Life, 1927-08-11 · page 14 of 36
Life — August 11, 1927 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This comic strip satirizes American gun violence and trigger-happiness through slapstick. A man repeatedly shoots at various targets—a can, bottles, and other objects—with escalating chaos and explosions. The title "What's All the Shootin' For?" suggests the satire targets the casual, almost reflexive American enthusiasm for firearms and shooting sports. The accompanying article, "Dear Boyhood Days," nostalgically imagines recreating a childhood home filled with vintage items and masculine pursuits, reflecting early 20th-century middle-class American values. The page also contains other satirical commentary about congressional limitations and California agricultural regulations, typical of *Life* magazine's social and political critique from this era (appears to be 1910s-1920s).
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“WHAT'S ALL TILE siooTin’ ror?” Dear Boyhood Days GOME day, when T have amassed “* a fortune, I am going to try to recapture the memories of carefree, happy childhood. [ shall build a house, a replica of the old) family mansion in West wton, Mass. It will be a sort of combination of Moorish and Queen Anne architecture and will be painted dirty brown, In summer the porch will be littered with log chairs and tables, the bark of which will come off on the clothes of any one careless enough ta approach. In- terior furnishings will be entirely of slippery horsehair or dust-catch- ing red plush. There will be heat registers in the floors, and the wall paper will be burlap. Tacked on the walls will be designs in burnt leather, most of them bad copies of Gibson Girls. Of course, an iron dog or deer will stand duty outside. Among the knickknacks scattered about will be a push-and-crank tele- phone, carefully concealed in the darkest corner of the clothes closet; hassocks, shaving mugs, napkin rings, mustache cups, calabash pipes. a stereopticon, a punch bowl with hooks on the side for glasses, an umbrella stand, a hatrack, bead por- titres, palm leaf fans, ash trays with cigar bands pasted on the bottom, a stained glass window over the front door, a book of trading stamps, a plaster skull doing duty as a tobs jar and considered very gruesome by the ladies, a row of plaster monks’ heads to hold pipes, pull-out doorbells and a complete collection of Sweet Cap pictures. I shall put a searf ring about my tie and a stickpin through it, don rn mittens, earlaps, button shoes id a straw hat with a string to keep it from blowing away. I shall go and sit in a net hammock which will » tip over at the slightest provocation. Under the hammock will be sleeping a grossly fat pug dog with a faded ribbon around its neck. I shall then spend fifteen minutes in dreamy contemplation of dear, dead days that will never return, After that I shall buy a ton of TNT, blow the whole ‘crazy con- traption eight miles into. the air, come back to my two-room apartment and live like a civilized being the rest of my life. Tip Bliss. “*X"* Marks the Spot Where the Tragedy Occurred “T UNDERSTAND the California orange growers are getting to- gether to maintain prices by crop regulation.” “Heh, heh—another navel { limitation conference, what?” Take No Chances { ‘I O away with the short term of Congress and you do away with the fili buster,” says Congressman Nelson of Mis- souri, Tf this | shouldn't work, } do away with the |, long term too. \ “FE ‘M,” mur- mured the parlor snake as him- his sweetie on the new divan, “sofa, The Poet (reading): “Lavy, ny YON DER BLESSED MOON I SWEAR, THAT TIPS WITIE SILVER ALL THESE FRUIT- TREE Tops” She (to herself): pevieve Me—tuts IS THE LAST TIME ULL EVER SIT OUT A DANCE witit A poet! ( ay if comicbooks.com