Life, 1925-10-08 · page 25 of 46
Life — October 8, 1925 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Life* magazine contains three separate satirical pieces reflecting 1920s social attitudes: **"Footnotes on the Charleston"** mocks the popular Charleston dance craze through absurdist aphorisms ("Youth will be swerved"), poking fun at both the dance itself and those obsessed with dancing academies. **"Bigger and Better Cusswords"** satirizes social hypocrisy regarding profanity. The author notes clergy and novelists use mild expletives like "Hell's Bells!" but argues modern frustrations (income taxes, lost romance, bad golf) demand stronger language. The piece implies society arbitrarily restricts cursing while venerating money—highlighting absurd moral priorities. **"The Latest Fiction"** cartoon mocks exaggerated hunting stories. Two men discuss a hunter's claim of firing at a distant lion; when asked if he hit it, he admits "no" but boasts about the impressive distance—exemplifying the tall-tale tradition of prioritizing the story's grandeur over actual accomplishment. All three pieces reflect 1920s anxieties about modernization, changing morality, and generational conflict.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Footnotes on the Charleston DANCE as you'd be danced by. eee It's never too late to bend. eee A bird in the hand is worth two in the dancing academy. eee One good turn deserves an encore. eee Youth will be swerved. eee A step in time is almost impossible. Bigger and Better Cusswords ERE is an undoubted demand for more shocking and irreverent expressions than we now have. Every- body feels this great need. Our clergy have made the best of the wealth of material on hand, but even they have fallen short of their ideals, in spite of some of the modern translations of the New Testament. “Hell's Bells!” has recently been used by novelists, occa- sionally brightening up an otherwise deadly narrative. But even this has its limits as imprecation, When we are confronted by income tax reports, or our rela- tives light down on us, or the flossy flapper we thought might igus ee THE LATEST FICTION do to drive the family car marries some one else, merely to exclaim, “Oh, hell!” seems but feeble and inconclu- sive. One hole of golf, or even a single bunker, easily exhausts all the cusswords we have. If you tell any man, even your best friend, to go to hell more than once or twice, he properly resents it. And it is not altogether a question of sacredness. Gold is the most sacred thing we have on hand, yet no one would dream of saying, “By Gold!” To Lod. Worse “PAVE you any poor relations?” “Well, I have a cousin in the newspaper business.” “THE LION WAS TEN THOUSAND FEET AWAY WHEN I FIRED.’ “pip You HIT HIM?” “OF COURSE NOT—BUT THINK OF THE DISTANCE.” comicbooks.com