Life, 1926-12-16 · page 14 of 34
Life — December 16, 1926 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"Changing Fashions"** (top cartoon): A woman asks a man about getting a Paris divorce. His response—"an annulment is ever so much more chic!"—satirizes how wealthy Americans adopt European fashions and social attitudes, treating serious matters like divorce as style choices rather than substantive concerns. **"Old Brer Babbitt Becomes a Goat"**: This longer piece mocks "Babbitt"—the archetypal middle-class American businessman from Sinclair Lewis's 1922 novel. The satire condemns how society blames ordinary businessmen for modern ills (empty churches, jazz, short skirts, divorces) while preachers and prohibitionists share responsibility. Life critiques the hypocrisy of blaming one social class for widespread cultural decline.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
‘Aro on —— Changing Fashions E YOU GOING TO ¢ “HEAVENS, NO, MY A PARIS DIVORCE ONT IS so MucH More cuic!” Old Brer Babbitt Becomes a Goat ITY the poor Babbitt! Shed tears for the American business man! He hasn't a neck Jong enough to receive all the axes that are being swung at it. Whatever he does is wrong. t since poor Brutus let Antony take the air has any one been so belabored. On the one hand, the Poets, Play- wrights, Pamphletcers and Pagans (just to mind our P’s) have com- bined to assault him because he made of life a sterile grind. Tl accuse him of working twenty- hours a da They blame him for roads, soft coal, Nujol, he tosis and Coolidge. Life has become a treadmill. Life has become a hug tory. Life become ¢ flywheel of a machine. Life has become——* And on the other hand, the Preachers, Prohibitionists, Puritans and Philosophers (just to continue among the P’s) combine to assault him be- cause he has made of life a flaming carnival. They accuse him of playing twenty-nine hours a day. They blame him for empty chureh night clubs, speed cars, bootleggers, chorus girls, divorces, jazz and short skirts. has become a debauch, a a, a gaudy fes- the poor Babbitt. He is the complete villain. If you've got a brick anywhere around, let him have it. He deserves it. Bertram Bloch. **See any recent sermon, temperance board statement, or John Roach Straton for further examples of what life has become. A Love Song by One Who Has Never Taken the Roth Memory Course Your smile is like the sun of France— Or did I mean to say Tibet? (And here insert a quoted verse Which I forget.) The grace of movements which you make . Is most ethereal, I find... Like fairy maids (the names of which Have slipped my mind). Your beauty, love, is unsurpassed, nliness were apropos Of some Elizabethan dame (Whom I don’t know). Ah, perfect one, accept my heart, To place with thine, cajole tame! My pardon me, I fear that I Forget your name. Carl IH. Litzenberg. In the Throes (More Confessions) GET out my typewriter, push aside a pile of bills, and place my machine on my desk. I take a sheet of virgin bond, twirl it into place, and rapidly tap out my name and address in the upper left-hand cor- ner. I stare at the blank sheet for fifteen minutes. I feel through my pockets for a cigarette and finding I have none, go upstairs to discover whether I left a package in the coat of my blue suit. I find some and return to my desk. I smoke two cigarettes. I stare at that damned white shect for fifteen more interminable minutes. I smoke two more cigarettes. I look at my watch without notic- ing what time it is. I have not written a line. The Remsons, my next door neighbors, drop in to sec if we would not like to play a little bridge. I say to my wife, “How do you expect me to write anything if people come and interrupt me right when I'm in the middle of some- thing?” But I play bridge...- If Theodore Dreiser can get ond *See any recent play, essay, poem, or Sherwood Anderson for further examples of what life has become. JOE COLLE Ready for Action NECK TAPED BEFORE GOING TO THE PROM. 1A8 118 away with this sort of thing, why can’t Sterling Patterson. comicbooks.com