Life, 1923-06-28 · page 35 of 37
Life — June 28, 1923 — page 35: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a self-promotional advertisement for *Life* magazine disguised as humorous anti-advertising. The page presents four cautionary tales about subscribing to *Life*, each describing how reading the magazine caused social disasters: 1. **Fifi Furlined** laughed so hard at a Percy Crosby cartoon while playing bridge that her partner lost money. 2. **Balboa Blimp** became so absorbed in Robert Benchley's writing on a train that he missed his stop and a dinner party. 3. **Percy Peters** was so entertained by Gluyas Williams' comic series that he missed an entire theater act. 4. **Gerald Jerrold** recalled a Sullivant hippopotamus cartoon during grace at dinner and was physically removed from his fiancée's house. The satire works by claiming these are reasons *not* to subscribe while actually showcasing *Life's* entertaining content (Crosby, Benchley, Williams, Sullivant were prominent contributors). The invitation to "take a chance" and subscribe plays on readers' desire to experience such engaging humor themselves.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
IF WE REMEMBER CORRECTLY. —and we do remember correctly—we have told you from time to time, and back again, various reasons why you should Obey That Impulse and subscribe to LIFE. Just to give you both sides of the argument, here are some of the reasons why you should not. (1) FIFI FURLINED, while on dummy duty, snooped at the current issue of LIFE and reaped a crop of hys- terics over a Percy Crosby drawing. Her laughter dis- concerted her partner to the extent of a 400 set. As they were playing for 10 cents a point, Fifi remarked that it was rather a costly cachinnation. Her partner's remarks cannot be printed here. (2) BALBOA BLIMP, en route to a house-party in the Adirondacks, Obeyed That Impulse on the train. He didn’t miss a word of Benchley’s criticisms, but as a re- sult he did miss his station, his host's limousine, six cock- tails and a ten-course dinner, and was forced to spend the night in a subnormal hotel in the next town, with nothing between him and starvation but a train sandwich. (3) PERCY PETERS arrived at the theatre with time to spare, so he bought a copy of LIFE to’while away the time until the 8:30 curtain rose promptly at a quarter to nine. It was so worth his while, and he became so in terested in one of Gluyas Williams’ series, that he missed the entire first act, and might easily have missed the plot if there had been one. (4) Perhaps the saddest of all is the case of GERALD JERROLD, who, while sponging a meal with his fiancée’s family, took the inopportune moment while her father was saying grace to suddenly recall a Sullivant hippopot- amus he had seen in LIFE. Overpowered by this illtimed mirth, and later by the butler and second man, he was forced to leave the table—and the house. LIFE, 598 Madison Avenue, New York Dear LIFE: 1 "You can’t scare me! I can stand ie if you can. Here is a dollar for | ten weeks’ trial subscription—now do your worst. pe Courageously yours, Of course, if you are one of those sturdy he-men or she-women, and are not afraid to take a chance, and have an extra dollar, there is always that Coupon in the Cor- ner. But don’t say we didn’t warn you! ($1.40, if you're brave enough to live in Europe; $1.20 in Canada.) comicbooks.com