BARNETT FRUMMER IS AN UNBLOOMED FLOWER

Via The New Yorker, these sophisticated short shorts about a wistful under-achiever and his friends who are all ""vitally engaged in communications, politics and the arts."" Thus his old roommate Roland Magruder who (via Mao Tse-tung) sadly intones that Barney will be ""one of the thousand flowers that's not going to bloom."" But he tries, desperately, anything from tasting ethnic foods to tastemaking to demonstrating (in a semi-deactivated fashion--his feet) to distinguishing between Pop and Camp. All in the hope of reaching the remote Rosalie, that avatar who overtrumps him even in spades (""Whenever I was about to quote Martin Luther King, she was quoting Malcolm X""). . . . Well Barney, the secret swinger, he might just be a late bloomer and this is high phosphate parody of all those new Scenic wonders.