Life, 1926-10-14 · page 23 of 44
Life — October 14, 1926 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Life* magazine contains three distinct sections of satirical humor: **"Window"** is a humorous stream-of-consciousness catalog of commercial gift items—dice, flasks, fountain pens, phonographs, maps—mocking the consumerism and gift-buying culture of the era. The author ends by sarcastically stating he'd like to buy out the entire shop with a five-dollar bill, highlighting the absurd excess of merchandise. **"Lowbrow"** is a brief joke about someone unfamiliar with the Gutenberg Bible, confusing it as something the printer Gutenberg personally wrote—satirizing ignorance and class pretension. **"Oddities"** lists improbable types of people (women uninterested in interior design, girls unambitious for movies, senators without presidential aspirations, anyone not wanting to write plays), mocking the era's stereotypical expectations and the assumed universal ambitions of different social groups. The crude sketches accompanying these sections are generic comic illustrations. Overall, the page satirizes consumer culture, literary pretension, and unrealistic social expectations of the period.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
E RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS, VE SOME NICE PICTURES OF SAINTS LARTYRS, OF EACH—BUT THEY MUST BE PALIANS, thing to do for Gene Tunney is to present him with a couple of Grade-A vices James Kevin McGuinness. Lowbrow ID you know a hundred thousand was paid for the first Gutenbe Bible?” “No; I di¢ ven know Guten- berg wrote the Bible. Window K and green dice, in three sizes...souvenirs of New York, souvenirs of Florida, souvenirs of hell .-gold pencils with extra leads...red fountain pens...knives, pearl-handled, with one, two, three, or thirty blades...playing cards—large playing cards, tiny playing cards...“Put-and-take” tops...a billion post- cards, ..paper knives. ..these wonderful phonographs, genuine, play standard records...shect music (‘Ti- tina,” “Kitten on the Keys,” “When I Think of You") ..tennis rackets... flasks; half-pint flasks, pint flasks, quart flasks, curved and straight and leather and gold and silver and glass and glass-and-nickel. ..metal whisky glasses... powerful field glasses, powerful opera glasses, powerful microscopes (hand). ..brown dice, in two sizes...black fountain pens...‘Views of America” +-maps and guides. ..inkwells. . . fool your friends with this trick cigar. . .gyro- scopes...G y Dream Book... .1000 After-Dinner and Anecdotes. . .cig- arette cases; Japanese, ivory, cellulo silver, gold, tin...harmonicas. . .actual photographs of the Great War...green fountain pens...an office, home, school, and personal necessity—eleven _ instru- ments in one...souvenir photographs of Roosevelt... paper weights in all colors... Buddha _ incense burners. -Ta- dios...bamboo fountain pens. . .diary memo. ..rapid calculators. ...God! Some day I'm going to take a five-dollar bill and buy out the place. Wayne G. Haisley. Oddities WOMAN who does not believe she could make a fortune as an interior decorator. A girl who does not consider that she belongs in the movies. A college student who has never written a sonnet. ~ A Senator who does not feel he should be President. Anybody who does not intend to write a play. McC. H. comicbooks.com