THERE'S NOTHING THAT I WOULDN'T DO IF YOU WOULD BE MY POSSLQ

From the laureate of morning radio (and author of Nothing Could Be Finer Than a Crisis That Is Minor in the Morning)--a second puree of broadcasts in homage to a plenitude of wimps, sundry goofy happenstances, and the odd minutiae of life. All the little newsfillers are inflated by Osgood to Homeric proportions. In yeasty verse and droll essays, we are treated to tales of inept bank robbers, starlings who nest with lighted cigarettes, and one cowpoke who tries to marry his horse. Osgood has an especially fine time with governmentese. According to the Bureau of the Census, he reports, ""the average American is, at the present time, two years older than he was ten years ago."" (POSSLQ is--of course--Uncle Sam's lingo for ""Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters."") And how can a guy who shamelessly rhymes ""have to warn you"" with ""California"" be a bad poet? The jingles may have scanned just dandy delivered over a car radio; the light essays hold up better in print. Though he may play Dr. Seuss to the grown-ups, Osgood best displays his talents as a newsman in a few obits of famous and unknown decedents. A generally amiable and occasionally trenchant assemblage.