Life, 1924-10-16 · page 5 of 36
Life — October 16, 1924 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three separate satirical pieces from early 20th-century *Life* magazine: 1. **"Crash!"** – A brief dialogue mocking aviation pioneers, suggesting flying is dangerously impractical. 2. **"The Collector"** – Percy Waxman's poem satirizes wealthy collectors who obsessively accumulate exotic goods (rugs, teak, jewelry) from colonial locations like India and Burma, treating acquisition as a status symbol. The humor lies in the absurdity of collecting "all the junk" while calling oneself a refined collector. 3. **"Well Cast"** – This mocks theatrical pretension, suggesting the Devil observing the "Creation" play found the Adam-and-Eve scene unconvincingly performed, implying contemporary actors are mediocre. The bottom illustration depicts a dismissive exchange about a woman's pet, likely a Chippendale breed dog mistaken for something else—a joke about social pretension or class confusion.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
VIATOR: There's something wrong with this plane. If it eps up, we're lost. Passencer: Yes; and what if doesn’t keep up? "THERES one thing to be said in favor of marrying Peggy yee. It keeps you out in the en air a lot. The Collector yu can talk of your Mings and your Cloisonné things, Your Gobelins, mantels and newels; You can ape the elect by the jades you collect; You can swank over settings and jewels; You can give yourself airs on your Chippendale chairs And the age of your rugs from Bokhara; You can boast of your teak being truly unique And your lamp quite antique from Sahara; You can buy all the junk and collect all the bunk From Ispahan, Moscow, or Siam, But today I will call to collect for it all— That's the kind of collector that I am. Percy Waxman. “IS HELEN DUMB?” Well Cast T! = Devil attended the Creation as an unofficial observer. For the better part of six days he watched the proceedings unmoved. Then came Adam and Eve. “A-ha,” murmured the Devil ap- provingly, “we now have the mak- ings of a first-class sex drama.” N antique by any other name would not cost as much. “Is SHE DUMB! SHE THINKS A CHIPPENDALE IS A DOG.” comicbooks.com