Judge, 1929-09-14 · page 10 of 36
Judge — September 14, 1929 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Explanation for Modern Readers This page contains two satirical pieces from *Judge* magazine mocking rural American life and pretension. **Top cartoon ("Beige and cerulean blue!")**: Depicts an absurdly fancy, avant-garde modernist interior—with geometric furniture, abstract art, and bizarre sculptural elements—described in affected language. The joke is that someone is complaining about color schemes in this ridiculously over-designed space, highlighting how pretentious city aesthetes obsess over trivial design details. **"The Fantastic Farmer"**: A longer satirical narrative mocking both rural stereotypes and their opposite—an impossibly refined, cultured farmer family. The farmer describes an idealized version where "Farmer Gray" and his family have no rustic habits: they say "potatoes" not "taters," read *Atlantic Monthly* instead of *Sears* catalogs, play piano instead of fiddle, and reject all stereotypical rural behavior. The satire cuts both ways: it ridicules both the crude farmer stereotype *and* the snobbish notion that refinement requires rejecting rural identity. The bottom illustration shows the farmer "teaching" his son "the business"—presumably meaning actual farming versus pretentious affectation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE Beige and cerulean blue! C'n you imagine havin’ to live with it, Joe! The Fantastic Farmer shake the hayseed out of your ears cora and jed hurry and water the stock and finish those chores and tell hiram and cyram to stop playing checkers and slapping their thighs and form a square around uncle jack while i hold my annual husking bee and tell you all the gosh danged yarn about farmer gray who carted another load away well once upon a time there was a farm which was not just around the forks or just a piece down the road and all the help were called farmers and not hired hands and they were young and clean shaven and didnt have torn straw hats and chin strap whiskers and a wisp of hay in their mouths and they sang i kiss your hand madame and played the piano and none of them said do tell or played the fiddle or held a square dance to the tune of turk in the straw on an ac- Lo or spit on the stoy “I'm teachin’ him the business cordeen and nobody whittled or chewed cut plug in the general store and they called potatoes potatocs and not taters and the farmers wife was known as mrs casmir bonaparte gray and was never referred to as ma or the missus or sewed patchwork quilts or owned a cat which she shoocd with her apron and the children werent younguns and the atlantic monthly and mercury were on the table instead of the farm journal and_ sears roebuck catalogue and the s didnt have a baby urs old and had never ing. sales- for the night or al- lowed as to how anyone could take pot luck neigh- bor and the grays had never bought a gold brick down new york way used sloans liniment or pitched quoits or stuck their feet in a mustard bath and farmer gray wasnt afraid of city fellers or new fangled ideas and didnt gape up at skyscrap- ers and the barn door icomicbooks=com