Life, 1929-01-11 · page 28 of 36
Life — January 11, 1929 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page combines reprinted humor from other publications with a major contest announcement. The cartoon at top shows a snobbish host pretending to know classical music (Tchaikovsky's Pathetic Symphony) when he doesn't—a satirical jab at social pretension and cultural posturing among the wealthy. Below are various brief humorous anecdotes about marriage, aging, and social situations, typical of 1920s-era gentle satire. There's commentary on a popular author (Vina Delmar) and her "Bad Girl" series, mocking publishers' tendency to churn out sequels with increasingly absurd titles. The main feature is Life's $5,000 short story contest for 1929, soliciting fiction of 600-700 words. Judges include prominent editors Ray Long, Robert Benchley, and Merle Crowell. This reflects Life's role as a literary magazine, not merely a humor publication.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Fair Guest: “Do you know Tschaikovsky’s Pathetic Symphony?” Pveseian Host: “Not sure; ‘um it.” —Punch (by permission). | Mrs. Bive: “How do you control your husband while you are away?” Mrs. Brack: “I leave the baby with him.”—Staffordshire Sentinel. Sign on movie theater: While the City Sleeps With Sound Effects |—Ted Cook, in the New York American, Cora Ann: Granddaddy, were you in Noah’s Ark? Granppap: Why, no. ; Cora Ann: Then, why weren't you | drowned?—The Pathfinder. Miss Vina Devmar, the gifted author of “Bad Girl,” is following it up in the Daily Mirror—with “Bad Girl's Baby.” If this is successful, probably the Mirror will get her to write “Bad Girl on a Gunboat,” “Bad Girl, the Young Naturalist,” “Bad Girl's Baby on the Lower Mississippi,” and “Bad Girl’s Granddaughter at Don Car- los’s Rancho.”—F. P. A. Tue beautiful creature was just leaving the hotel where she had stayed for the past year. “This is my address,” she said to the clerk. “But if any letters come from a tall, dark man, throw them in the waste- paper basket.”—Tit-Bits. $5000 SECOND PRIZE $1500 RAY LONG Editor, Cosmopouttan MAGAzinE HE Editors of LIFE will award $5000 for the best short stories published in LIFE during 1929. They may be light fiction, timely burlesques, detective or mystery stories, or humorous stories, but they must be short, six to seven hundred words. One story will appear each week and reg- ular rates will be paid, on acceptance, in addition FOR THE BEST SHORT STORIES FIRST PRIZE $3000 —JUDGES = ROBERT BENCHLEY Associate Editor, Lire THIRD PRIZE $500 MERLE CROWELL Editor, AMenican Macazine to the award, for each story published. Any num- ber of stories may be entered by any one writer, and all will stand equal chance in the final awards. Manuscripts must be typewritten, on one side of the paper, the pages numbered, with the name and address of the author on every page, and should be accompanied by return postage. Address manuscripts to SHORT STORY EDITOR LIFE, 598 Madison Ave., New York City- comicbooks.com