Life, 1929-03-01 · page 20 of 36
Life — March 1, 1929 — page 20: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Life* magazine contains satirical content from February 1924, presented as "Mrs. Pep's Diary" by Baird Leonard. **The cartoons illustrate domestic complaints:** The top cartoon shows a man complaining about a "dreadful road" to his companion—the joke being he took a long walk in open air, which he claims was his contribution. The middle cartoon depicts a broken-down car outside a junk/salvage shop, with the driver telling a police officer he was told he could "go as fast as I wanted after I got it broken in"—satirizing post-WWI consumer culture and poor automobile quality. The bottom cartoon shows a magician performing tricks, captioning "That beats any trick in my Repertory!"—context unclear from this excerpt. **The diary text** humorously catalogs domestic annoyances (overheating a house, kitchen correspondence with servants) and social observations from a literary luncheon featuring speakers including Sylvia Townsend Warner and Edna Thomas. The satire targets everyday marital frustrations and the absurdities of 1920s social life and consumer products.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
salting the black bean soup, over-heat- ing the house so that the flowers die, etc, rivals in length that of Woodrow Wilson during the World War. M did also tell me how, when Irvin Cobb, Fe her brother, was speaking in one of this the minor cities, the chairman who in- legge troduced him had orated at great sittin length on his own account, and when do if he paused temporarily to fear that he and might be taking up too much time, as off t he hadn’t his watch with him, a wag was, in the audience had cried out, “There's arisir a calendar on the wall!” To the Book be or and Play Club luncheon at the Bilt. nasiu more, and at the speakers’ table, War amongst many other celebrities sate didh “Yes, I got ad idferdal coad.” on “Take a log walk id the oped air. Thad’s what I did for bide. b Fesrvary tt—Sam a-bawl- é ing in his bath to the ef- Baird fect that there is a happy Leonard \and far, far away, which, from the news _ photo- graphs of persons on the rear platforms of departing trains I do judge to be Palm Beach, albeit I have my doubts as to many saints in glory standing around the Bath and Tennis Club Manie Howland to sce me, bringing us a fine sausage from Paducah, and much talk of domestic matters, Manie confiding that the kitchen-pad corre- spondence which she carries on with her cook to restrain her from over- “But officer, they told me I could go as fast as I wanted after I got it broken in!” burgh cups f Sylvia Townsend Warner, who wrote Ficot “Lolly Willowes” and “Mr. Fortune's which Maggot,” and also Edna Thomas, who cause sings spirituals better than anybody his Ac ever I heard in my life, and at the and rg end of her short speech she sang so nor “Joshua Fit De Battle of Jericho”, and oculist everything was most satisfactory, in | twelve especial the potatoes au gratin, which | Lapha God knows I should never have eaten. | entere ing-ro« really | points” were ij Thence to shop for a cigarette case. and I could have bought a gold one similar to the one I lost for only eighty- five dollars, save that it had a crystal ball with a dog’s head on one side of not, a it, which, as I pointed out to the sales- thank é “\~ man, was the reason it was priced at Sein | one third of its value. And when I ‘ation told Samuel about it, after reaching fase flies w = home with a more modestly priced case (ors 4 Gena» of black enamel, and he pointed out Masrctan: “Ye gods! That beats any trick in my Repertory! that I might easily have had the of- was it comicbooks.com