Life, 1917-11-01 · page 32 of 38
Life — November 1, 1917 — page 32: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page mixes commercial advertising with satirical commentary typical of Life magazine's format. **Main Advertisement:** Williams' Holder Top Shaving Stick dominates the left side, using a large photograph of a man's face mid-shave to sell comfort and convenience—standard early 20th-century advertising rhetoric. **Satire Content:** "The Pinkled Frinft" mocks contemporary commercial culture, suggesting a fictional book that would have prevented readers from making foolish purchases (bogus oil stocks, unnecessary mail-order items). It's satire on consumerism and gullibility. "Something Else Club" humorously addresses war-obsession: Americans have become so fixated on WWI and inflation that they've lost ability to discuss anything else. The piece seeks people capable of normal conversation—reflecting genuine social concern about how completely the war dominated American discourse. "Contentment" is a bitter poem listing WWI grievances: demands for German surrender, punishment, and reparations. The page captures wartime American life: commercial capitalism continuing alongside deep anxiety about the conflict's meaning and cost.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
_ Holder Top Shaving Stick | THE PINKLED FRINFT (A Burlesque on Current Literature) Different from anything YOU ever read! seo Would you have paid real money for that BONE DRY OIL WELL stock, if you had read The PINKLED FRINFT? You would NOT! Would your wife have bought all those things she didn’t need (just to get the “premiums”) if you had read The PINKLED FRINFT toher? No! You'd have THAT MONEY in the BANK! Would your shelves now be burdened with the un-read “Memoirs of Gus de Mis-spent” in ninety-three volumes (a dollar down and dollara month the rest of your life) had you first read The PINKLED FRINFT? UN-THINKABLE! Cloth, One Dollar. Six Copies, Five Dollars. Your soldier friends will enjoy it Slightly illastrated. Write for circalar. Unusual Pub. Co., Inc., Box 674, Chicago, Il. Comfort ! That’s the magic word that pushed the famous Williams’ Holder Top Shaving Stick into the bathroom, placed the metal grip into the fingers of millions of men and released a wave of lather enthusiasm that swept the country, Has it reached you yet? If not, get in line. Ask the man behind the counter for Williams’ Holder Top Shaving Stick—use the full name and he will hand you the makings of enough of the oldtime Williams’ lather to keep you in shaving comfort for months. Send 12¢ in stamps for trial sizes of the Stick, Powder, Cream, Liquid, and then decide which you prefer. Or send 4c in stamps for any one. The J.B. Williams Co. Dept A, Glastonbury, Conn. Add the finishing touch to your shave with Williams’ luxurious Tale Powder Wanted L. persons interested in some- The purpose of the Something Club is to furnish that relief by stimu- thing else besides the war and the ny- high cost of living are requested to body that can talk for ten minutes correspond immediately with — the without touching the war or the high Something Else Editor of Lire. It is cost, ete, is eligible to membership. It feared that the erstwhile talkative is hoped that by spring three or four American citizen, who could chatter subjects, well suited to spontaneous with impunity about a thousand things, confabulation, will have been brought is rapidly becoming mono-ideistic. to light and thrown upon the gab mar- Relief must be given him immediately. ket. lating interest in something else. / Contentment TLE I ask; 1 only ask for peace once more, With all the Hohenzollern crew Behind a stout jail door, And all the German troops disarmed: At such a pag my wants are few; cant I'd be charmed. Modest am I in my demands: I want to hear the Huns admit That they're to blame for ruined lands And that they started It. And then I want to see them pay Until the final Judgment Day. And I would have them ¢ Their countless foul and hestial acts— Their murders, coldly planned in hate, Their lies and broken pacts. If such a matter I could see, I'd be content eternally. KEL. RR. Sure Method iA become so successful? Famous Noveuist: By writing what I pleased and then tearing it up and writing what the editors wanted. HOR: How did you STALLS BOOKS OvonT (Ovonr READ BY MILLIONS BECAUSE THEY TELL OF SEX SUBJECTS WITHOUT MEDICAL TERMS NCE Soon HOOK! PRICE, Dye comicbook sss