Life, 1929-07-05 · page 23 of 41
Life — July 5, 1929 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page combines brief satirical commentary with cartoons mocking contemporary issues: **Main cartoon**: Depicts skyscrapers collapsing/bending unnaturally, with a small figure asking "gimme a hand?" This likely satirizes the 1920s real-estate boom and economic instability—buildings symbolizing financial structures on precarious footing. **Text satire targets**: - **KKK violence**: Opens with dark irony about Southern lynchings as "Klan fun"—mocking indifference to racial terrorism - **Spiritualism fraud**: References con artists ("trance-guessers") exploiting the public - **Einstein**: Mocks his complex theories as incomprehensible, with his wife refusing explanation - **Gertrude Stein**: Jokes that her experimental writing caused a relationship breakup - **Censorship**: Proposes a "Boob-of-the-Month Club" satirizing popular culture gatekeeping The humor targets intellectual pretension, scientific complexity, literary experimentalism, and organized crime—typical 1920s concerns. The tone is lighthearted but addresses serious subjects (racism, fraud) with casual dismissal characteristic of the era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Those lynchings you read about down South aren't anything to worry about. They're just a bunch of good Klan fun. Out West they're after the spiritual- ists again for hoaxing the public. The way of the trance-guesser is hard. According to a dispatch from the farm country, a whole festive apiary got tight on a bushel of cider apples. “How doth the boozy little bee—?” Pror. Einstein (ambling in at 4:00 A. M.): Y’see, m'dear, it was like this: let x plus y equal th’ square root of = divided by @ square over sqmxyz— Mrs. E. (Aaughtily): Oh, don’t try to explain! “Come, a phrase containing ‘sinew.’” “ ‘Who was that lady I sinew with last night?’ ” (Oh, oh, I wasn’t in-tendon to pull that one! ... But anyhow, I’m all thew now.) —Mary-Ann. Many a good golf shot has been ruined by a passing thought of busi- | “Hey, buddy, gimme a hand, will yuh?” ness. Mary Annecdotes “LE hear at's all off between Joe and his stuttering sweetie.” “Yeah, and darn good reason.” “How come?” “He gave her a copy of Gertrude Stein for a birthday present!” Speaking of literature, how's for get- ling up a society to choose the most popular censors, and call it the Boob- of-the-Month Club? Dramatic Note: A couple of crit- ics, it seems, met outside the lobby. And the first one says, “Hello, where you flitting to so early?” And the other retorts wearily, “Oh, just hither and yawn,” Apropos of Dramatic Critics: To Apvertisine Executive: Is there any way PA the pooh-er, all things are poor. can make you breakfast-conscious? comicbooks.com