Life, 1928-04-05 · page 35 of 59
Life — April 5, 1928 — page 35: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three separate humorous pieces typical of 1920s-30s Life magazine: 1. **"Presence of Mind"**: A joke about an absent-minded man reporting his stolen car to police. The punchline: he can't describe the thief but helpfully provides the car's license plate number—useless without identifying the car itself. 2. **"Just Between Us Girls"**: A woman's breathless monologue (with emphatic capitalization throughout) about a psychology experiment testing whether blondes or brunettes respond more emotionally to romantic movie scenes. She's scandalized by the idea, though she admits she herself thrills at watching actor John Gilbert kiss actress Greta Garbo—thus undermining her moral objection. 3. **"Late Afternoon"**: A poem about a man rejecting wild living for respectable pursuits like gardening, with the dark joke that even wholesome activities won't prevent aging ("arteries a-hardening"). The page satirizes contemporary concerns: absent-mindedness, evolving attitudes toward sexuality and psychology, and mortality.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Presence of Mind HE scholarly-appearing _ little man hurried into the precinct sta- tion. “I wish to report,” he gasped, “that my car has just been stolen!” “See who did it?” growled the desk sergeant. yes... “What'd he look like?” “I fear I could not describe him accurately,” said the little man. “But,” he brightened and produced a notebook from an inner pocket, “I succeeded in taking the number of the car.” | UNDERSTAND all the high Italian officials are working on an autobiography of Mussolini.” “Yes, he is.” s Y dear, I'm all hot and BOTH- ered—I mean I'm ACtually so exCITed I could SHUCK WHORtleberries or something be- cause I've been READing in the PApers, my dear, about this per- LNflk=—~ Hot Water Is Discoverep in THE Hot-Water Sricot or A PULLMAN WastHRoom. to sort of make these T see whether BLOND TES are more reSPONsive to LOVE situations—can you BEAR it, my dear? I mean it HONestly makes me so MAD I could spit TACKS, my dear, because the iDEA Mply VILE because, you see, the way they're going to DO it is to sort of g girls or someth LOVE scenes in the } ure the DIFferentiAtion in their HEARTbeats to see whether the BLONDES or the bruNETTES get the most THRILL out of looking at NECKing or something! GOSH, my dear, I think it’s SIMply because I mean I don’t th a DIFF of BITterance between the way a NICE girl who's a BLONDE would react to a POIsonous test like that, and a NICE girl who’s a bru- NETTE, because I mean the whole iDEA is so rePELlent, sort of, to the FIner sensiBILities that I bet the ONly ef FECT would be to SIM- ply disGUST BOTH types unless it was John GILbert necking GRETa GARbo or something upLIFTing like THAT, my dear, because I mean I THRILL to the CORpuscles at the way John GILbert NECKS, my dear—I mean I ACtually DO!” Lloyd Mayer. Late Afternoon H E said he felt he'd had about Enough of wild philandering; He scored the idle gadabout And mischievous meandering. A man should follow (it was clear) Diversion; say, like gardening, And, listening, we seemed to hear His arteries a-hardening. Thomas J. Murray. comicbooks.com