Life, 1924-07-31 · page 13 of 36
Life — July 31, 1924 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three separate satirical pieces. "Week-End Musings" offers social commentary on cocktail culture and Long Island society. "The Checking System" is a humorous list-poem criticizing various modern institutions—too many rats, tools, columnists, asylums, and ultimately blaming "woman" for society's excess of unhappiness. The main cartoon depicts three figures beneath a tree, with one asking "Do you like Kipling?" The response is "Why—I don't know. How do you kipple?" This is wordplay: "Kipling" refers to the famous author Rudyard Kipling, but the joke treats it as if it were a verb ("kipple"), creating absurdist humor by treating a proper name as an unfamiliar activity or action.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Week-End. Musings I! would be much simpler if people mixed furniture polish in the cock- serve... .Better for the tables g-room and not appreciably different in taste....Nor in effect, probably....Old pun: Nowadays one’s charity is expected to cover a multitude gins....It would be interesting to »w what proportion of our annual orange crop is used to disguise the fail- res of synthetic chemistry in the home. The coats of arms of California and rida should include a cocktail shaker 1 a bowl of cracked ice among their arings.... All Long Island roads lead to week- ud parties....What week-end parties may lead to only a prophet could tell... \nd he might need Old Testament nguage.... Observation on comparative values: f a man loses a book from his library, ranted that he has a library, it is sel- om replaced....If he breaks a wine lass he orders a dozen more.... An elderly woman who dances is as lisappointing to the male as a young one who doesn't....Ponce de Leén had “wWHY—I DON’T KNOW. A TURTLE DOVE the wrong notion, as the female has discovered... Youth is not to be found in a fountain, but in a hairdresser’s.... Artistic lighting is distinctly a fem- inine achievement....Men simply want something to dispel shadows; women, something to arrange shadows where they are most effective....A woman seems willing to forgive a man anything except his not taking a flirtation more seriously than she wishes him to.... People will insist upon resting ener- getically....Probably that is why week- ends seem longer than the time be- tween. James K. McGuinness. “WHAT is your chest expansion?” “IT have none. I live in an apartment house.” “po YOU LIKE KIPLING?” it The Checking System THE world fabric is wisely based upon a system of checks. Lest we have too many rats, we have cats. Lest we have too many fools, we have bucket-shops. Lest we have too much humor, we have columnists. Lest we have too much genius, we have asylums. Lest we have too much breadth of vision, we have censorship. Lest we have too much Christianity, we have One Hundred Per Centers. Lest we have too much happiness, we have woman. Lest we have too much unhappiness, we have woman. And lest we have too much pride, we have history. G. R. The Difference HAT Makes the Brow High— Reading up and down the humor- ous columns of the daily papers. What Makes the Brow Low—Read- ing to and fro along the comic ‘strips of the same. HOW DO YOU KIPPLE?” comicbooks.com