Life, 1928-11-09 · page 34 of 52
Life — November 9, 1928 — page 34: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humor compilation page satirizing modern life circa the 1920s-30s. The cartoons mock: **Social pretension and absurdity**: The "Model Young Men" joke ridicules mothers proud their sons avoid arrest except for speeding and liquor violations—normalizing minor crimes as acceptable. **Prohibition-era drinking**: Multiple jokes target bootleg gin's toxicity and people's reckless consumption despite obvious danger (the man who drank poison gin twice). **Marital discord**: "Twice Widowed" mocks wives whose husbands neglect them for golf ("detained at the nineteenth hole"), and a comic strip shows a woman ditching her husband's plan to stay home for cards. **Technological hype**: George Jessel's fictional "Schmeckaphone" parodies inflated claims about new inventions doing impossibly many things. **Absurdist observations**: The butterfly joke subverts scientific discovery with cynical humor about debt avoidance. Overall, the page reflects 1920s-30s anxieties about changing morality, prohibition's failure, and modern life's contradictions—presented through brief, snappy quips typical of Life's satirical format.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Our Foolish. LO Wt * ——— The Golf Stream —Loxvow Opinion. A SLOW READER » a dusky belle in ‘Show Boat,"* > who wrote his wife a letter very AuMAa Sat tells of a N slowly. “You see," he explained, “she kain’t read —New York Evening World Tue Burro: Well, and what might you be? Tu Stconn-Hann Car: An automobile. And you? Tite Burro: A horse. —Burx Hustor (Mavaip). Oh, dear, I've got such a nasty cough. Over-smoking or under-dressing? —London Daily Chronicle. Iy Finland they call bootleg liquor korpi- kunsen kyyneleita—even before drinking it. —New York Evening Post. “Oh, hello! 1 just met your friend Barbitras and he said to tell you— evening to wet “He was counting on you this restaurant, go to a show— LIFE “Aut Scissors aut Nullus” — OF ALL THINGS! Grorce Jesse is excited about his new invention, which he calls “The Schmeckaphone."* Jessel would have listeners believe that it not only takes your picture, syn- chronizes your voice, shines your shoes and shampoos your hair, but it also sharpens your ice skates\—New York Graphic. ontemporaries MODEL YOUNG MEN “I's so proud of my boys,"* said one of the happy mothers of this neighborhood, “and 2 one of them has ever been arrested except fe speeding and on liquor charges.""—Denver News “So you sent your son to college? Wig is he doing there?"* “Aging."'—Texas Ranger. The End of the Season The People Who Decided to Stay One Day More. —L'Ecno vt Pans. CONVERSATION A OVERHEARD ON A BUS I don’t keep nothing to drink in my house. : A fella can’t be drinkin’ poison. A. I bought two bottles of gin in a drug store and took some of the stuff, and I'd ‘a’ swore I was goin’ blind. B.: Yeah? A.: Next morning, to make sure it was the gin affectin’ my eyes, 1 took another drink and my eyes went bad again. B.: Is that a fact? A.: That's a fact. I concluded right then that it don’t pay to drink no more poison. I had nearly a bottle left, so 1 gave it to a friend, —Ted Cook, in New York American. TWICE WIDOWED, AS IT WERE “T happen to know that she is merely a glass widow,’ he retorted.”—Short Story. Her husband was detained at the nineteenth hole. —Humorist (London). Heit hath no fury like a back seat scorned.—Ohio State Journal, dine with him ata martre."" now."* “And have a little fling at Mont- “Great! I'll go and get dressed Sciextists have discovered that butterfics recognize one another at a distance of six ot cight feet. A possible explanation is that butte fics don’t owe one another money. —Detroit News Sue (loftily): There goes father He (dubiously): Looks well in his uniform doesn't he? —Tit-Brts (Lovo). “Quite useless, dear, 1 told kis you were staying home to py our game of lotto.” —L'Inreansictant (Panis): comicbooks.com