Judge, 1918-03-23 · page 7 of 32
Judge — March 23, 1918 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"The Human Form Divine"** (main essay by A.B. Booth) is a humorous philosophical piece arguing that the human body is *practical but not beautiful*—that artists waste effort trying to convince us otherwise. It uses absurdist examples (knees, elbows, the "weird porte-cochere" for a nose) to mock our vanity. The point: nature is genuinely beautiful; humans are functionally designed, not aesthetically pleasing. **"The Goose-Step"** cartoon by Mark Fenderson shows a man admiring a woman's elaborate dress, satirizing how men judge women primarily on fashion rather than actual appearance. **"Naughty, Naughty!"** depicts a woman at a department store offering to pay for a soldier's sweater, then embarrassedly retracting when she notices his puttees (leg wrappings indicating officer rank), implying she was being inappropriately forward with an enlisted man but respects officer status. **"Mails Close at 11:30 P.M."** is a brief joke about a man unable to wear thermal underwear except around his neck—a pun on impracticality.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
| | The Human Form Divine By A. B. Boor RTISTS and people spend whole lifetimes trying to prove to us that the human form is beautiful. They plaster the world with reproductions of the human face and figure, in a noble attempt to get us accustomed to them. But it is no use. We all know. The human form is practical—but not beautiful. It is interesting, as a Drawn by Marx Tue Goose-steP thresher is interesting, or a printing press, but it is not artistic. Take knees, for instance, or elbows. They are highly efficient but the esthetic soul sickens at their crass, un- adorned utility. Take the face, with its weird porte-cochere for sniffing air into the lungs, with its two mottled globes for seeing, with its restless inlet for food and outlet for conver- sation. How have we the colossal vanity to dream of beauty? The only really good-looking thing is nature, and deep down in our hearts we all admit it. When we want to flatter a woman we com- pare her to something in the earth or sea or sky: her cheek is like the rose, her grace is like the willow. But when we want to advertise a really good landscape we never com- pare it to a woman. Human du- plicity has its limit, and that is it. We'd like to be beautiful. We wish God had taken six days to us instead of doing the job late Saturday night when He was tired and nervous and didn’t caremuch how we came out as long as when we were wound up we ran. But we might as well accept the situation and make the best of it. When we want to see some real beauty, we have to go out- doors. Naughty, Naughty ! AN army officer was pur- chasing a sweater ata de- partment store, when a very kindly woman walked up and addressed the clerk. “Don’t allow the soldier to pay for that. Just wrap it up and charge it to me.” “T thank you,” said the officer, ‘‘but I am sorry I cannot allow you todothat!”” The lady’s eyes spied his leather puttees and she realized that he was an officer. With considerable embar- rassment, she said: Drawn by Onsox Lowe Maus Ctose At 11:30 P. M. Drawn by Hat Burrows McWanxter—My Aunt in America sent me a fine woolen union suit, but I can’t wear it any- where except ’round me neck! “T beg your pardon, sir. I forgot to look at your legs.”