Life, 1928-02-09 · page 23 of 35
Life — February 9, 1928 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes 1920s youth culture and medical advancement through three distinct pieces: **"What Pandora's Box Would Contain To-day"** lists items found in a young woman's purse—cosmetics, dance cards, fraternity pins, broken garters—mocking the modern flapper's preoccupations with appearance and dating. **"Too Much Modernism"** jokes that a classical play would be ruined by staging it in contemporary dress rather than period costume, reflecting anxiety about modernization. **The main cartoon** depicts a woman's breathless account of attending a Junior League show, with random capitalized words suggesting her scattered, gossipy speech pattern. She obsesses over social mishaps, romantic attention, and theatrical drama—satire of how modern women supposedly prioritize trivial social concerns. **"The Advance of Medical Science"** contrasts old medicine (one cure-all bottle) with modern medicine's complexity, requiring specialists for every ailment—satirizing how progress created new problems. The overall theme: modern life, particularly for young women, has become anxious, overstimulated, and superficial.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
What Pandora’s Box Would Contain To-day A LIPSTICK. An eyebrow pencil. Some mascara. A box of rouge. Two mash notes. Three nickels. Four pennies. A mechanical pencil. A wad of chewing gum. risqué joke clipped from a magazine. Some spilled powder. A dance program. ‘A fraternity pin. A broken garter. Too Much Modernism “MP HIS ‘Adam and Eve’ by John Erskine will make a hot play if they don’t go and spoil it.” “How could they spoil it?” “Well, they might put it in mod- ern dress.” 20 YEARS AGO CAME AND GAVE YOU ONE BOTTLE OF MEDICINE WHICH CURED EVERYTHING “M*, dear, I'm all-of-a-QUIV-and- + FLICKer! I mean I'm sim- ply QUAKing with QUALMS at this point, no less, because I had to USHer at the Junior LEAGUE Show, my dear, and it was POSi- tively perVERTed because I kept putting EV’rybody in the wrong PEWS and things and that POIson- ous Mrs. BLEMish was all hot and YOU HAVE I5 OR 20 THINGS THE MATTER. WITH YOU SUT THis STUFF I'M BP GIVING YOU WILL FIx YOu UP BUT NOW A MAN HAS TO DASH AROUND AND HUNT UP AN EXPERT TOR EVERY ORGAN, MUSCLE AND MALADY Tne Avvance or Mepica Scence. BOTHered, my dear, and kept making VILE reMARKS about hav- ing to PERCH behind a POST, sort of, and I NEARIy had hysTERics because this AWfully swee' N who I met at a D sent me this treMENdous bunch of ORchids and simply EV'rybody kept ASKing me who BUNCHED me all EVEning and I thought I'd ACtu- ly go MAD and BITE myself, my dear, because the CURta got STUCK and practicably EV'rybody was conVULSED and it was TER- ribly emBARrassing, sort of, because EV’rybody kept ASKing me why I wasn't in the SHOW because they said I ought to have had the LEAD in it because they thought ELsi FLIMM was terribly STIFF everything in the part, but I think she did AWfully WELL, my dear, consid’ring the PART didn’t SUIT her TYPE, I mean, but it was PER- fectly SCREAMing because she kept STUMbling through all these DANCes, sort of, and she got off the KEY in all her SONGS and EV'ry- body was SIMply conVULSED but I mean I think she did AWfully WELL only the PART just didn't SUIT her or something and any- ways I was in the show L/ car and I think EV’rybody is simply SICK of my MUG and it was HEAPS better to have somebody ELSE and all only I think ELsie would have been HEAPS better in some part where she sort of didn’t have to DANCE or SING or any- thing—I mean I ACtually DO!" Lloyd Mayer. A Place to Put It ED: Say, I just heard a new wisecrack. Jack: Good! Let’s buy an old flivver. comicbooks.com