Life — May 6, 1909 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

ALSESE* - Sex HE American people are given to fads. At one time it was his- torical novels. At an- other it was ping pong And once—so we are told —it was reform. (As if anyone would care to be reformed permanently !) The fad that confronts us at present is Sex. Sex novels are having large sales. Sex problems are dealt with by and large upon the stage. There will soon be a course in Sex in all kinder- gartens. This movement is largely fostered by our climate, which is so cold that we are obliged to wear clothes. If it was too warm to wear clothes, we would all go about naked and un- ashamed, and the Sex problem would vanish. There are, however, a few of us left who care nothing for Sex—who are so busy that we have no time to bother with it. Let us band ourselves together in a mutual protective as- sociation, Let us call it The-Don’t-Care-A-Hang-About-Sex Club. Who cares, for example, whether a woman who takes a course at a correspondence contortion school until she can twist herself into a corkscrew, bend back until her head touches the ground, or can wiggle her muscles into quivering humps, appears before us on a stage, half-naked and jiggles herself around to slow music? What difference does it make whether a half-grown erotic little authoress, with an xnemic imagination, tries to raise Sex to the level of a literary vaudeville? Nature never did look well in pink silk tights, anyway. She's a steady-going old plodder, with no originality, and has been doing the same thing over and over so long that she doesn’t need advertising. Let her alone. She knows her business, You can paint a windmill in all the new-fangled colors, or fringe it with old lace, but it won't go any better. There is more excuse for the business-like individual who MASTYR OF THE HUNT SPORTING TERM THE MOME STRETCH Extract from the Wyoming Whoop, Feb, 25, 1912 “WHILE OUT IN HIS NEW FLYOPLAN SATURDAY AFTE! NOON, MR, HENRY JENKS WAS MISTAKEN FOR AN EAGLE AND ACH ENTALLY SHOT,’* writes about Sex in order to sell his products. Of course he says he is doing it for moral effect, but he doesn’t even ex- pect us to be fooled by that. He knows that we know and we know that he knows. One of the great troubles about Sex is that at bottom it is extremely uninteresting as a problem, It really isn’t any problem. It is only a condition If you are going to do it right, why not carry it to its legitimate conclusions? Why not have a baby in his crib on the stage, and have a chorus of trained nurses? There are dramatic possibilities in a case of infant colic. There would be just as much sense, and a good deal more consistency in this than trying to drag poor old Sex out under the footlights, to convey the impression that she is something different from what she really is, Who will join Club? The-Don't-Care-A-Hang-About-The-Sex We have an idea that it ought to become very popular. Essayists HE lowest form of art is the essay and the lowest form of humanity is the essayist. The trouble with the es- sayist is that he knows too much. He wins his questionable success by pelting his listeners or his readers with huge cata logic chunks of erudition until they are completely submerge: and unable to do any more than gasp for breath. In the mind of the essayist the ideal essay is a college education in tabloid form. On the other hand, an essay must not be understood to be appreciated. If it is understood, it stands forth, of course, as meaningless as remarks on the liquor question by a politiciar who doesn’t know whether he is talking to a saloon-keeper or a W. C. T. U. lady. If anyone wants to take the pains critically to analyze a really artistic essay, it will be found that almost every state- ment made is true, but that none of them makes any differ- ence. Ellis O. Jones. comicbooks.com