Life, 1921-09-08 · page 17 of 36
Life — September 8, 1921 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This piece mocks the overwrought romantic fiction popular in early 20th-century magazines. The narrator builds elaborate tension—describing a woman's "lambent eyes," a precipice, clouds, and desperate yearning—only to reveal the "choice" is selecting a chocolate éclair from a waitress. The satire targets two things: (1) the absurd melodrama of pulp fiction, where trivial moments are described in grandiose, pseudo-poetic language, and (2) the gap between literary pretension and mundane reality. The punchline works because readers expect a morally significant or romantic decision, but get dessert. The page also includes "Destiny: Chansonette" (mocking pretentious poetry) and "Integer Vitae" (a joke equating chronic drunkenness with chronic love-sickness, both "cured" by marriage or the Keeley cure). Together, they form a comedic critique of sentimental popular literature.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
September 8 With Apologies co SNAPPY The Ordeal By Paul Pulp SHE OFFERED HIM THE AMBROSIAL DELIGHTS OF PARADISE, and commanded him to choose! 4 F ce HE spoke to me from the depths of those black y pools of ineffable mystery which were her eyes. J } “Choose!” she seemed to say. And there was <t—#% in her voice that which made me know that the moment had come when I must decide. | was troubled. ilow could I choose between the deliriously delectable delights which she offered me—which she yielded to me with a gesture of passionate surrender? | looked again into her lambent that shone forth was unmistakable—in “Choose!” she pleaded. Ilow could I decide? \y heart raced; and the pulse beats throbbed with insane fury in my temples, beating down the barriers of my reason—shattering the ramparts of my resistance. I . The message vitable. What would you have done? was wavering on the brink of a lofty precipice, and below me billowed vast, formless masses of soft, roseate clouds. I felt that I must fall:—and something within me whispered that it would be sweet . . . so sweet. . . But—I could not decide. “Choose,” murmured her and there was in them a note of yearning tenderness—of desperate appeal. “Damn the woman,” I cried in my soul. “Why must she tempt me—?” And even as I cried, I yielded. My throat was parched; my eyes protruded bulbously from burning sockets; my lips trembled pitifully. I lifted a shaking finger and pointed. “Give me that chocolate éclair,’ I blubbered to the waitress, as I sank back into unconsciousness. Tue Enp Destiny: Chansonette By Muriel Warm Thy lips were ashen With passion . My lips were ashen With passion . Ashes to ashes. Integer Vitae By Coningsby Dibble Tuere is really very little difference between the man who is constantly in his cups and the man who is constantly in love. Neither case is hopeless. For the chronic drunkard, there is the Keeley cure. For the chronic lover, there is marriage. comicbooks.com