Life, 1927-07-07 · page 9 of 42
Life — July 7, 1927 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three separate satirical pieces typical of Life's humor: 1. **"Ballade of Surfeit"** — A poem mocking the publishing industry's overproduction of books on every conceivable topic, with complaints about endless printings and editions. 2. **"Preliminaries"** — A boxing cartoon showing two fighters with witty banter about a "low-down filthy bum" and taunting outside the ring—standard fight-day humor. 3. **"Lucky" and "The Spirit World"** — Two cartoons about social situations: one about getting good movie-theater seats, another referencing spiritualism (likely mocking Sir Oliver Lodge, a real spiritualist figure of the era who claimed to contact the dead). 4. **"The Marshmallow Nut Kind"** — A domestic cartoon about a woman and man discussing a missing soda jerk, playing on period slang and social observation. The humor targets publishing excess, boxing culture, spiritualism fads, and everyday domesticity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Ballade of Surfeit I OOKS and m books and more books and more books! Books by the carload and books by the ton! Books about parsons and books about crooks! Books about everything under the sun! My! ain't the publishing business got fun! Piling up printings—firsts, seconds and thirds; Fourths, fifths and sixths—will they never be done? Ob! for a glade in this forest of words! Autobiorgies of colonels and cooks Novels of morals and novels of none Travels in Tooting. By Bloomsbury’s Brooks. Hunting Wild Pig with a Sixteen-Inch Gun. Histories. Mysteries. Love stories spun Out to a climax of sugar and curds Lost in the wilderness! here to run! Oh! for a glade in this forest of words! “Makes pleasant reading for summery nooks.” “...gave me a mild intellectual bun.” Thus they're hung up on the critical hooks; Blessed now and then by a columnist’s pun. “Terrible.” “Brilliant! “Grand!” “Feeble!” [note Nd. “Al.” Preliminaries Sollamass praises and Pannemaul girds. Firat Fighter: “Scintillant.” “Clever!” “Its. power will stun.” Oooooooooh! for a glade in this forest of words! AW, YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A LOW-DOWN FILTHY BUM Second Fighter: come ovtsipe aNp say THAT. L'Exvot . Lucky The Spirit World Publishers! Critics! Henceforward I'm un- “G 2T good seats in the IFE may be created by ar- Bendingly earless to all of you birds! Books (till mine's published) henceforward I Rather! We were lucky Oliver Lodge. Which is wh: shun. enough to a couple within every hostess who ever pa Oh! for a glade in this forest of words! casy walking distance of the around a cocktail tray at. the Edward Anthony and Baron Ireland. entrance.” zero hour of movie palace?” ~ tificial means, says Sir 1 party knows. The Marshmallow Nut Kind Mopsy: WHAT EVER MAS BECOME OF THAT PASCINATING-LOOKING SODA JERKER WHO USED TO WAIT ON US HERE? Barbara: 1 CAN'T IMAGINE, MY DEAR—1 HAVEN'T SEEN HIM IN A MONTH OF sUNDAES! comicbooks.com