Life, 1922-09-21 · page 32 of 36
Life — September 21, 1922 — page 32: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical article mocks the tedium of vacation photo albums—a common early-20th-century social custom. The author humorously catalogs typical album contents: sporting events (sailboat races, tennis), children's birthday parties, costumed guests in "fancy dress," and countless porch/garden scenes. The joke builds to the article's point: vacation albums are padded with hundreds of nearly-identical photographs—parasol mishaps, landscape shots of tea-houses and piers—that the owner hasn't bothered organizing or pasting in yet. The author suggests these mundane images consume disproportionate viewer attention simply because viewers fear missing "fine points." The satire culminates with the revelation that someone looking at such tedious vacation photos concluded New York City was actually the best summer resort—implying that enduring photo albums makes anywhere else seem preferable. The article lampoons both the compulsive documentation of leisure activities and the social obligation to display and admire vacation photographs.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LIFE - The Aftermath of Vacation (Continued from page 22) views of sporting events. Among these is the start of the cat-boat race —there’s the Jdler on the end, if you look close you can see Eddie’s head. Next comes the tennis division. First a general view of the courts showing small and curiously shaped figures playing—that’s the little Jar- vis boy over at the left, he had the meanest cut on his serve. Then sev- eral close-ups of tennis enthusiasts with one humorist holding his rac- quet as if it were a guitar, and an- other peering grotesquely through the net, with killing effect. * * * Then comes the social section. Several pages are, and only justly, devoted to views of little Eddie’s birthday party—it was too cute to see all the kiddies on the lawn, if you could have been there, you would have just loved it. Then appears the set of pictures of people in fancy dress—old-fashioned girls, Hawaiian This one extra process ives a delightful quality that cannot be duplicated gentlemen, farm characters, snake charmers, gypsies, and jolly tars. Following these come not a few, at a conservative estimate, groups of people sitting on porches, sitting un- der trees, sitting in motors, and sit- ting, with hearty laughs to show that it is only in fun, on each others’ laps. * oe * Along around here is where the album shows nothing but blank pages. But the end is far from yet, for in the back of the book is invari- ably a large bundle of unattached photographs, scheduled to be pasted in as soon as the owner gets around to it. These are mainly of a purely artistic nature,—views of the turn in the road just before you come to the tea-house, the Dorothy Perkins arbor in more or less full bloom, the sum- mer house, and the end of the pier at low tide. The personal element is sup- plied, however, by a series of human interest photographs of local char- acters—the man who looks after the bath-houses, the hotel chef, the desk- clerk who is working his way through college, and the three youngest chil- dren of the laundress. Then comes a group of oddities caught by the camera, including the lady holding a parasol which looks as if it were inside out, if you keep looking hard at it with that idea in mind. These last, really, occupy more time than all the rest, because how would you feel if you should miss any of their fine points? It must have been someone that had just risen from an evening of looking at vacation photographs who got up the idea about New York’s being the best Summer resort, after all. D. P. | Fink 2 aSRE Ra NaRicl } REGUS PAT. OFFA! CIMGERINE SOAR Since 1860 the one best glycerine soap! TE bath room or wash room which contains a cake of No. 4711 White Rose Glycerine Soap is made luxurious by that one touch alone! Such a delightful sensation of mildness in its use! Such a faint, agreeable perfume and_ richness of creamy, purifying lather! Take a cake home to day,—or a box. Your favorite shop has it White Rose Soap Raver Bisel No. 4711 Eau de llogne—the genuine old: feiss | Cologne water, made the same since ned No. 4711 Bath Salts—which come i: quisite perfumes. Nothing like these Salts fa softening the water and exhilarating the bather! as w MULHENS & KROPFF, Inc. it] w Ye * Made in, s.a, —°* Yor Sure Relief FOR INDIGESTION 6 BELLANS y Hot water = ==) Sure Relief ELL-ANS 25¢ ano 75¢ PACKAGES EVERYWHERE A minute saved isa minute gained Fon MEN ONLY WHO HAVE MISSED SHOE LACING HOOKS ® LACING HOOKS CAN BE INED ON EX- CLUSIVE MODELS OF QUALITY td FOOTWEAR. INSIST ON HAVING WHAT YOU WANT. comicbooks.com