funny (b) with practically no exceptions they are dirty and (c) almost all of them are bad. As to the source (a) they are taken from some ancient joke book (b) from another college magazine of the same calibre or (c) I've heard them before.
If the Sour Owl is intended to reflect college humor, then what is college coming to? The only spark of originality in the whole thing is the short stories, and they try so hard to be funny they sound like a badly done high school version of "The Philadelphia Story."
It is logical to suppose that college students should develop some standards of good taste—even of good humor. It seems, however, if the Owl is any criteria, that, like morons, they will laugh at anything. —Margot Baker
For some weeks past the library has been exhibiting a large collection of censored, banned, and burned books designed to trace the history of that political and social institution.
To the Editor:
Letters
The second day a lurid, cheap magazine named Censored—on exhibition to show the way in which dull matters become attractive when they are so labeled—was stolen. Several days later a similar magazine, named Suppressed, was stolen.
These two thefts at least proved the point we tried to make.
Now, however, a third theft has occurred. There are on exhibition copies of a correspondence between a California book dealer and the United States post office concerning the refusal of the latter to allow a copy of an English translation or Aristophanes' Lysistrata imported from England to that transported to S. Africa. (The book has since capitulated—immediately previous to a court suit—and has delivered the book.)
Sometimes last Friday this copy of Lysistrata was stolen.
A copy of another English translation of the play was in a plastic case stapped to the board together with the correspondence.
We instruct this was either a thoughtless prank, or a work of mean, selfish vandalism, or the work of a person inspired with a commendable passion to read Lysistrata—a passion so great the thief could not spare the two minutes necessary to check out another copy from the library—or a case of unilateral censorship.
The first three possible explanations require no comment from the library, but perhaps some students may care to think about them. The fourth possibility, however, shows, if the correct one, that books do have unknown powers to stimulate thought and behavior—in this case irritating a social behavior. We are reminded, further, of a parallel situation earlier this year when almost all the copies of a psychological text were illegally taken from the reserve book room by a few cruel students, thus preventing other members of their class from doing their assigned tasks.
The book is worth about $2.00.
We have to buy another copy—money which otherwise could be spent on a book we need but don't have. In this case, however, the library is willing to trade the book for an anonymous letter from the
'Quill,' an Example Of Good 'Hill' Reading
I just finished reading, from cover to cover, the spring issue of Quill, the official publication of the Quill club at KU. The little magazine contains 30 pages of short stories, anecdotes, and poems contributed by students and members of the faculty. All of the material, though not of equal calibre, is readable and some of the stories and poems rank with the material to be found in the slick paper women's magazines such as Mademoiselle and Seventeen.
This is not to suggest that the writing is either juvenile or directed to women only, but both these magazines tend to use material geared to young tastes and often the stories have a collegiate flavor.
The stories in the current issue of Quill reflect the tensions and insecurities that young people frequently experience. One of the best, "The Wheel and the Cog." by Marcia Fullmer, is a perceptive study of the quiet girl with little high school dating experience who seeks to make the right impression on "Joe College." "Joe" is a loud-mouther, obnoxious character, and the girl is torn between the desire to be pleasing to him and her own better instincts to loathe him. -Margot Baker
thief explaining his reasons. This would enable us to see if anyone of our four theories is correct, thus providing a small contribution to knowledge.
Yours truly.
Joseph Rubinstein Supervising Bibliographer or Special Collections.
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Daily Hansan
University of Kansas Student Newspaper
News Room, KU 251 Ad Room, KU 376
Member of the Inland Daily Press association, Associated Collegiate Press association. Represented by the National Advertising service, 429 Madison ave. N.Y. Mailing subscription rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 a year (add $1 a semester if in Lawrence). Published at Lawrence, Kans., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays and examination periods. Entered as second class matter, Sept. 17, 1918, Kans., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
1.
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