Life, 1915-06-03 · page 10 of 52
Life — June 3, 1915 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece imagines an interview with Adam (the biblical first man) in the Garden of Eden. The text presents Adam complaining about his historical burden—being blamed for humanity's fall through Eve, suffering from endless artistic depictions, and enduring centuries of theological debate about his culpability. The satire mocks how historical and mythological figures become trapped by their legacies, weaponized in social arguments, and stripped of individual agency. Adam ironically notes relief at being "dead so long" to escape the endless uses made of his story—wars, fashion debates, and moral arguments. The joke targets how societies project contemporary concerns onto ancient myths, making dead figures serve modern agendas while denying them any rest from interpretation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
982 Interviews With Dead Celebrities OUND him sitting in the rear end of the Garden of Eden, with his feet on a stump, munching a green banana, “Have one,” he asked courteously, as he motioned me to another stump. “We're out of apples.” “What do you think of all the trouble you've caused? How would you like to be with us all now reaping the benefit of it? It's pretty tough on the rest of us—don't you think?” “T have rather got the advantage of you,” he replied, serenely, “It isn't bad being a historical, mythical person with all thai movies and women’s clothes and just- happening—wars and us-good-as democracies. And me the cnly and original husband. Don't for- get that! I*iinagine it is rather a relief to have been dead so long as I have.” I found it rather hard to be cross with such an amiable shade, “Would you do it all over again if you had your choice?” I asked. “Fall?” “Yes.” “You mean, supposing I had a real conscience, supposing I was a genuine, Simon-pure altruist and was willing to make a sacrifice of my feelings—let the old lady put it all over me, as it were—for the sake of the humanity to come?" “Knowing what was going to hap- pen, would you fall all over again if you had the choice?” Adam—for it was none other than he, as Laura Jean Libby would: say— smiled serene’ “It's rather an interesting thought,” he said, “But you mustn't forget, my dear chap, that it really wouldn't affect me, I'm a dead one, you know, so far as results are concerned. Josephus Daniels, Anthony Comstock and the THE BEST GIRL IN Kaiser can go as far as they like, so far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't care low many you killed or how much grape juice you drank. Of course, i all very interesting and doubtless im- portant, but suppose I hadn't fallen— how singularly tame it would be. You ask me, if I had my choice, would I fall again? Dear me, I really don’t know. 1 could hardly decide a matter THE WORLD AND— like that, I should have to leave it to a higher power.” “You mean—? Naturally to my better half.” Making a rule never to interfere in a family dispute, even between celebri- ties who have been dead five thousand and twenty years, according to the Famous Almanac, I thereupon creetly withdrew, comicbooks.com