Life, 1927-11-24 · page 27 of 44
Life — November 24, 1927 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"If the White House Entered into the Spirit of the Thing"** satirizes excessive consumption and Thanksgiving excess. The article humorously describes President Coolidge's supposedly modest Thanksgiving dinner, then reveals absurdly massive quantities—89 turkeys, 13,247 pumpkin pies, 9,887 mince pies—mocking either wasteful abundance or the gap between public austerity and private indulgence during the 1920s. **"Just Between Us Girls"** parodies women's gossip columns, featuring a breathless narrator criticizing a rival named Sylvia Earl for manipulating men's marriage proposals. The satirical point targets female social competition and romantic scheming, with deliberate capitalization emphasizing melodrama. **"Defective"** jokes that a psychiatrist diagnoses a young woman as "subnormal" for lacking desire to attempt a transatlantic flight—mocking both psychiatric jargon and the era's obsession with aviation stunts as indicators of normalcy. **"Study in Self-Consciousness"** depicts a motorist with a Florida license plate in California, comedically illustrating self-aware travelers broadcasting their origins.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
If the White House Entered into the Spirit of the Thing ASHINGTON, N Thanksgiving was ob- served quictly by the Chief Executive. By 7:30 the many little rem mbrances which friends had sent in had been prepared and dinner was announced. In the center of the table were eighty-nine large, milk-fed turkeys, representing all the States and most of the insular possessions, and flanking them were fifty- eight hams, none of which weighed less than twenty pounds. Some- what in the background were forty geese and twenty-three roast pigs. Near the head of the table stood an immense vat containing cighteen barrels of cranberry sauce. A massive side- board runningthe length of the west side of the room groaned under its weight of 13,247 pump- kin pies, representing the product of choic “ARE YOU GOING TO G OF THE NEW FORD: “NO—I THINK I'LL WAIT TILL THEY'VE HAD TIME TO BECOME SECOND-HAND.” pumpkins. A s of improvised ets at the south side of the room housed 9,887 mince pies. In one corner 467 fruit cakes of varying sizes and plum puddings had been arranged in a pyramid Along the east wall were thirty-six crates of celery, all open and within easy reach. The Chief Executive and members of his family dined heartily. David B. Park, _Be good and let who will be clever. e: But nowadays you've got to be clever in order to be good! Life 25 [SUST BEIWEEN US GIRLE | d C Uooee “M”, dear, I'm all bot and BOTHered—I mean I ACtually e SOMEtimes, my dear, I HONestly LO. I ACtually DO, my dear, because re CAPable of such sort ty sort of THINGS, do you know what I mean? Well, ANYways, my dear, take f'r instance SYLvia EARL. I mean she's perfectly ‘4 looking and TERribly SWEET and every- dear, but in addition to being the WORST SCANdal mongrel in TOWN, my dear, she COLD- bloodedly COUNTS her proPOSals—can you BEAR ? 1 she’s deLIB'rately led MORE men on to id then she BOASTS about it! ACtually, I think it’s the VILest performance because I mean it’s the EASiest thing in the WORLD to make a YOUTH think you're MAD about him and sort of LURE him into the iDEA that you will MARry him if he ASKS you, my dear, because I mean I've done it mySk THOUsands of times with boys who were the con- CEITed TYPE, sort of, and sort of NEEDed a LES- son, but I mean I think it’s a POIsonous idea to sort of BOAST about something like THAT the way SYLvia does, my dear, and ANYways, it is so PE Rfeetly ab- SURD for her to BOAST about her proPOSals because she told me she'd had TE and I can get more than THAT at ONE dance—I mean I ACtually CAN!" Lloyd Mayer. Defective SYCHIATRIST: Madam, I find your daughter to be very subnormal. She appears to have absolutely no desire to make a non-stop flight across the Atlantic, LOOKING FOR (WHATS THE MATTER? | | /A PLACE To (OUT HERE ) For Your Study in Self-Consciousness A MOTORIST WITH A FLORIDA LICEN: ¢ DRIVES INTO CALIFORNIA, comicbooks.com