{"id":367,"date":"2021-01-20T16:29:46","date_gmt":"2021-01-20T16:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=367"},"modified":"2021-02-04T16:12:56","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T16:12:56","slug":"the-loolies-are-here-by-ruth-allison-and-jane-rice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=367","title":{"rendered":"The Loolies Are Here by Ruth Allison and Jane Rice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>The Loolies Are Here<\/em><\/strong> by Ruth Allison and Jane Rice (<em>Orbit #1<\/em>, 1966) isn\u2019t so much a story as an account of a mother of four\u2019s various domestic problems and accidents. In a mainstream story these would mostly be the fault of the children, but here they are ascribed to the \u201cloolies\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-default is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Anyhow, to the inevitable queries\u2014Why are they called loolies? Where do they come from, et cetera?\u2014I can only reply through a mouthful of clothespins, I haven\u2019t time to hat this over the head with a rolled-up research paper. I guess they\u2019re called loolies for the same reason that brownies are called brownies. It is their name. Maybe they come from the same place. Et cetera. Wherever that is. However and where<em>as<\/em> a brownie is a good-natured goblin who performs helpful services at night (that\u2019s what I need, begod, a reliable brownie, with an eyeshade and some counterfeiting equipment) a loolie will leave you lop-legged. And probably already he has. I\u2019m not sure a loolie is a goblin either.&nbsp; p. 85-86<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Deliver all this in Rice\u2019s high-energy, madcap style<sup>1<\/sup> for half a dozen pages, until which time the loolies turn their attention to the wife\u2019s less than helpful husband, and you are done.<br>Not bad, just froth that would have been better off in <em>Good Housekeeping<\/em>.<br>* (Mediocre). 2,150 words.<br><br>1. For better examples of Rice\u2019s solo humorous style, I recommend <em>The Elixir<\/em> (<em><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/Unknown_v06n04_1942-12_PDF_unz.org\/page\/n113\/mode\/2up\">Unknown Worlds, <\/a><\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/Unknown_v06n04_1942-12_PDF_unz.org\/page\/n113\/mode\/2up\">December 1942<\/a>), or <em>The Magician\u2019s Dinner<\/em> (<em><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/Unknown_v06n03_1942-10_PDF_unz.org\/page\/n63\/mode\/2up\">Unknown Worlds, <\/a><\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/Unknown_v06n03_1942-10_PDF_unz.org\/page\/n63\/mode\/2up\">October 1942<\/a>).<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Loolies Are Here by Ruth Allison and Jane Rice (Orbit #1, 1966) isn\u2019t so much a story as an account of a mother of four\u2019s various domestic problems and accidents. In a mainstream story these would mostly be the fault of the children, but here they are ascribed to the \u201cloolies\u201d: Anyhow, to the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[125,124],"tags":[21,123,127,122,126,12],"class_list":["post-367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jane-rice","category-ruth-allison","tag-21","tag-123","tag-jane-rice","tag-orbit-1","tag-ruth-allison","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=367"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions\/506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}