Life, 1925-05-21 · page 10 of 40
Life — May 21, 1925 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes early 1920s domestic life and technology through a central cartoon titled "Morning Exercises on the Radio." The large illustration depicts a family performing calisthenics while listening to radio-broadcast exercise instructions—a new phenomenon at the time. The cartoon mocks this trend by showing people contorted in awkward poses, following disembodied radio commands. The surrounding text snippets are characteristic Life editorial commentary on contemporary absurdities: a scientist starving rats experimentally, Germany potentially becoming democratic, and New York police threatening criminals with execution. The page exemplifies Life's satirical approach: using humor to critique both modern technologies (radio instruction culture) and social/political developments, treating contemporary news with irreverent wit.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
HE Government concedes that its efforts to popularize the silver dollar have failed. A decision reached, we assume, by the flop of the coin. AL Judging by those new bone-dry laws, this is the land of the free and the home of people who live in Indiana AL The greatest feat of modern journalism was the writing of twenty or thirty miles of editorials praising England for returning to the gold standard without betraying the fact that none of the editorial writers understood what it was all abont. Jt It is CAnLAUN’s purpose to put France hack on a gold hasis, and to that end France expects every American tourist to do duty. a “One baby is born in New York every theee minutes,” says a newspaper. That must he awfully tiresome for the hahy. cy oo “ye 0ne® aaHrs® RIK , oS a er nest EXPAMOED KNEES $0 THAT THE PALMS OF THE HANDS TOUCH THE FLOOR —MOW REPEAT —— } OME, wo - THREE “pou \ Qala one One - THe GREE “gue STRAIGHT - mw MORNING EXERCISES ON THE RADIO SETTING UP Some of our contemporaries seem to think the results of the election in Ger- But, Germany might many could not have been worse. of course, they could. have gone Democratic. aL A Chicago scientist reports he has kept several flatworms alive for three years with practically no food. We suspect the experiment was conducted in a modern kitchenette apartment. JL Posters issued by the New York Police Dept. carry this grim warning: can’t win—15,000 policemen are sworn to ‘get’ you—alive or DEAD!” This is effective advertising, and might lhe used to good advantage by the Loyal Order of Reckless Drivers, whose ob- ject appears to be the same. Which reminds us that, in the United States last year, 19,000 people were killed (in- cluding 5,700 children) and 450,000 in- jured by automobiles. LL Slogans may come and slogans may go, hut for the dear old average citizen the greatest significance is still con- tained in the first three words quoted above: “You Can't Win.” aL According to Mrs. Joun D. SHerMan, president of the Federation — of Women's Clubs, the man whose wife feeds him meals from the delicatessen store should get a divorce. Perhaps he should; but what he actually gets is indigestion, aL Recent dispatches from Bulgaria indi- cate that the California realtors have a lot to learn in the matter of getting front-page publicity for their desirable plots. aL There is no beating the cool heroism of these Hawaiians. We understand that during the recent naval engage- ments the sign, “Business as usual,” was conspicuously posted in the windows of the tourist agencies. LL The “capture” of Hawaii by the U. S. Navy should be fittingly observed throughout the country by a National Fat-More-Pineapple Day. comicbooks.com