Life, 1928-03-15 · page 9 of 34
Life — March 15, 1928 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The main cartoon depicts a father and child doing homework together, surrounded by scattered papers. The child asks: "Hey, Pop! Darn it! How much is nine times twenty-seven?" The father responds: "Don't bother, me! I've got mathematical miseries of my own." **The satire:** This jokes about the era's widespread anxiety over modern mathematics education—possibly referencing "new math" pedagogy debates or simply the frustration parents felt helping children with increasingly complex schoolwork. The humor lies in the role reversal: instead of the parent confidently helping, both are overwhelmed by arithmetic, suggesting that even adults struggled with mathematical concepts. The page also contains a short story titled "Were I Laid on Greenland's Coast," an unrelated piece of fiction.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A Few Reasons Why It Doesn’t Seem Such a Bad Old World, After All ECAUSE there are such things as June nights, Pommery sec, apple blossoms, filet of sole meuniére, stolen kisses, breaking surfs, log fires, the whiff of salt marshes, twilight, unstarched col- lars, bicarbonate of soda, and the Only Girl in the World. Because all music is not jazz. Because nothing is ever quite so awful as we imagine it. Because the very fact that things are as they are ought to hand us a lot of laughs. Because there are such things as telephones that switch off. Because we are able to choose our own friends. Because, no matter what happens, there are still certain memories to cling to. Because all co-eds don’t look or be- have like the college comics’ depic- tions. Because there are such things as back-door exits. Because the new Ford car wheezes are growing fewer every day. Because all heroes in actual life don’t look like movie actors. Because Andrew Volstead President. Because there are such things as sound-proof walls. Because there is no indication that skirts are going to be longer. Because all the Uplift in the world isn’t worth a plugged nickel when it tries to buck our emotions. Charles G. Shaw. isn’t “Tue Kevteys” DARN IT! HOW MUCH IS NINE TIMES ENTY- 7 HEY, Pop! DONT BOTHER ME! (VE GOT - MATHEMATICAL MISERIEE OF MY OWN Home Work ‘‘Were I Laid on Greenland’s Coast’’ (A Page from the Journal of a Modern Arctic Explorer) Aboard the Steam-heated Schooner Publicity, Rotogravure Inlet, Greenland. ELL, here we are at Roto- gravure Inlet, and a more des- olate bit of the earth's surface I have never seen. We are the first white men who have touched here since June, when a Cook's Tour boat put in to take on postal cards. Poor Teddy, our polar bear, died last _ night. He hadn't been himself for several days. Dr. Bumboldt, our vertebrate paleontologist, says the change from the zoo was too abrupt and Teddy didn’t have time to ac- climatize himself. At any rate, we are go- ing to get some more pic- tures with Teddy before we mount him. The taxidermist says we can stick the harpoon into him once, so we'll get some splendid scenes. I won't be able to appear in any of the pictures, because I forgot and shaved last night. We're having some difficulty with our Eskimos just now. Their man- ager, Mr. Iceberg, holds out for a larger royalty on the movies. Be- sides, they refuse to wear the cos- tumes we brought them from the museum, and insist on posing in their Mart, Haffner & Scharx suits. * * * Something serious has just hap- pened—something that may force us to return to civilization at once. The chef has just come to my cabin and informed me that the electric refrig- erator is out of commission. Ben Richards. 2 comicbooks.com