Life, 1924-10-23 · page 6 of 36
Life — October 23, 1924 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct pieces of satire: 1. **"How to Be the Life of a Party"** (top left): A humorous guide offering six absurd tips for party success, including drinking heavily, remaining quiet until cocktails arrive, and dancing with the heaviest woman present while pretending great effort. The satire mocks both annoying party guests and the earnest "self-improvement" advice popular in magazines of the era. 2. **"Needlepoint"** (top right): A poem satirizing women's sewing circles, suggesting they're venues for gossip and moral judgment rather than productive work—"They do not sew." 3. **"Founder's Day"** and **"Correct This Sentence"** (bottom): Brief satirical pieces poking fun at institutional pomposity and grammatical pedantry. The overall tone reflects early-20th-century satirical humor targeting social pretension.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Doctor: Patient (radio fan): I DON'T LIKE THAT HEART MURMUR, MAYBE IT’S ONLY A TOUCH OF STATIC. How to Be the Life of a Party | IMMEDIATELY upon arrival, drink four cocktails. This is abso- lutely necessary, not only because it will make you feel like making a fool of yourself, but because it simultane- ously makes you forget you are do- ing it. 2. Remain perfectly quiet until every- body else has had five or six cocktails. This will carry them into the second stage, in which they will greet any- thing with shrieks of Jaughter. 3. Everything is now ready. Make a conical cap of newspaper and put it on, Then state that you are not such a fool as you look. This will be greeted with a chorus of “Is that so?” “Yes, you are.” “Who told you so?” as well as with shricks of laughter. 4. Pull the cap down over your eyes and tear eyeholes in it. This will be greeted with shrieks of laughter and shouts of “Ku Klux! Ku Klux!” 5. Dance with the fattest woman in the party. Pretend to haul her with great effort about the floor, puffing and winking surreptitiously over her shoul- der while doing so. This will be greeted with shricks of laughter, especially the fat woman's attempts to appear obliv- ious of the fact that she knows per- fectly well what you are doing. 6. At 4 a.at. go about saying to every one, “Hel-lo! Up before break- fast for once, hey?” This will be greeted with wild shrieks of laughter. True, all this does not sound funny. But this article is not intended to tell you how to be funny but how to be the Life of a Party. There is a big difference. Baron Ireland. T’S dangerous, these days, for a man to make love to a girl. She's likely to write him up for a “confessional” magazine. Needlepoint IX sewing circles, I've heard tell, They whisper neighbors Into hell. In sewing circles, So they say, They jump ahead Of Judgment Day. In sewing circles, This I know— They do not sew. N.F.M. Founder's Day T was morning of the first day of t! first year. At the breakfast table sat the fir man and the first woman, “You'll be going to the serpent’s con ing-out party to-night?” inquired Ada: in what was destined to become h proverbial cheery manner. “Really, my dear,” replied Eve, re proachfully, “you know that I can't Why, I haven't a thing to wear.” Thus to woman must be credited th: first bon mot of history, and even as it is written, the first shall be last. Correct This Sentence “NJEVER mind if the stock market did break you, dear,” cooed th Follies girl; “we'll go on with our mar riage just the same.” Thoughtful Wife: 1's A LUCKY THING I BROUGHT THIS UMBRELLA ALONG OR WE'D BE SOAKING WET. comicbooks.com