Life, 1928-08-30 · page 30 of 36
Life — August 30, 1928 — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page collects brief humorous anecdotes and jokes mocking contemporary social behaviors and attitudes. The main cartoon depicts a cook applying for work, claiming to have photographed himself displaying eight different emotional expressions—a joke about the newfangled "photo machines" (early cameras) and people's vanity in documenting themselves. The surrounding text snippets satirize various modern absurdities: a boy at camp reluctant to write home, a wife's irresistible whims over her husband's finances, the awkwardness of talking movies, the high cost of living masquerading as wealth, and a maid's blunt dismissal of a houseguest who overstayed her welcome. The humor targets 1920s-era pretensions, new technology, marital dynamics, and class interactions—all presented as examples of contemporary foolishness worthy of ridicule in Life's satirical tradition.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
= Coox (applying for situation): Resides them references, ma'am, perhaps you'd like to see the photos I've ‘ad took eight times on one of them new machines. From the top down, I've registered Fear, ‘Ope, Joy, Disdain, Anger, Old-Fashioned, Terror, and Sarcastic like. “How old are you, my little man?” “1 don't know, Mother was twenty-six when T was born, but now she’s only twenty-four.” —Excrisior (Mexico City). SUMMER HYPOCRISY We have a more or less vague suspicion that there are times when the question, “When are you going on your vacation?" really gives the questioner a delightful respite to which to look forward.—St, Louis Post-Dispatch. OUR INFANTILE ICONOCLASTS, Frost a school girl's essay on The Stage’’: ‘As well as real actors and actresses there are those we go to see for charity. These are called immature.""—Punch, NOSTALGIA Herewimn the whole of an affectionate letter writ- ten after the lapse of a week by a boy in camp who, the old folks feared, might be suffering from homesickness: “Dear Dav: This is one of the rest periods when you are supposed to rest and write letters home. This is one of the letters. 1 would prob- ably not have written so soon, but to get into the dining room tonight I have to have written a letter home. It is about dinner time, now, so must close. Your son, Bill."'"—Detroit News. INEVITABLE Fritxp (eyeing very luxurious car): But you don’t mean to tell me that you bought it just to satisfy a whim of your wife's? Tite Oriter (sadly): Ah, you don’t know her, old man. She's got a whim of iron. —Humorist (London). SMACK! Tue vocve of talking movies is responsible for an odd sign in front of a theater: “A Kass tn tie Dark wir Sounp Errtcts.”” Youngstown Telegram. “Wiar measures would have to be taken to repeal the Volstcad Act?"* “‘Heroic.""—Stanford Chaparral. Apo similes: ‘As magnetic as a sunburned back."—New York Evening Post. —Lonpon Opinion. WHY THE GUEST DEPARTED “My guest has gone home,"’ the colored maid announced to her mistress the other morning. “Is that so? I thought she was going to suy all summer."* “Yes'm, she was,"" was the reply, ‘but I tl ‘er I had rented her room. I jes’ couldn't stand her face bearin’ down on me no longer. —Junction City (Kan.) Union Tue Frexcut gentleman who said Amei- cans are drunk with wealth is mistaken. Over here it’s the prices that stagger. —Baltimore Evening Sun. a ae Ron te “Oh, Grandpa! But I pulled the trigger jt as quietly as I could so as not to wake you #p- —Ler Rint (Pasis)- comicbooks.com