Word: poon
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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John Updike once again has done most of the literacy and art work for the 'Poon, and while his writing is clear and witty as usual, mass production seems to have dulled his choice of material. One poem treats the case of the intellectual whose appreciation of literature has one fatal crack--an inability to appreciate Pogo. This sort of thing has been written in the past about Chaplin, Mickey Mouse, and Li'l Abner. It is hardly an exciting theme, but Updike treats it quite as well as anyone has in the past. Far better is his theme-poem...
...such luck befell the swift Crimson eight which, sleepless from a night of meticulous proofreading, after the nine tussle was forced to row the Olympic half-mile sprint course on a wind-whipped Charles against a tenman 'Poon shell, powered by a small auxiliary marine engine imported from Japan...
...editors' eight ran into its first bad break when its number three man doubled up a scant five strokes from the start with acute gastroenteritis and was forced to take the emergency measure of swallowing his oar. Undaunted, the scribes retained their commanding lead over the fast stroking 'Poon, but adversity struck the editors once again when a species of highleaping truot sprang from the river and into the lap of the Crimson cox, temporarily blinding...
When the editors ha dpried their boat from the rocks and dismantled the breeches buoy, the 'Poon had picked up a commanding lead, but ignoring the water now lapping into their boat, the surviving editors raised their stroke to an unprecedented 12, and had once again caught the 'Poon when, passing beneath the Weeks bridge, the shell was struck and sunk by a would-be suicide, finally allowing the 'Poon to win by a mere two lengths over the 23-cable-length course...
Osborne has another story in the issue Sensible Things a piece which straddles the line between comedy and serious fiction a third category of 'Poon Writing. Osborne describes a young husband's first contact with infidelity and again the story is well written. It fails however in a jarring ending where Osborne shoves his hero into an action inconsistent with the character he has built up to that point...