Life — November 3, 1921 — page 11: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "The Dinner Diary of Clare de Loon" by George Chappell This is a satirical diary entry about New York social life. The narrator, Clare de Loon, describes acquiring a studio and meeting Frank Munsey, a violinist with a head "like Winston Churchill's—round with ears on the side." The accompanying illustration shows a dinner scene where the narrator and a woman dine while a man gestures animatedly. The satire mocks the pretensions of New York's artistic and social circles—the narrator's self-conscious reflections on whether she's "really a Loon," her name-dropping (references to Russians, the Soviet Central Committee), and breathless descriptions of bohemian studio life all suggest gentle mockery of affected cosmopolitan society trying too hard to appear cultured and worldly.