Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, December 1921 · page 24 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #28 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical text from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang* mocks modern American beach culture and Los Angeles recreation by comparing them to classical mythology. The piece lists the mundane and chaotic realities of beach visits—trash, crowds, sunburned tourists ("human lobsters")—contrasting with Columbus's voyages to suggest modern "discoveries" are trivial and degrading. The Elysium Park section parodies classical literature, comparing L.A.'s polluted "paradise" to Dante's underworld rivers and Milton's *Paradise Lost*. Where Aeneas saw purple light, visitors see only automobile exhaust smog. The reference to people "star-scattered" acting out the *Rubaiyat* mocks romantic pretense amid reality. The closing pun—"Lost Angeles"—is the joke's payoff: the city deserves its name because it's spiritually lost and morally corrupted by modernity, crowds, and pollution. The satire targets both California's overhyped leisure culture and readers' literary pretensions.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
22 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang nth power. Instead of the sweet sea breeze there was the strong aroma of popcorn and perspiration. At the beach you discover many things Columbus never found in his travels—peanut shells, dippy dippers, tin cans, can cans, tin horn sports, human lobsters and jelly fish, shell games, gulls and gullibles, papers, lunch boxes, bags, flasks, mermaids, mere men, kids with pails and shovels, playmates, families, spoony couples, kelp, garters, dead fish, fishermen, lines, nets, boats, cottages, hotels, resorts, boardwalks, promenades, bare legs, arms, feet, busts, driftwood and piers. Here one can find lost souls without exploring the shores of Phlegethon, Cocytus and Avernus. L. A.'s Elysium Park is like the classic one in one respect. When Aeneas went through the Elysian fields all the objects were clothed in a purple light—here it is the haze from innumerable autos whose exhausts wrap everything in smoky pall and smell. The park is a good place to spend hours with the Houris, and to keep it from being a Paradise Lost, one is prohibited from spending the night there. Many enact here the myths of the nymphs and satyrs. Holiday guests are often found “star-scattered” on the grass, acting out the Rubaiyat. There is only one “Lost” Angeles in all the world.