Life, 1920-05-27 · page 8 of 44
Life — May 27, 1920 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece critiques pretentious intellectual and cultural affectations. The main cartoon depicts a father-daughter conversation about marriage prospects. The daughter's suitor is described as a "wealthy bachelor uncle, sixty-five years old, who has just taken up aviation"—satirizing how wealthy older men adopt fashionable hobbies to appear modern and appealing to younger women. The accompanying essay mocks various forms of pomposity: people who read untranslated foreign literature to seem cultured, those who prefer abstract art over practical utility, and those who make grandiose claims about nature and philosophy without genuine understanding. The satire targets the gap between pretense and reality—the notion that adopting fashionable interests or affectations can substitute for genuine character or substance.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LI Commonplace Ventures By Our Special Staff Inspirational Writer (Volume Il of The Pishposh Books) HE worst luck a man ever has is himseli—unless it is his wife and. family. The reason a woman marries a man is not any more lucid than the “reason” she has for doing anything else. Every man has remarked the difference hetween the love of a sweet heart and the love of a wife, That is no more than the differencs what ts.” between the reaction to “ what may be” ar \ modest man is often admired—but he is more ofte ed upon as a dinged hypocrite. The Bible speaks of Eve's fig leaves. her rouge. perfume. rt skirts and cigarette smoking But it doesn’t say a word about ead Voltaire, Osear Wilde or Gorky, T thank Heaven as Frank Crane. Harold Bell Wright and Whenever I for sending us such mer e¢ Grey. All writing is bunk. There never was a writer who couldn't have his writing improved by an editor. There never was an editor who didn’t believe more in his writing than his editing. And there you are Lincoln split rails. I (and I am speaking for all writers) split in finitives. Is there any need to ask you which is the better man? “SO YOU WANT TO MARRY MY DAUGHTER YOUR PROSPECTS? “WELL, SIR, T HAVE A WEALTHY BACHELOR UNCLE, SIXTY-FIVE YEARS OLD, WHO HAS JUST TAKEN UP AVIATION. WHAT ARE OUT OF GAS IN THE GULF STREAM Which would you rather be able to do: read Confucius in the original or carve a fifteen-pound turkey for cight | replicas of yourself? Which is more useful? If Macterlinck could make himself intelligible, you'd find he had very little to say, after all I can't read French. Neither can I read German, Spanish, lialian, Russian, Chinese, Latin, Greek or Sanskrit—and | am proud of it! . . . The grunting of a prize hog hoids more music for me than any record Caruso has made or will make If I had to change personalities, and were given the alter- native of Debussy or one of the Kallika the latter. s, I should choose For one thing, it would not be so great a change. o 8 8 Don't you suppose the sun could set just as effectively without indulging in a riot of color about it? We derive heat and light from the sun. Both of th are essential to life. Can anyone say as much about the moon ? | would rather have a cold bean sandwich than the finest rainbow that ever had an imaginary pot of gold at the end of it The egg from the hen or the hen from the egg? Ané while we are on that subject, were umbrellas made for rain. or rain for umbrellas? There is less common sense in Nature than in anyt else in the world. History tells of a man who amounted to a good deal in spite of a shrew wife I don’t believe the statement that there was once a man who was half horse, either. And if somebody was fresh enough to tell me T was 9 of 2 s, | would call him a confounded liar! There is a certain weary look that appears on the faces of those that are bored. seem to meet it Every time I talk to someone | comicbooks.com