Life — July 26, 1928 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“I was thinking if I didn’t have any arms and didn't have any head and didn’t have any legs THE MAIN STEM Dear Pac Witrarp: Most of us are going goofy around Broadway trying to find diversion. The most harmless whoopee, though not a new vogue by any means, is the manu- facturing of punned sentences. You sit around and ask for a word and then you try to be clever. If the others blackball your effort, then it is your turn to crack some ice and I've done so poorly at the game that my right wrist has a Charley- horse. I think Dorothy Parker's sentence with the word “burlesque” is a_ nifty, anyway. The line goes this way: “Waiter, I think I'll have two soft burlesque for breakfast.” George S. Kaufman, the dramatic editor of the New York Times, clowned around with the word “para- phernalia” like this: “My friend Mitzic swallowed a candle—so I asked him: ‘Did the paraphernalia?’ and when Percy Hammond was asked to make up a line with the word “estuary” he chirped: “I or any stummick, I'd be a wishbone.” estuary confidentially.” No, Willard, they are not really highbrows, after all. Speaking of the so-called highbrows, most of them aspire for different voca- tions from the ones they pursue. It is a fact that George Jean Nathan would give anything to perfect a clog dance routine. Sinclair Lewis aspires to ‘be a monologist with a Swede dialect. Ashton Stevens, the dramatic critic of Chicago, got his job by teaching William Randolph Hearst how to play the banjo, and Edna Ferber, the author, would rather sing bass. Burton Rascoe, the literary critic and editor, is taking sleight-of-hand lessons, Henry L. Mencken says he would like to be a Mara- thon dancer and Texas Guinan is stage- struck. I almost forgot to tell you that I heard how the word “up” was created. It is English argot and they say that in Lon- don many years ago the restaurants placed small tin boxes on the tables, the boxes being marked “To Insure Promptness.” Those patrons wishing quick service would deposit coins in the box. Thus “tip"—the initials of “To Insure Prompt- ness.” Among other best sellers, if you know where the booklegger can be located, is “Immortalia,” a tome containing numer- ous suppressed lyrics. The original version of “Frankie and Johnnie” is in it and there are several other very salty pieces, but the smarter-apartment dwellers who display the book in their libraries do nx blush, They merely point out that tk book includes the was of such nice fel lows as James Whitcomb Riley aad Eugene Field and if you try to ange against it you are simply told to go com our hair. Which reminds me that a sister k tagged “Anecdotica American” provides thousands of smoking-car fables and was compiled by a lad who oxe was New York's official censor: for such things after the Sumner manner. The book is peddled at $25 a copy or more if you look yarpy. I didn’t tell you that Malcolm Dougls, who is manager of Ziegfeld's New Am sterdam Theater (the most sophisticated spot on 42nd Sweet), writes children's verse for St. Nicholas Magazine... That Chick Chandler, who is Howard Chandler Christy's nevview, has ture! ham actor a boarding hous ® the Forties features? sign reading “Rooms for Rent- With Bath or | Piano.”....T hat 45th Street has 3 many theaters no# as 42nd Street- eleven That when you describe af one as being a Broadway Pal you mult a gesture of slitting the throat at t same time That the editor of t comicbooks.com