Various

“ Some things we think we better omit. To watch this beach of bathers is like having a front seat at the Winter Garden Follies. The visitor may study the contour of beach and bathers. Here he meets the living skeleton of angles and the bag of bones, as well as her heavy-set sister with all her capricious curves, crests, elevations and depressions. ”

“ As for the minds of women, no one would insult them with the suspicion that they find anything provocative in the portrayal of figures of their own sex.
In every landscape the eye notices at once and unavoidably the hills; it finds the plains and valleys only by an effort of the will. This fact has ever been admitted by the modern stage, which is, so far as the ethics of objective morality go, more conservative than modern art in its advanced attitude. ”

“ At many bathing resorts Sunday is anything but religious. The cross gives way to Cupid’s bow and arrow. The Bible is the book of nature done in calf. Brown lads lie with their heads in the laps of half-naked brunettes, forgetting that to do so and not mean harm is “hypocrisy to the devil” who tempts their virtue. They make no attempt to hide under beach umbrellas. One may question their propriety, but neither their nerve nor shape. ”

“ So Carleton’s sister, Louise, entertained Edna. The Claus Spreckels at Coronada did the same and a few other of the selects followed the lead. Edna accepted these favors with a very calm and ladylike demeanor quite as if she had a perfect right to the best of social life, and she created a favorable impression. Edna has sense enough not to carry vulgar studio movie talk into the drawing rooms of people who wouldn’t understand. ”

“ While a look of hopeless fury shone in mighty Casey’s eye.
The lane is long, some one has said, that never has a turn again,
And Fate, though fickle, often gives another chance to men.
And Casey smiled—his rugged face no longer wore a frown;
The pitcher who had started all the trouble came to town.
All Mudville had assembled; ten thousand fans had come
To see the twirler who had put big Casey on the bum;
And when he stepped into the box the multitude went wild,
He doffed his cap in proud disdain—but Casey only smiled.
“Play ball,” the umpire’s voice rang out, and then the game began ”

“ Breakers on the beaches are divided into three classes: ocean-breakers, law-breakers and heart-breakers. California is a fruit state and we looked everywhere to see the “peaches” on the beaches—but most of them were dried, and there were more old Iowa valetudinarians and bearded bipeds than anyone else. Timon of Athens was a misanthrope who went to the seashore to get away from mankind. Had he come to this beach, the day we were there, he would have prayed for a tidal wave to wipe it off the map. ”

“ Your hair is like the mane of a sorrel horse, powdered with gold, and the brass pins skewered through your water-fall fill me with unbounded awe. Your forehead is smoother than the elbow of an old coat; your eyes are glorious to behold. In their liquid depths I see legions of little Cupids bathing, like a cohort of ants in an old Army cracker. ”

“ If you can’t be the sun be a star,
But the best little booster wherever you are.
* * * Teach me that 60 minutes make an hour, 16 ounces one pound and 100 cents one dollar. Help me so to live that I can lie down at night with a clear conscience, without a gun under my pillow and unhaunted by the faces of those to whom I have brought pain. Grant that I may earn my meal-ticket on the square, and that in earning it I may do unto others as I would have them do unto me. Deafen me to the jingle of tainted money and to the rustle of unholy skirts. ”

“ What have we here! Consider this monumental fun-maker of the screen. Death is bad enough but when the mind of one very dear becomes clouded, then indeed does tragedy and sadness smite with a heavy hand. ”

“ It’s true Edna doesn’t earn much compared to the other stars or leading women of the screen—they say her contract with Charlie gives her only $100 a week—but she has time—loads of it—and Edna plays the social game in that spare time and doesn’t appear to worry her pretty head about her career or future fame. She has an attractive but modest apartment, a not too expensive [8] car and maid and puts everything on her clothes, which are of the smartest.
About two years ago Carleton Burke of Los Angeles began to “rush” Edna. Carleton is considered the catch of the Pacific coast. ”

“ Their speech is low, but if actions speak louder than words, their conduct is often vulgar if not vicious. We saw a place advertised as the “safest beach,” but without falling into the deep water we fear the devil’s undertow is carrying [24] many out beyond their moral depth. “Love one another” is the favorite text, and the “laying on of hands” is not omitted. All the flesh-pots were not in Egypt. Cleopatra had a good time on the Nile and “Clara” has the same time here. We saw many couples and decided that more marriages were made on the beach than in heaven. Position in society is everything. ”

