Judge, 1929-04-06 · page 10 of 36
Judge — April 6, 1929 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Judge Magazine Satire Analysis This is a humor column by S.J. Perelman titled "Around the Shops with 'Babs,'" satirizing pretentious consumer culture and absurdist product design. The main joke involves fictional "novelty" walking canes sold by a shopkeeper named Ramsbottom. The canes contain increasingly elaborate hidden features: Fig. 1 dispenses hot chocolate via thermos; Fig. 2 adds whipped cream dispensing; Fig. 3 supposedly serves full meals. The satire mocks both consumers' gullibility for pointless luxury goods and manufacturers' escalating product "innovations." The cartoon at the top depicts a burglar-deterrent method: dressing as a burglar yourself to confuse an actual burglar—absurdist humor typical of Perelman's style. The column uses exaggerated details (A.A. Milne's "112th birthday," lacquer-remover intoxication) and malapropisms to mock consumer culture's superficiality. The reference to an expelled student dismissed for "simony" (selling religious offices) is an incongruous joke.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Around the Shops with “Babs” Perelman Girls, I found the QUAIN shop yesterday ! in one of those quaint little old-world « off Evans Street and the quaintest old man in just the quaintest smock in the world charged me eight times what I would have paid in Mimbel’s base- ment. Junior, take the knishes off the stove; Mam- ma is busy writing an article for the turks out in the tall celery. This week, as you know, girls, is the one hundred and twelfth anniversary of the birth of A. A. Milne, ¥ poet, whose memory is ever green on his synopsis of ‘‘Thanatoy died in I went to Harness recently and I must rd at some of the events that took place there. The first event was a ten-rounc be- tween Sailor Blumenthal vs. Patsy Spivack, both welters. Spivack smeared the tar all over the canvas and hit him on the g so often it sounded like an alarm clock. Ugh! The bru- tality of it, and Bess to ps for seats for the ) match next Tues- day at the Ar- mory. But what a Fig. 1 Fig. 2 How to repel a burglar—dress up as another burglar and order him off your job. flutter-budget I am, to be sure, she murmured, her face suffused with color, I feel all nebby or some- it must be that lacquer-remover I drank last « I must tell you about some of the novel things w while I downtown shopping with Vilma Banky. Mr. Ramsbottom has some ish walking- s with the most unusual heads. When the handle ‘ig. 1 is turned it releases a stream of the most us hot chocolate, which is kept at the proper temperature in a thermos bottle inside the cane. For those who desire the more complete beve Mr. Ramsbottom also stocks a quart-size whipped-cream container to be worn strapped to the left leg just the tibia, is more elaborate; it contains both coffee ind tea and even sweet buns on Friday. A clerk in Mr. Ramsbottom’s shop named Serena Blandish, or a Gentlewoman of Quality, reported that after fifteen turns of the handle she received an order of roast milk-fed veal, hashed brown potatoes, and a rather homely girl with the sweetest disposition in the world who had attended Mt. i for three years but had been expelled in her junior year for simony. zy. 3 is the sensation of Mr. Ramsbottom's shop, a general Fig. 3 comicbooks.com