“Carnival Week in Sunny Las Los” (E70)

• Originally printed: DAC News, November 1929
• First reprinted: The Treasurer’s Report; And Other Aspects of Community Singing  
• Original Byline:  Robert C. Benchley; Drawings by Gluyas Williams

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Comments:

No cause for celebration here! This one is best avoided unless you’re engaged in a bibliographic undertaking of your own. Of course, it’s never wise to confuse a fictional persona with the author of a piece, but even if you interpret “Carnival Week in Sunny Las Los” as an implicit critique of this callow WASP vacationer’s ethnocentrism and horror of “southern Europeans”, all you get is a string of rancid olfactory gags that, in the words of Benchley’s New England forebear Roger Williams, “stink in God’s nostrils”.

The essay does demonstrate, if this was ever in doubt, that Benchley’s unique sense of whimsey depends heavily upon the context it careens through. As a humorist, he is at his best when he can take two-sided shots at both the little man and his modern American world. Transplant that same suburban stumblebum to the Pyrenees and his qualms and reservations become the barbs and prejudices of a dollar-wielding bully. We’ve examined the perils of this mode before – see “A Brief Study of Dendrophilism” (E60) – but here it finally drags Benchley down to the level of a one-owl rating.

Favorite Moment:

Europe has often claimed that Las Los was not part of it, and in 1356 Spain began a long and costly war with France, the loser to take Las Los and two outfielders.

Reprint Notes:

• First and third Williams illustrations missing (why on Earth did they leave out the drawing of Benchley and the bull!? It’s the only fun thing about this essay.)