Life, 1926-12-02 · page 30 of 81
Life — December 2, 1926 — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three separate satirical pieces typical of 1920s Life magazine humor: **"For a Much Too Unfortunate Lady"** — Dorothy Parker's poem mocks romantic disillusionment, contrasting love's initial promises with its inevitable betrayal. The verse satirizes idealized notions of romance. **"The True Confession Writer Goes Crazy"** — Robert Lord parodies the lurid "confession" magazine genre popular in the era, parodying their overwrought melodrama (yachts, rubies, leopard skins, bigamy). The humor lies in the absurdly contradictory plot and the mundane moral ("never brain your mother"). **The hat-check cartoon** depicts a magician's convention where conjurers with rabbits and birds emerging from top hats create chaos for the coat-check attendant—a visual pun on the magicians' tricks. **"Hoosiers Will Be Boys"** jokes about a man who joined the KKK, then depicts a woman whose husband has been fishing since August and hasn't returned, implying he's abandoned her. The humor is dark, playing on marital desertion. These pieces reflect 1920s satire of popular culture, romantic conventions, and social absurdities.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
= For a Much Too Unfortunate Lady FE, will love you, presently, If you be the w ou be. Send your heart a-sk ra He will stoop and lift the thing. Be your dreams as thread, to tease Into patterns he may please. ct him see i Ever tendere Go and bless your star above, Thus are you, and thus is Love. He will leave you white with woe, If you go the way you go. If your dreams were thread to we He will pluck them from his sle If your heart had come to rest, He will flick it from his breast. Tender though the love he bore, You had loved a little more. Lady, go and curse your sts Thus Love is, and thus you are. Dorothy Parker. The Past LICE: Can you do any of the old-fashioned dances? Vircinta: I think I remember the Charleston! HEN it comes to wearing ap- parel the flapper isn’t in it. A TRYING SITUATION FOR THE HAT-CHECK GIRL AT THE CONJURERS’ CONVENTION. The True Confession Writer Goes Crazy HEN he led me into a room hung ith crimson velvet drapes just a sweet innocent thing of sixteen when I first put foot in the Pennsyl- vania Station and my heart leaped joyfully as he said he guessed they could use me for an underwear model the lights the music the wild gaiety made me forget everything Mother had told me but he slipped some- thing into my hand it was a roll of thousand-dollar bills the yacht was long low and rakish come come little girl just try one sip he urged then the patrol wagon came clanging up outside while the divan was studded with rubies and covered with a huge leopard’s skin I was so much in love with him that I believed every word so I'm going back to Ashtabula and Larry my childhood sweetheart Zin- nia I adore you he breathed into my ear as he crushed me savagely to his breast how could I know he was al- ready married to three other women and remember never to brain your mother with a poker as I did because mother is a girl's best friend. Robert Lord. Hoosiers Will Be Boys HEAR that Parker has joined the Klan.” “TL dare say. I just saw him ring old Mrs, O'Brien’s doorbell and run.” “AND YOUR HUSBAND, MRS. WILKINS, WHERE 18 11E THIS WINTER?” . ‘Sie WENT FISHIN’ LAST AUGUST, AND IE MUST BE HAVIN’ GOOD LUCK, OR HED BE HOME BEFORE Tits.” comicbooks.com