Judge — January 1938 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

hear the simultaneous rustling of 60 or 70 pieces of paper. That would be dread- ful. A RELIABLE correspondent has sent us some instructive historical data on last year's Great Lakes Exposition in Cleveland: a photographer named Wil- liam Sapp attended, and he was standing by the Aquacade, whatever that was. His partner called him. “Hey, Sapp!" he yelled. Seven bystanders looked up and said “What?” In future we shall award the highest honor to each month's most rugged in- dividualists: that is, we shall mention them, here, in the JupGE. The runner-up this month is Michael R. Schwartz, of Baldwin, L.I., who pulled the emergency brake on a Man. hattan subway train, because he didn’t like the way it was being run. The diamond-studded mention goes to an unidentified Boston terrier in Chi- cago: he stood on the tracks, bringing a trolley-car to a shricking halt; then he declined so firmly to move from under the front truck, that a wrecking crew had to jack up the car and remove him by force. Now let us paw through the latest bulletins from the animal world: In Los Angeles, an attorney in a divorce action offered to bring a parrot into court and show that it had learned to call the hus- band abusive names, and that the wife must have been its teacher; the judge refused the parrot's testimony, on the ground that the parrot could not be placed under oath, RQ and that it probably could not recall who had taught it abusive names. When a cat, rat, and mouse show was held in New York, two casualties resulted: Djer-Mers Woodroofe Ras Seyum, an Abyssinian cat, consumed a catnip mouse; and an innocent bystander stuck his finger into a rat cage, sustaining a bite. In Wellesley, Mass., the Association for the Abolition of Round Fish Bowls was announced; Fred Ossinger, director of the Bureau of Fisheries aquarium in Washington, commented: “It has been said that curved aquaria make the occu- pants dizzy physically and lopsided men- tally. I don’t know about that, but I do know they make me cross-eyed.” In Wilmington, N.C., two policemen in a radio patrol car thought they had becn ordered to “pick up a drunk"’; they discovered shortly, to their consternation, that the command had been, “pick up a skunk.” In the Bronx today, two partners own a grocery. They tend to distrust one an- other; each feels happier when he sees, with his own eyes, what goes on around the cash box. These men have solved their problem: they have had two locks installed on the front door. One partner can't get in, if the other isn’t there. Our scientific curiosity, coupled with the spirit of the New Year, has led us to investigate television. Vladimir Kuzma Zworykin is the inventor of the television system which the National Broadcasting Co. will someday use. It is based on the iconoscope, which looks like a mega- phone, with a composite “eye,” consist- ing of thousands of photoelectric cells, at the small end. When you look in the large end of the iconoscope, it picks up your picture, just as a microphone picks up sound. The radiomen at NBC have always called microphones, “mikes”; and now, we are happy to say, they call the iconoscope, “ike.” Incidentally, television has already pro- duced one new star. Her name is Miss Patience, and she is a dummy NBC had made especially for telecasts. Her face looks like Ann Dvorak’s, only meaner, and she has a figure like Marlene Diet- tich’s, She was named Miss Patience be- cause she stands still so willingly, and never gets ike fright. The Columbia Broadcasting System has the first television program director. He is Gilbert Seldes, otherwise known as the author of “The Seven Lively Arts.”” Director Seldes does not expect to di- rect any public telecasts for a couple of years at least. But he can tell you right now that the successful actors and ac. tresses in television will possess “high visibility.” “High visibility,” or h.v., doesn’t mean what you think it means, although Mae West is one of those who have it. An actor with h.v. not only makes you feel that he is with you; he makes you feel that you are with him. Television actors must have h.v., because telecasts will appeal to audiences of four or five, clustered around some glowing embers in the parlor—not to large masses of people, sitting in regimented rows in a theatre. Garbo has h.v. John Barrymore has h.v. on the stage, but he lacks it in the movies; with Lionel Barrymore, it’s vice versa. Shirley Temple has super-colossal hiv. plus. Our own nomination is Uncle Don. Sometimes we feel so close to him that we try to reach out and take him by the throat. W: are informed that Edgar Guest's publishers recently sent copies of one of his works to a list of notables, soliciting comments. Injudi- ciously they sent one copy to Doro- thy Parker, and this was her answer: “T'd rather flunk My Wasserman test Than listen to poems By Eddie Guest.” The Judge comicbooks.com