“ Our notions of art the country over have been steadily clarifying, until at last the great distinction has been recognized and conceded even by pious folk that, while the human male figure is impossible, the female form is purely beautiful. ”

“ We wonder, if, when Natalie Talmadge marries Buster this spring, she will have to lock his family in the closets occasionally in order to prevent little rows!
[13]
* * * The Tale of a Shirt
Comfort, the farmers’ journal, says this: Is there any way for a girl to tell her sweetheart his shirt-tail is out? The same way she would tell her brother or cousin or any friend. A sweetheart’s shirt-tail is no more sacred or worthy of respect than any other shirt-tail. A tail belongs to a shirt as much as cuffs or a collar and isn’t any more indecent. ”

“ You are fairer than a speckled pullet, sweeter than a Yankee doughnut fried in sorghum molasses, brighter than the top knot plumage of muscovy ducks. You are candy, kisses, raisins, pound-cake and sweetened toddy altogether. ”

“ One night his conscience worried him, and he thought he would phone his wife to have dinner with him.
“Hello, kiddo,” he began. “Slip on some old clothes and run down and meet me on the quiet. We’ll have a good dinner and then smear a little red paint around. How about it?”
“I’ll be delighted to join you,” was the reply. “But why not come up to the house, Jack, and get me? There’s nobody home.”
Today the young husband spends every evening at home. ”

“ If you want to have a “good time,” go to the beach where the volume of nature and human nature is “wide open.” The text books you should bring and study on the seashore are Shelley, Burns, Sand, Crabbe and Bacon.
* * *
Dickory, dickory, docking,
The mouse ran up her stocking,
But I’m afraid
Up there it stayed
Which makes it twice as shocking!
* * *
A marriage certificate is a mere scrappy paper. One divorce leads to another, but the marriage vow will always be taken ad-in-fun-item. ”

“ Despite the fact that Katherine looks eternally sad in her pictures and shows not a glimmer of cheer or sense of humor, people like to gaze on the American beauty and her clothes. Anyhow her backers must make a profit or they wouldn’t come through with the “40 thou.” Now, it is said Katherine saves nearly every cent. She is reported quite the most saving woman on the screen.
The social set like Katherine because she doesn’t get spiflicated and run around with promiscuous ordinary movie folk, and because she holds herself “cold and high.” ”

“ I know a man without a sin—he is dead.
* * * Kiss Fighters Rose is game; Mary’s pretty small; Nellie fights back,—but I like them all.
* * *
Life is just one damnthing after another—and love is just two damnthings after each other.
[55]
* * * Why do you wear your stockings inside out?
Because there is a hole on the other side.
* * * A news item says knee pants for men are bound to come. I wonder if the women will stand on the street corner and admire our shapely (?) laigs? And will men wear silk hose of green and pink and purple hues, with “Jacob’s ladders” showing? Let us pray. ”

“ ARTISTS and ART STUDENTS will find a marvelous variety of FULL FIGURE STUDIES, that will answer every purpose of a model. Art Collectors and all lovers of real Art Pictures, will find this the most complete collection of genuine ART STUDIES ever offered. Almost all the world’s old masters are listed. ”

“ Those who know Chaplin well declare that the intense melancholy for which he is noted is due more than anything else to the affection and concern for his mother. Such things as domestic troubles, it is said, bear little weight with the man who daily makes millions laugh. ”

“ Eighteen cents a pound. CHORUS:
Oh, she’s my honey, my baby,
She’s maul-eyed, she’s crazy,
She’s knock-kneed, she’s pigeon-toed, she’s lame.
Although her lower teeth are phoney
From eating Swift’s bologna,
She’s my freckled face, consumptive Mary Jane.
[41]
* * * Casey’s Revenge
Did you ever hear that noted recitation, “Casey at the Bat?” Here’s a baseball soul with a more generous poetic disposition. He replies to the old classic, which, as you remember, ended with the mighty Casey striking out, and Glory-be, it sure gives us a thrill, and reminds us of our own Mudville nine. ”

