Life, 1927-10-20 · page 36 of 48
Life — October 20, 1927 — page 36: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily **advertising** for Southern Pacific Railways and Golden Wheel lighters, interspersed with diary content. **The "Mrs. Pep's Diary" column** (center/right) is satirical social commentary typical of *Life* magazine's humor. It mocks upper-class affectations through a wealthy woman's pretentious observations: complaining about restaurant cocktails, name-dropping theatrical celebrities (John Barrymore, Marie Doro), dismissing magazine stories by Ruth Suckow, and fussing over handwriting analysis and palmistry. The satire targets her vapid preoccupations and social snobbery. **The Golden Wheel lighter advertisement** (right sidebar) plays on the humor of the era: "And what do Blondes Prefer?" uses period sexism/stereotyping to market lighters as compact, elegant accessories—positioning the product as something sophisticated women desire. **The Southern Pacific advertisement** (left) simply promotes California travel routes without satirical intent. The page reflects 1920s consumer culture, class anxieties, and casual gender stereotyping presented as humor.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
See Old Mexico = Quaint, foreign Juarez— 5 minutes by trolley from El Paso-on the Golden State ROUTE *° California Throughthe romanticSouthwest.Shortest, | Chicago to San Diego— 63 hours Chicago to Los Angeles. Sunshine all the way. See | the famous Apache trail, El Paso, Douglas, | Tucson, Phoenix. Let a Southern Pacific representative plan your trip to California by Golden State. jolden State Limited—de luxe train. Leaves hicago, Rock Island La Salle Street Sta- tion, 8:30 p. m. daily. Apache—another fine all-steel train. Leaves Chicago—Rock Island La Salle Street Sta tion, 6:00 p. m. daily. Choice of Routes Returning Sunset Route, via Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, San Antonio, Galveston, Houston, and New Orleans. Or Overland Route along the American River Canyon, over the Sierra Nevadas, via Lake Tahoe, and across the Great Salt Lake, or take the Shasta Route north via Klamath over New | Cascade Line. En route—Mt. Shasta, Crater | Lake, Portland and Pacific Northwest. | Southern Pacific Offers Four Great Routes for Transcontinentel Travel For complete information see your local Southern Pacific representative, or vise this coupon. ' 1 E,W. Clapp, Traf. Mer. at 1 Southern Pacific 1 Room 1022, 310 S. Michigan Blvd. 1 Chicago, Ill 1 Please send me free descriptive booklets and 1 complete information regarding Californiaand 1 the 4 great Southern Pacific Routes to and 1 frou the Weets 1 W Name coucseseviaiseessereicewass i 1 Address 1 ' Southern # Pacific Life Mrs. Pep’s Diary (Continued from page 14) more satisfactory to slip off to a mo- tion picture with a maid than with some zany of one’s acq| will chatt! says or how she mixes a salad. ntance who about what her spouse To luncheon at our pet publick with some of my cronies, all of us dis- tressed that the cooking there grows steadily worse, but Billy Marvin says there is no other place left which mixes an old-fashioned cock- tayle that is fit to drink, so I did suggest that we might apply to the management to let us bring our own food. Reading this evening in Perey Hammond's “But—Is It Art?” I did mark his curiosity as to John Barry- more’s mental preliminaries to “Hamlet” and did recall how Marie Doro, the playactress, and I met Mr. Barrymore in the P on the day of his great premitre, and how, when M. felicitated him, he quoth in all seriousness, “Well, it's a good part.” September Lay late, looking over the new magazines and 29th ; reflecting that nothing is equal to the humour of life itself, as Mr. Mencken has so truthfully said, for Lord! here is his own American Mercury, which does war constantly Boobensia and Rotarianism, printing a pointless and uninterest- ing story by Ruth Suckow about a family of trippers, with even the mother in khaki knickers for which she was admittedly too broad. Then up, did on my bli bardine, and out to shop for a wedding present, old French pair of grape-leaf arrange- ments for bonbons, ete., which I dis- patched to Biff Verry's bride, and somewhat reluctantly, too, for I do not even know the girl, and they were almost the loveliest things that ever I saw to set upon the table. Home betimes, finding a book come by which character may be 1 through handwriting, but I was not certain enough with which types my own chirography coincided to make much out of it, just as I can read nought of my own hands from the palmistry textbooks. In fact, [am at some pains to answer an oculist truthfully when he asks me if I read his small letters better with this lens or that, so hair-splitting is my tendency when strict accuracy is vital. To the playhouse this night to see a piece called “Burlesque,” and in it was Mr. Hal Skelly, whom I shall forget for having said, years ago in some forgotten harlequinade, “Everybody's likely to make mistakes—that’s why they put rubbers on leadpencils.” Baird Leonard. and came at once upon an never And what (do Blondes Prefer IOMPACT... lipstick... money... the miracu- lous contents of a woman’s bag. And now a Golden Wheel Lighter is often to be found in the smartest sacs du jour. Why? Because the 2 Golden Wheel is positive and smooth. Nor will it smudge one’s fingers. The smartest shops will sell you the cunningest models-- smaller editions of those most gentlemen prefer. = > $7.50 and up - GOLIDIEN WHEIIL Approved Tighter U.S. Patent 1637855 HENRY LEDERER & BRO., INC. Providence, Rhode Island _—— comicbooks.com' |