Page 6E EUGENE REGISTER-GUARD. Sunday, April 21, 1963
Books
Comedy Writer Creates 'New Dimension'
By RAYMOND E. PALMER
Of lh AIMCUU4 Fnu
LONDON Spike Milligan,
writer and actor, lay in kind
of concrete coffin in his
dressing room.
He was dressed in tattered
old clothes. An untidy gray
beard straggled over his low
er face. Hi eyes were sad.
Tbey stared upward toward
a grimy window that looked
out on the River Thames.
In the grime on the window
'7
u
X
: a
f
Spike Milligan in Relaxing Bin
bis finger had traced the
words:
"On a clear day you can see
the other side of the glass."
MiUigan calls the coffin
like structure bis relaxing
bin. He lies there snatching
an occasional nap, thinking
weird thoughts that enrich
the English world of comedy.
"I'm not really a come
dian," said Milligan. "I'm a
writer who has found out how
to string words together in a
way that makes people
laugh."
Some of those words strung
together with a 24-year-old
writer named John Antrobus
produced one of the biggest
recent hits of the British the
ater, "The Bed-sitting Room."
Milligan's sense of humor is
primarily a sense of the ri
diculous. One theme at which
he constantly plugs away is
bureaucracy.
"People who regard other
people as numbers or tickets
or so many holes in e card
have to be lampooned to let
the cleansing power of laugh
ter get at them," he said.
Not surprisingly, his atti
tude to life gets Milligan into
some way-out situations. When
he applied for a renewal of
Reprints Portray Army Life
NEW YORK (fl Mark
Twain wasn't the only West
ern traveler who distrusted,
with humorous horror, the
bills of fare at wayside eating
places.
The descriptions he wrote
In "Roughing It" are reflected
In two reprints by J. P. Lip
pincott in its Keystone West
ern Americana series, "Thirty
Years of Army Life on the
Border" by Randolph B.
Marcy, $2.75, and "Mountain
eering in the Sierra Nevadas"
by Clarence King, $2.50,
Marcy, an army officer pro
vides this account of a meal
ordered f or a a I c k 1 y friend
who went West for his
health:
"The dishes before us con
sisted ot fried bacon floating
in grease, some corn bread in
the shape of hand grenades,
and a quantity of glutinous,
half-baked hot biscuit, neith
er of which seemed calculated
to tempt the appetite of the
gentleman from the East,
who called for toast."
King, telling of a meal in
California, said the food con
sisted of "beans swimming in
fat, meats slimed with pale
ropy gravy, and over every
thing a faint mongol odor
the flavor of moral degener
acy . and of a disintegrated
race." He means there were
Chinese cooks.
A U.S. geologist, King pro
duced his book in 1872 and
tells in careful, elegant
English of his mountain
climbing exploits. Anyone in
terested in the High Sierra
will find it extremely inter
esting. Marcy, whose son-in-law was
Gen. George B. McClellan,
was an export explorer, map
maker and hunter as well as
a gifted writer and reporter.
His book, first printed in
1868, provides a good look at
the untamed West. He saw
the Indians as .savages, but as
savages who were being bad
ly mistreated by the Indians.
It Is a shame Marcy's sense
of history was not stronger.
He gives only a sketchy ac
count of his meeting with Jim
Bridger, the famous mountain
man. If Marcy had taken
time, he could have provided
material toward a really good
biography of Bridger.
A book by J. Cecil Alter,
University of Oklahoma Press,
$5.05, attempts such a biog
raphy but falls short. Alters
"Jim Bridger" waters down
too much the essence of a man
who was as wild as Taos Light
ning whisky. It also says thero
was a report in 1790 of white
Canadians reaching the Pa
cific. Alexander Mackenzie,
the first man to reach the Pa
cific north of the Spanish set
tlements, didn't do that until
July 22, 1793.
