Life, 1916-08-24 · page 18 of 42
Life — August 24, 1916 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"Tagore Is Coming":** This article satirizes American celebrity culture's superficiality. Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali poet and philosopher, is coming to America, but Life mocks how Americans will instantly elevate him to celebrity status despite knowing nothing about him beforehand. The satire highlights American gullibility—the piece jokes that Tagore's "dreamy eyes" appeal to American vanity, and suggests he'll only truly succeed if he learns bridge, poker, and cocktails rather than pursuing serious literature. **"Short Skirt" Cartoon:** A man's dismissive quip about his wife's revealing hemline. When she worries about scandal, he replies she'll be assumed to have married him for money—implying she's either unattractive or socially undesirable enough that only wealth explains the match. The joke mocks both marital dynamics and women's social anxieties. **"A Popular Preacher":** Absurdist satire about Rev. Sprecher broadcasting simultaneously to impossibly vast audiences (50 million) across continents via radio and other media, even reaching Peking despite revolutionary cannon fire. It parodies radio evangelism's grandiose claims.
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314 ‘E DEE * Tagore Is Coming 'HE news that Rabindranath Tagore is coming to this country in the near future will be welcomed by a large audience of people who, up to the present moment, have never heard of the gentleman before. Such is the Amer- ican disposition to create and develop overnight any visit- ing celebrity. Mr. Tagore has been writing books now for some years. It was he who started the best-seller movement in India. We have seen his picture several times, and Mr. Tagore's dreamy eyes and his general look, as if he knew things we didn’t even suspect, appeal to us strongly. In appearance he is not unlike a super-Hughes. He looks tall in his pi ture, but it may well be to the contrary, as sometimes in a photograph showing only head and shoulders, a little man not over five feet high looks like the Cardiff giant. Mr. Tagore is the only Oriental of the present generation who has succeeded in starting a cult so far off and bringing it up properly. Cults have been made in England, France and Germany, but not beyond the Hellespont. His cult is a genuine Simon-pure cult, warranted not to fade or shrink, and guaranteed to last for at least five years. If Mr. Tagore has an iron constitution, and if his stomach holds out, he ought to have a good time with us. If, while he is here, he can learn to play bridge, golf and poker, to write on the typewriter and drink cocktails, tal six weeks’ course in journalism and become a mem- ber of the Authors’ League, then he can go back to India and do something really permanent in literature. E {OTION is to a woman what weather is to a sailor— a matter of life and death. THE PREPAREDNESS MOVEMENT She: WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY WHEN THEY SEE ME IN THIS SHORT SKIRT? The Brute: THEY'LL PROBABLY SAY 1 MARRIED YOU FOR YOUR MONEY. A Popular Preacher (From the Brooklyn Banner of Monday, May 8, 1930) R ¥. THEODORE SPRECHER, D.D., pastor of the Brooklyn Wireless Universorium, preached yesterday to an audience conservatively estimated at fifty million persons. In addition to his own enthusiastic group of eighteen million subscribers, chiefly in Manhattan, Chicago and London, he addressed at the same time, by speci tion, The Manhattan Monitor's church of twenty lions, chiefly in the State of New York, but with important contingencies all over this country and Europe. At the last minute there was added to his audience the ten million free listeners of the United Mission Boards of America, whose sermon service reaches the ish-speak- ing converts of Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands. Dr. Brownlow, in Shanghai, was to have addressed the latter, but was prevented by a slight hoarseness which interfered with distinct articulation. Dr. Sprecher’s voice was in magnificent shape, and he was heard perfectly, even in Peking,-where the cannon of the revolutionists made considerable disturbance. The music of the occasion consisted of choruses fur- nished hy the great Swedish choir in Lindsborg, Kansas, accompanied by the Himmelheim Orchestra of Munich, The sermon was an eloquent plea for universal peace.