“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.)

“The Bridge of Don Gene’s Nose” (E57)

Originally printed: The Bookman, October 1928
First reprinted in: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; or, David Copperfield (1928)
Original Byline: Robert Benchley

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Comments:

A slight piece occasioned by a trio of 1928 pop culture headlines: 1. Gene Tunney’s retirement from boxing as heavyweight champion of the world; 2. Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize for The Bridge of San Luis Rey; and 3. The European walking tour undertaken by this supposedly unlikely pair. Already celebrated by the media as “The Thinking Man’s Pugilist,” especially after ensorcelling slugger Jack Dempsey with sweet science in back-to-back bouts, Tunney’s eagerness to express his thoughts on Shakespeare and other aspects of literary history made irresistible copy. News of the boxer’s friendship with novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder was music to editorial ears everywhere, and their plans to ramble across rural France and Germany got nearly as much coverage as a Trans-Atlantic Flight or a Polar Expedition. What would these extraordinary men talk about? What magnificent epiphanies awaited them? Wouldn’t it be amazing if Gene Tunney guided Thornton Wilder to a new understanding of The Iliad? And if Thornton Wilder enlightened Gene Tunney on a fine point of feint and jab? Wouldn’t that be wonderfully counterintuitive?! Well, possibly it would it have been. But in Benchley’s account, we get the bro version of “dog bites man”.

Favourite Moment:
To all of these, and many more problems, Don Gene turned an ingenuous attention. And, in the meantime he lived immaculately, read much, and punched a large, harassed leather bag.

Reprint Notes:

Reprinted under the title: “The Bridge of Sans Gene”