“ He is wealthy—his family is A-1 socially, Carleton is handsome, traveled and well educated and has made a name as a polo player. He is also a member of all the exclusive men’s clubs in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Well, of course, when Carleton first took up Edna there was much whispering concerning a Venice bungalow, after Charlie “discovered” the fair manicurist in a small town near Frisco Bay. Could she be received? If Carleton Burke meant to marry her, of course, she’d be taken up eventually anyhow, and the Burkes are not the sort of people you can snub. ”

“ If the girl loves him she comes out and the medicine man does the rest. If she scorns his love she places a snow-shoe at the wigwam entrance and the young chief goes back to his own tepee and keeps on beating his tom-tom until some squaw girl takes pity and marries him.
* * * Maggie, our new harvest cookhouse chef, lost her brooch the other night, so she has prepared the following advertisement for the Whiz Bang: “LOST—A cameo brooch representing Venus and Adonis on the Robbinsdale road about ten o’clock on Wednesday evening.” ”

“ She is never forward or bold and, with her undeniable beauty, is surely an asset to any function.
However, Carleton has continued to take Edna about—to the Midwick and other exclusive country clubs, but marriage has never “come off.” Through Burke, Edna became acquainted with Mrs. Sallie Polk Merritt of Pasadena—an attractive brunette of social [9] standing but whose name has been mentioned in a few sensational divorce mix-ups. Sallie and Edna are bosom friends and go everywhere together.
It is now whispered about Los Angeles that the Burke family has decided against the marriage. ”

“ We’ve got a discharged soldier in our town who was gassed, and had his leg shot off. He is forever looking for his lost leg, and often seems to think a woman may have it, with the result that he is arrested every few days on some woman’s complaint and is let go. ”

“ Now his mother is coming home to him, to live amid all the luxury that great wealth may bring; wealth that came after a sad little fellow with merry feet, living in a workhouse with his mother, learned to be the greatest of all fun-makers. Life’s a funny proposition, folks, isn’t it?
* * * Half a century ago the nude in art was strange enough in America to uplift Puritanic hands in holy horror. Today, among all cultivated people, the female nude is most matter-of-fact. ”

“ Those rabid for realism and resolutely uncompromising, will have the assurance to claim innocuousness for the undraped male; but the opinion today among those who are not extremists is still definitely against the frank exposition of the male form in plastic or painting. ”

“ One early morning, Evans returned from a pass to Altoona, Pa., and flopped his weary way to the mess hall. Collapsing in a seat, he played with his fork and tried to look sober for a few minutes, and then giving it up he concentrated on grub—or rather on waiters.
Near the mantelpiece in the mess stood what appeared to Evans to be the waiter on duty, and he addressed this person—the only other person in the mess—rather gruffly, I’m afraid.
“Heah—hic—orderly!” he exploded. “D’yuh think I’m—hic—sitting here—hic—merely to provide you—hic—with a spectacle? I want some food....” ”

“ Gertie—“Why don’t you get a husband?”
Sophie—“Not for me, Gert, I’ve a friend who has one.”
* * * Timidity
A timid girl is Bessie Bates,
She doesn’t kiss, she osculates.
* * *
“Do you really love me?” she wrote.
“Referring to my last letter,” he promptly replied, “you’ll find that I love you devotedly on page one, madly on page two, and passionately on pages three, four and five.”
* * * Think It Over
And the best and worst of this is:
That neither is most to blame,
If you’ve forgotten my kisses,
And I’ve forgotten your name—
* * * Our Advice
If your limb is pretty, show it ”

“ Can it be Larry Semon “beat up” his leading lady, Lucille Carlisle? And Katherine McDonald has something to worship! The male sissy of the screen! Natalie Talmadge may find a snag in Buster Keaton’s backyard? Join our monthly movie gossip club! These dainty morsels are gathered by the Hollywood correspondent of this great family journal.
By RICHMOND.
Of all girls in the movies, Edna Purviance has the softest snap. In the last year and a half, almost two years, Charlie Chaplin has only made one picture, “The Kid,” which barely occupied more than a few weeks of Edna’s time. ”

“ She must have suspected something.
* * * Wedding bells and hopeful love of man and woman seems to have broken out afresh in the picture world. Wasn’t it in an issue four months back that we confidentially confided to our readers that Charlie Chaplin was openly adoring a sweet young thing of seventeen? Just about four months after we cheered you with this item, the daily papers declaimed that all signs and portents were to the effect that May Collins was to become the second bride of the comedian. ”