Life, 1929-04-12 · page 15 of 44
Life — April 12, 1929 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The page contains several satirical humor pieces typical of Life magazine's format. **Top cartoon (Blotto)**: A simple visual joke about a coal company digging holes—people fall in. The humor is straightforward slapstick. **"Who's Who In Verse"**: A poem by Arthur Guiterman praising playwright Eugene G. O'Neill's dramatic work. It catalogs his plays ("S.S. Glencairn," "Anna Christie," "The Hairy Ape," "Emperor Jones") and his style—gloomy, symbolic, tragic. The poem is complimentary but slightly mocking his pretentiousness ("thinks himself Profound, Prophetic"). **Right illustration**: Titled "Latest Form of Nightmare: Falling down modernistic stairs," this shows a figure tumbling down abstract, geometric stairs—a visual gag about the impracticality and danger of modernist architecture design. The page reflects 1920s attitudes toward avant-garde theater and contemporary design movements.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
He: Why did Marie marry such an old fossil? Sue: She had to have something to go with her antique furniture. BLOTTO—"Think yer funny, eh? Digging holes for people t fall in!” tGG ALL: COME Pot Okt ufo Netcnpor: Say, will you lend me zed your clarinet for a couple of days? = Netcusor: Yes—can you play it? Netcusor: No, and neither can you, while I’ve got it. Then there was the two hundred and fifty pound all-star athlete who was working his weigh through col- lege. Who's Who In Verse Eugene Gladstone O'Neill This Playwright, Eugene G. O'Neill, Has made me feel the Way I feel With Dramas grimly melancholic And, lately, painfully Symbolic. In Princeton’s Halls and Harvard's, too, He quickly gathered All they Knew; And after that, as Business Factor In sundry Lands, Reporter, Actor, And Sailor skilled in Sailor Ways, He learned the Art of making Plays. He made them vivid, clear or misty, “§. S. Glencairn” and “Anna Chris- tie”; He made them full of Blood and Bones, “The Hairy Ape” and “Emperor Jones”; He made them dark with Gloomy Magic, He made them humorless and tragic, He made them deep as Ocean Tides With long and Freudian Asides. But now, (it’s really too pathetic!), He thinks himself Profound, Pro- phetic, Becomes Oracular in Style And never even cracks a Smile. Upon an Allegoric Model He builds a Play of Childish Twaddle That fills the Audience with Woe,— The Awful Thing called “Dynamo”; Because of which I roast the Duffer, For, oh! how he has made me suffer! Arthur Guiterman. FO wea Wen AL eee See ge oe oe u C , e d C s, I SB S~@ SSB GaAR BRO OMA Latest Form oF NIGHTMARE. Falling down modern- istic stairs, How to Start a Speakeasy: Be sure you're in right then go ahead. comicbooks.com