Life, 1922-06-22 · page 11 of 34
Life — June 22, 1922 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct pieces of humorous content: **"What Are the Wild Waves Saying?"** is a comedic dialogue among personified ocean waves warning each other about dangers to swimmers—undertows, the need to swim properly, and a woman they plan to "teach" by nearly drowning her. The humor relies on treating waves as gossips with malicious intent. **"Rondeau"** is a poem by D.P. expressing romantic melancholy about a absent lover, complaining that nature's beauty seems diminished without them. The accompanying illustration shows a prospector or cowboy figure, apparently unrelated to the poem's sentiment, with a caption expressing hunger ("I wish someone'd drop in on me an' have grub"). The prospector cartoon appears to be satirizing the disconnect between romantic poetry and harsh frontier reality, or offering visual comedy through incongruity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LIFE What Are the Wild Waves Saying? IRST WAVE: Say! I’ve been hanging around the beach for an hour waiting for those girls to come in swimming and let me splash them. I tell you, it takes the sand out of a fellow waiting and waiting like this. Seventii WAVE (superciliously): Huh! You must be a newcomer here. Look out or some mean undertow will come along and kidnap you. Don’t you know that they never go in above their knees? First \Vave: Well, what do they wear bathing suits for then SE 1 Wave: Law makes ’em. They wear as little as they can now. Secon WAVE (heaving excitedly): Here comes a couple! [hey must be able to swim. Tuirv \Wave (bobbing nervously in his hurry to show his knowledge): One of them is a swimmer—the man. Seconp Wave (suspiciously): How can you tell? You haven't seen ‘em try yet. Tuixp \Vave: I can tell from her face. She has that far-away look when she glances at him that gives the whole y away. He's going to teach her. I’ve seen that kind before. Wait a minute and you'll see. (The two swimmers under discussion wade out a little jurther and the “swimming” lesson begins.) Seventit Wave: Make it choppy, fellows, and keep close to me. I'm going to show you some fun. wave breaks over the couple. The girl wims rapidly and skillfully out of danger. Her escort doesn’t 1 her departure until after he has coughed a quart « ater out of his system.) Secon Wave: There! I knew she could swim! (The escort wades rapidly over to the side of the girl, murmuring as he does so, “Did my little tweetums nearly get drowned by the big nasty wave?”) Sevenrii Wave (disgustedly): Isn't that enough to make any wave wild? I can’t stay here listening to any » more talk like that. I'll be rippling along. (The escort continues to calm the girl with “Was my poor little honeykins scared?) First, Seconp, Tuirp, Fourtu, Fieri ann Sixtru Waves: Oh slush, slosh, slush, slosh! TsHeda Rondeau T isn't fair, to me, when you're away. In vain the clouds their brightest hues display, Sweet Summer dons in vain her gladdest guise,— The vision falls but coldly on my eyes; The sky scems draped in melancholy gray. Though never bloomed the roses half so gay, Though ever half so radiant shone the day, This loveliness my stubborn heart denies; It isn’t fair. And do you, also, sing a minor lay? Do you to bitter yearnings fall a prey? “Well, no,” frank Echo honestly replies, “In fact, it is distinctly otherwise.” And that, my dear, is why again I say It isn’t fair. Dz. P. ay aallize hn Prospector: I wish someone’d drop in on me an’ have grub. comicbooks.com