Judge, 1913-05-03 · page 17 of 24
Judge — May 3, 1913 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This poem satirizes Cubism, the early-20th-century art movement that rejected realistic representation in favor of geometric abstraction and subjective "feeling." The narrator's cubist friend visits his sweetheart and, unable to write normally due to an injured wrist, sends a love note rendered entirely in abstract geometric shapes—lines and rectangles with no recognizable content. The joke: the cubist insists the recipient will understand his "feeling" through pure form, but she only grasps it because she's practical and intelligent. The real punchline emerges at the wedding—their 100 invitations, presumably sent in similarly incomprehensible cubist style, resulted in *zero guests*, because abstract geometric designs cannot communicate actual information like dates and addresses. The satire targets Cubism as self-indulgent and useless for any real human purpose: fine as an artistic philosophy, but absurd when applied to actual communication. It's a period mockery of modernist art movements by mainstream satirists who found such experiments bewildering and pretentious.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Cupid and the Cubists [HAD 2 friend, a cubist fellow, Who saw green pink and scarlet yellow; For curves he did not care a slam, But, oh, you parallelogram! He said, ‘“I paint not what I see— A melting eye, a noble tree, A standing cow, a woman kneeling. I make a picture of my feeling; It is the Is-ness of the Is Which is my own peculiar biz.”” He visited my sweetheart'’s town— His sister, she, with eyes of brown. | trusted him to bear a greeting: “Love is so strong and Time so fleeting! When shall I see my dear Ellaine And clasp her in my arms again?” To aid his memory, he wrote (My wrist was sprained) a little note; And this is how it looked to me— It was his feeling, don’t you see? | TS I asked, ‘‘Will she its sense distill?”” He said, ‘You bet your life she will!” Six gloomy days without a word, Then from my darling girl I heard: “Your views on Love and Time are pretty; To waste the latter were a pity. I'll meet you Monday, shine or rain, Atuptown Cuyler’s. Yours, Ellaine.’’ I married her a month ago— A quiet wedding, you must know. We sent a hundred invitations To friends, acquaintances, relations; But not a single one turned up, To kiss the bride or drain a cup! I sometimes think we were remiss In sending wedding cards like this— For though each honest cubist eye Name, date and place could here descry, Alas! the Is-ness of the Is Was not those other people’s biz! =Chestee Cornish. Prefers the Home Product Wilkins—Have you heard about Have- leigh’s mesalliance? Billkins—No, I haven't; but I don’t think it can come up to an American- made car, The raindrops being so aggressive we have entirely lost sight of the snowdrops. In answering advertisements please mention JUDGE. The Power of Silent Service If the crowd onthe stock exchange kept quiet and let one man talk, that man could be heard in every corner of the room. But the shouting mem- bers produce a composite of sound, so that no one trader is understood except by a small group around a particular trading post. If everyone were able to shout twiceas loud, the result would be only a greater noise, and less intelligible. For communication to be universal there must be silent transmission. In a noisy stock exchange where the voice, unaided, cannot be understood across the room, there are hundreds of telephones which carry speech half way across the continent. The telephone converts the spoken words into silent electrical impulses. In a single Bell telephone cable, a hundred conversations can be carried side by side without interference, and then distributed to as many different cities and towns throughout the land. Each conversation is Jed through a system of wire pathways to its proper destination, and whispers its message into a waiting ear. Silent transmission and the inter- connecting lines of the Bell System are indispensable for universal tele- phone service. Without such service, our cities would beslowof speech and theStates would be less closely knit together. AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY AND ASSOCIATED COMPANIES Every Bell Telephone is the Centre of the System For Liquor and Drug Users A scientific treatment which has cured half a million in the past thirty-three years, and the one treatment which has stood the severe test of time. Adminis- f tered by medical experts, at the Keeley Institutes only. For full particulars write To the Following Keeley Institutes: Hot Spriny Atlanta. ‘on ane Detent lik ind. Salt Oklahoma City, Okla. Waokesha, Wis, Winnipeg. Manitoba. Guatemala City, Guatemala, Puebla. Mexico. jan, Tex. Lake City, Utah, London, England Seattle, Wash. It will be appreciated. comicbooks.com