Slim Volumes
Student periodicals continue to enliven — or enlighten — the Dartmouth scene at somewhat unpredictable intervals. TheJack O'Lantern, which purports to be a quarterly, came out with a Carnival issue, shortly after the appearance of Volume I, Number 2 of Tower: The DartmouthLiterary Magazine.
Jacko's cover, done up tastefully in your basic red, white, and"blue, featured a poster touting "The Greatest Snow on Earth"; its pages featured a prolific senior named Brooks Clark, who was solely responsible for two of the three prose-fiction pieces whilst sharing honors for the third.
Other features included "Jacko Scoreboard," a potpourri of news items you can be confident you'll never read elsewhere; an illustrated epic entitled '"How the Grinch Stole Carnival" — with no apologies to Dr. Seuss; an advertisement for a movie, Winter Carnival '78, starring George C. Scott as President Kemeny; an interview with the inventor of the neutron bomb; "A Double-knit Questionnaire"; and a schedule of Carnival events, which included a performance of Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols, set for 12:30 a.m. Saturday at Sanborn House, under the sponsorship of the English Department. It seems safe to suggest that reality has stolen some of the thunder of Jacko's historic innuendo.
The new issue of Tower was saluted in The Dartmouth with a set of finely honed kudos by A. B. Paulson, an assistant professor of English. We hadn't, incidentally, been aware of the maiden appearance of Tower, but then habitues of Sanborn House have never been heavily into crass commercialism. Determined to plunk down our money whether the editors liked it or not, we set out in search of Tower, Vol. I, No. 2. The Dartmouth Bookstore offered us Jacko, but, no, they hadn't heard of a literary magazine. The English Department office had at one time had some on hand; the secretary thought there might still be copies in Sanborn House library. Sure enough there were: not only No. 2, but No. 1 as well. Our cup ran over.
The second issue, like the first, is what it is de rigueur to call a "slim volume," almost entirely of verse, breaking into prose only once. Within its 32 pages, there is work by 12 student contributors and four faculty members, including Richard Eberhart '26, our resident Pulitzer and National Book Award winner.
Professor Paulson says that, with the line-up of star professors, one "might expect the work of mere students to look rough and thin." Not so, however, for "there is something in the pine air of Hanover that breeds brilliant poets, because these students are masters of their craft, probing deep to the spirit's joys, fears, and magic."
With a little perseverance, you could probably buy it from the English Department for a modest 25 cents. Its predecessor of last spring should still be on hand for an even more modest 15 cents.
Charles Owusu, president of the Young Followers of Dartmouth at the Osei TutuSecondary School in Ghana, sent Christmas greetings to the Alumni Magazine "tothe year 2000," along with this picture of the group. Owusu is seated fifth from theleft in the first row, flanked by vice presidents Boakye Joseph and Nkansah Mattew.