E. H. Sprungcr
174 W. BROADWAY FABRIC HOUSE 174 W. BROADWAY
Ml
4
Tremendous Savings"
DRAPERY
FABRIC
SALE!
Antique Satin
Dobby Weave Tweed
Frosted Textured Weave
Antique Satin Prints
Textured Prints
Tremendous selection
of new decorator
colors and weave.
All 45" wide, Rayon
and Acetate Blends
We will custom make the above fabric for an
Additional 60c a yard UNLINED.
40" minimum length
Example:
If your window takes 10 yards of fabric, your TOTAL COST,
including fabric and labor will be $14.80 COMPLETE!
bis British passport recently
he was told that technically
be was a stateless person.
He was born in Abmadna
ger, India, April 16, 1918,
where bis Irish-born father
was serving in the British
Army. The father had not
qualified for British national
ity and therefore Milligan did
not qualify.
"They disowned me, just
like that." said Milligan. "I
suppose it was their way of
getting back at me. So I took
out Irish nationality. Now I'm
Irish and a fully fledged
rebel."
His name really is Terrence
Alan Patrick Sean Milligan.
Everyone calls him Spike, but
no one knows why.
He was the. originator of a
top radio program called "The
Goon Show," which ran for
eight years and introduced
two other British stars, Peter
Sellers and Harry Secombe.
This avante garde comedy
show convulsed audiences
throughout the Common
wealth. Peter Sellers is con
vinced that Milligan is a
genius, a comedian years
ahead of his time.
But he is utterly unpredict
able. His scraggy beard and
ragged clothes are part of his
war against the human race,
says Sellers. "He likes to
shock people."
Milligan admits it. "You
have to shock people some
times to wake them up. They
get into a rut and don't want
to think. If I couldn't shock
them into thinking and laugh
ing. I think I'd despair of the
human race."
CAROLYN HUBBARD
FOR A NEW
SPRING
HAIR FASHION!
mmsh ttm
If' T
OPEN THURS.
and FRIDAYS
9 to 9
j
ELLIE HAROLD
OPEN
9 io 5:30
DOROTHY COHTEZ
OWNER OPERATOR
DI 2-3342
A new you is just around the corner . . . you deserve
the change. Come in tomorrow and call ...
Cthe change. Come in tomorrow and ca
asual curl
JUST PAST CHAMBERS on 18th
DI 2-3942
k.
FEATURING BUTTER1CK, McC ALLS, and SIMPLICITY PATTERNS
174 W. Broadway DI 5-2431
174 W. BROADWAY FABRIC HOUSE 174 W. BROADWAY
faraE m '
f PIKIASE p
SPRING COATS WSgM
Repeat of the sensational coat f 11 VW'-
i value offered by Fredrick's! fl f4'5 '
The demand was so tremendous we have bought more coats for you. sSft I f lf"E J V t
Choose from over 300! , I I
;- You wouu .tU J U ) Mmmk -sr.;
j 39.98-49.98 . Q J(0ffi ,
S ' ' i jl ''j ! Mary of these coats 100 wool! ' j.'
0 I! ' 1 """'",rS85 WCOl ,5 yl0n' j
iriM V PURCHASE
j VmL 1 JO CHOOSE FROM 15 COLORS (I VV So"r j
! ' 1 lit W. we cannot mention
' "" :8 ; Vv the nome of this : j
I K Ml LAY-AWAY NOW . . . : n fomou;oc j
n1 1 ll OR USE YOUR I J
1 J llMJp FREDRICK'S CHARGE j OPERA VjK
I ' ifW ACCOUNT I PUMP J
I 1 u., a...- .r,..:,., -.aj 5 Black Patent I
j,. new Fredrick s Fash- 5 T J I j'
O j i ' Ion Centre In Coos ?ZrT7 ".95 Valui Til !
1 Bay. 164 W. Broadway j,
k -.,nii:'f,.iira)tti Homt-Owned Horn Operated j ;j