Readers of '20s Columnist Don Marquis sometimes found his space occupied by the work of archy, a lowly lower-case friend, archy never had the strength to depress the upper-case key, and his punctuation was atonal in any key. It was understandable; though he had been a "vers libre bard" before his death, his soul had transmigrated into the body of an ambitious cockroach. It was assumed that archy died again along with his creator in 1937. Not so:
well boss i was crushed by the news the n y daily news to be exact rolled up and wielded by a janitor but my soul came back again as a roach i must be doing something right
hoping you are the same i remain your faithful correspondent p.s.
there is a new full length cartoon entitled shinbone alley which i saw on the cuff and later the collar of a critic
boss to a mosquito a man is merely something to eat a louse i know told me that millionaires and bums taste alike
ergo it is time us six-footed scarabs got our chance shinbone alley is that chance
we are the stars of this flawed twinkle along with my old amour mehitabel the cat who makes a feline for every torn in town
mehitabel s voice is that of carol channing who can stroke a platitude until it purrs like an epigram
i am voiced by eddie bracken who doesn t have enough to do
John d -wilson s animation presents me with six limbs which is honest and mehitabel as glamorous which is prevarication
for the real thing check geo herriman s 20s illustrations which seemed to sing hello dali or miro miro on the wall
i especially liked two songs flotsam and jetsam and the title number they seemed to catch what you called the golden nonsense of the heart
the other numbers like the animation seemed to be saccharine rather than pungent but as mehitabel is wont to say wotthehell wotthehell mine not to complain i am just a roach on the loaf of life glad to be recalled at all
my spirit glitters in shinbone alley and the kids with no memories and the oldsters with long ones will dig me as for those inbetween
it is best to remember that it could be verse after all to wit
though parts of my screen bio are strictly from hunger i may not be immortal but i m not getting any younger
* S.K.