Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, Vol. 2. No. 17, February, 1921: America's Magazine of Wit, Humor and Filosophy — John Shaqi
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, Vol. 2. No. 17, February, 1921: America's Magazine of Wit, Humor and FilosophyVarious
General
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, Vol. 2. No. 17, February, 1921: America's Magazine of Wit, Humor and Filosophy
Various
American wit and humor -- Periodicals
They follow Satan as a guide, hypocrisy as a lawyer, impudence as an art,
pleasure as an object and damnation as their end. If their minds were
like matter and could show decay, they would smell like carrion. They
wear fine clothes and live in beautiful houses, but their minds are empty
and their souls in rags.
Religion has pleasure, but their pleasure was religion, and Cupid and
Bacchus their saints.
The fabled Greek Temple of Pleasure had a large doorway for entrance,
lights, music and lovely women within, but back of it all a wicket-gate
which opened into a pig-pen.
Thus, the end of vice is not satisfaction, but satiety, and the bacchanal
worshiper of what appeals only to his physical senses is thrust out
naked, ashamed and alone. Satan smiles, and hell is happy.
A dying king dreamed he would be met on the other shore by a beautiful
woman and led to a throne. Instead, he was welcomed by a horrible hag who
leered and laughed at him. When he recoiled and asked who she was, she
replied, “I am your sins and have come to live with you forever.”
Leaving this bare-breasted, forbidden fruit untasted, I bought some navel
oranges, and went to my hotel thankful that, if I had been led into
temptation, I had been delivered from evil.
The Devil’s calling cards he gives to visitors here, have B. A. after his
name, and it does not stand for “Bachelor of Arts,” although he has that
degree from several European and American universities. Last impressions
are first in mind. I had hoped that B. A. (Buenos Aires) would stand for
“Better Afterwards,” but just before the boat pulled out I found it meant
“Bad Always.”
A well dressed man sold my wife some pretty post cards, of the city, and
while she was looking at them he took me to one side, whispered “dirty
book” in my ear, and offered me something “nice” to read on the trip. I
read the title, “The Lustful Experiences of a Physician,” and refused
him, saying I was no doctor, didn’t intend to study for the profession,
or do anything that would make it necessary to contract for medical
services in advance. As the ship sailed out of the harbor I gazed
ruefully at this roué paradise of a city, repeating the lines of the poet,
“Farewell, dear, damned, distracted town;
Ye harlots live at ease.”
Oh, that last night in Rio de Janeiro. The city was brilliantly lighted
but we saw some shady places to make the picture complete. Passing by the
brightly lighted movie foyers, where the waiting crowd is furnished with
seats and music, instead of being log-jammed as they are in the United
States, I went down the Avenida through a public park. Its main gate
opened into a street, not filled with churches, libraries and museums,
but aristocratic “maisons de joie.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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