The latest issue of the Lampoon--the Christmas issue, I suppose--resembles a rather thin, but well-cared-for child. For once there is nothing really bad in it, and there are several instances of genuine humor. It is a correctly-balanced issue, with the proper proportions of verse, story, and cartoon. Although the contributors to this Lampoon do not always succeed in being funny, they at least appear to have tried.

The magazine lives up to its name in its main feature, "Our Mighty Old Cosmos," a parody of Life's recent unlocking of the secrets of creation. Though not particularly subtle, John Updike's lampoon hits Life in its soft underbelly of complacency, and at its breathless wonder at the scope of its own accomplishments. The text of the parody, while not particularly applicable to the article in question, is a clever-enough adaptation of Time-style: "Earth then (156 billion B.C.) was barren, cold, lonely, dull." On the whole the satire is a clever idea, competently done.

Another solid point about the 'Poon is its light verse. In this issue Updike's contributions are outstanding, but Henry Ziegler, although not at his best, has also written some amusing verse. The cartoons are not particularly funny; they are to a marked degree unsuccessful attempts to duplicate Addams' sense of the weird and unexpected.

The Lampoon's stories are at best nondescript. They are all carefully and elaborately built around a single, and not particularly amusing, gimmick. They contain too few bits of inspired phrasing or deft writing, and they die slowly of their own weight. On the brighter side of the 'Poon's prose efforts are Satires on the Boston newspapers and the Saturday Evening Post. They are short and lightly written.

The traditional Blot-Jester dialogue this time finds the Lampoon in uneasy editorial agreement with the CRIMSON concerning the new parietal rules. As the Jester says, "Well, they've decided to let you have them in your rooms from eight to eleven Saturday night, when everyone who has any sense is in the Ritz Bar anyway, and not to have them there at all in the afternoons, which is the only time you can copy their Fine Arts papers..."

I have one quibble with the Lampoon which concerns a story titled "O.D. Christmas," signed by one "CBW." There is no CBW visible on the 'Poon's masthead these days, but avid followers of the magazine like myself will remember a Clement B. Wood who enhanced the magazine's pages in the Good Old Days of '47, '48, and '49. Perhaps he has sent in some new material to revive a lagging Lamphoom, but I doubt it. If the story is a re-print, and I rather think it is, the Lamphoom has an obligation to its readers to so identify it.