Life, 1924-01-10 · page 34 of 44
Life — January 10, 1924 — page 34: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains **satirical commentary on modern convenience culture**, circa 1920s-1930s. The main piece, "Author-Shops," mocks society's increasing reliance on shortcuts and summaries. The author (B.F.) sarcastically predicts a dystopian future where people read *book reviews instead of books*—skipping actual reading the way they skip stairs via escalators or forgo college for correspondence courses. The satire escalates absurdly: books will become "souvenirs of a backward age," and "author-shops" will sell custom-written reviews like tailored clothing, allowing lazy customers to carry "whole libraries in coat pockets" without reading anything. The accompanying fictional letter "1984: A Glimpse into the Future" extends this satire, depicting an absurdly frivolous upper-class life where people hunt elephants in Mombasa, attend divorce parties, and marry repeatedly—suggesting cultural decay alongside intellectual laziness. **The joke:** Modern readers skip actual engagement (reading, learning, thinking) in favor of passive consumption of summaries and reviews. The exaggerated predictions satirize contemporary shortcuts as symptoms of intellectual and moral decline.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
WLLREP Exguisite of Vanilla Chocolate, wrapped in foil. sun-ripened MORSELS pure tin Delicious as fruit. A delightful food-con- fection for the entire family. Tempting to the last piece. If your dealer cannot $1.00 fora pound box, | eon oarnat supply you, send puns H. O. Wusur & Sons, Inc., Phila., Pa. Makers of Wilbur's Cocoa Author-Shops is an age when people read book-reviews and walk up escalators, and that precocious youngster who wanted to know what they did with time when they saved it ought to be taken out to the woodshed. Once a person, to know what a book contained and to be able to carry round with him some respectable sort of opin- ion of the contents, was compelled to go through the tedious process of read- ing the book; now, as he may step on an-escalator instead of climbing the Stairs, or step into a correspondence coursé instead of going to college, he may step on a book-review instead of reading the book. Ars verbosa, vita brevis. It is easy to see that books will soon be regarded as souvenirs of a backward age. The reviewer has given us some- thing better: it saves us time and labor, and when reviews are bound, we shall be able to carry around whole libraries in our coat pockets. It is but a step from this to the ideal time when books will be put on the market like clothes: only the poor will buy them ready-made, the fashionable will go to some reputable writer and be fitted; customers will appear at the author-shops and ask to be shown some of their spring bookings, and the sales- men will place before them a file con- taining the reviews of the embryo books. This will benefit everybody; the read- ing public will be saved from the dis- comfort resulting from being over-read, and the writing public from the dis- couragement of wasting a whole weck of existence in writing a book no one is going to buy. B. F. 1984: A Glimpse into the Future (Portrayed in a letter from Kitty Lingerwell, of Park Lane, London, to John Spifleton, of East Fifty-second Street, New York C Dear Jack: Just a line to ask you to dine with us on Tuesday at half-past ten. The Buffleys are giving a divorce party afterward. Town is rather empty just now, as every one’s run down to Mombasa tor the clephant hunting over the week- end, and of course, to-morrow is the Hongkong Sweepstakes. A few of us are going over for the day. Grace Twinkleson is being married for the seventh time, this afternoon. If you must be back in New York on Thursday, do let Harry Whiffletree take you in his new blimp. He's leav- ing Wednesday noon. Yours on the crest, Kotty L. Friday. | The saxophone is to- day’s most popular in- strument. Witha Conn you can learn the scale in one hour —master popular music in a short time. Entertain yourselfand friends —make more o money. Saxophonists are in demand for orchestra and solo work. This Free Book explains exclusive features which make the Conn saxophone easiest to play, beautiful in tone, reliable in action. Tells why world-famous artists such as Isham Jones, Paul Biese and scores more prefer the Conn’ Free Trial; Easy Payments on any Conn instrument fot band or orchestra. Send now for Free Book and details, Cc. G. CONN, Led. Building Elkhart, Indiana 121 Conn A SON AT THE PRONT —Yale Record. An Easy Way to | Remove Dandruff | If you want plenty of thick, beautiful, glossy, silky hair, do by all means get rid of dandruff, for it wilt Starve your hair and ruin it if you don’t. The best way to get rid of dandruff is to dissolve it. To do this, just apply a little | Liquid Arvon at night before retiring; use | enough to moisten the scalp, and rub it in gently with the finger tips. By morning, most, if not all, of your dandruff will be gone, and three or four more applications should completely re- move every sign and trace of it. You will find, too, that all itching of the | scalp will stop, and your hair will look and feel a hundred times better. You can get Liquid Arvon at any drug store. A four- ounce bottle is usually all that is needed. The R. L. Wathine Co., Cleveland, Obie. comicbooks.com