Here: Bill Jayme's Great cool day in November letter

by fbyrne
3 replies
I managed to track down Bill Jayme's famous cool day in November letter for Life Magazine-
please find it below.

Am looking for his Utne/Chutney letter, or indeed any of his financial letters, if anyone would be kind enough to share.

Enjoy

Fergal



Dear Reader,

It was a cool Friday in November.

Plymouth offered their newest model for $510 -- in an ad that also reminded you that you could tune in on Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour any Thursday from 9 to 10.
Loyalists and Rebels were fighting in the outskirts of Madrid -- while many U.S. citizens were preparing to celebrate two Thanksgivings. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were at the Shubert, ambling through "Idiot's Delight" -- and a few doors down the street, a pillow-padded Helen Hayes was appearing as "Victoria Regina."

The WPA was dropping 3000 "non-essential" workers -- and the Post Office began assigning the first social security numbers to 26 million applicants. The football season was almost over, with Pittsburgh, Fordham and Dartmouth named the leading teams in the East -- while a Princeton sophomore reported that he had bid and made a redoubled grand slam with 13 spades.

And some 200,000 Americans (including you, perhaps?) were eagerly opening the first issue of a new magazine -- a magazine of pictures, datelined November 23, 1936.
Its publishers had promised to produce a magazine that would help Americans
"to see life...to see the world...to eyewitness great events...to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud...to see strange things -- machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon..."

* * *

In the fifteen years since then, the world LIFE promised to picture each week has moved ahead, and sometimes back...Roosevelt, Gandhi, Vandenberg, Mackenzie King, Forrestal, Stimson, Pius XI, Wendell Wilkie -- all are gone. But the years have brought us new names of headline stature: Truman, Nehru, Taft, Atlee, Hoffman, Bradley, De Gaulle, Charles Wilson.

Broadway has lost Al Jolson, John Barrymore, Helen Morgan, Laurette Taylor -- but it has gained Carol Channing, Marlon Brando, Mary Martin, Celeste Holm. Hollywood has lost Leslie Howard, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Jean Harlow, W.C. Fields, Carole Lombard -- but it too has gained: Anne Baxter, Danny Kaye, Montgomery Clift, Jennifer Jones. We pay silent tribute to Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig - and we cheer for Joe DiMaggio and Jackie Robinson.

We have survived such astonishing phenomena as Wallis Warfield Simpson, goldfish swallowing, flying saucers, Orson Welles' invasion from Mars, C-rations, ankle-length hemlines and waist-length necklines, the Big Apple, bebop, "Gone With the wind," Pyramid Clubs, the Kinsey report, Dagmar.

And we have come through a real disaster: A World War that sucked up over a million lives, and a dirty game of see-saw in a far-away land called Korea.We have watched men split the atom and unite the nations of the world into a vast assembly. We have got rid of a Mussolini and a Hitler -- but they have willed us a Mao and a Stalin.

* * *

And what of LIFE -- the magazine that promised to present this stirring cavalcade of people and events in pictures all could "see and take pleasure in seeing...see and be amazed...see and be instructed?"

Its editors had hoped that by the end of LIFE's first year its circulation might reach 300,000, but within six months some 10,000,000 people were reading every issue, and LIFE, in its struggle to meet the demand, lost $2,500,000.

Today, LIFE is bought each week by more than 5,200,000 men and women -- read each week by some 24,000,000. And today we are inviting you to join them as a regular LIFE reader at a very special introductory rate -- to share with our editors LIFE's exciting, surprising 15th Anniversary of publishing.

* * *

What will you see in the issues of LIFE your subscription will bring you?

Decks crowded with thousands of returning servicemen, ad peace comes to Korea from the Yalu to the China Sea? The pomp and pageantry of princess Margaret's wedding in time-hallowed Westminster Abbey? The famous Eisenhower grin -- as Ike accepts the presidential nomination in Chicago?

Will you see the desserts of the west turn into flowering gardens as scientists perfect new ways of rain-making? ...three dimensional features that will lure us back to the movies, away from our TV screens...fashions that will give American women the look of Greek goddesses, or Quaker misses, or harem favourites?

What dramatic figures -- what heroic rescues at sea -- what strange lands, customs and costumes -- what newly unearthed art treasures -- what miracles of laboratory and workshop will the coming weeks and months bring to LIFE's pages, and so into your life?
Nobody knows the answers to these questions now -- but you can be sure of this: the issues of LIFE ahead will bring you a living record of an era which promises to be as unforgettable as any the world has ever known.

And I think you can picture for yourself how interesting, dramatic and valuable LIFE is sure to be to you and to every member of your family in the days ahead.

And so -- to help celebrate LIFE's 15th Anniversary in the most tangible way we know it -- e would like to make it unmistakably worth your while to have your own copy of LIFE every week instead of every now and then -- by offering you the special introductory subscription that brings you

39 weeks of LIFE for only $3.99!

This is almost four fifths of a year of LIFE at a price so low it brings LIFE to your door each week for little more than 10 cents -- just about half the single copy price.

No need to send any money with your order -- we'll be glad to bill you later.

But we hope you will want to be wit us right from the start of LIFE's 15th Anniversary year. So please sign the enclosed card and airmail it back to us at our expense today.

Cordially,

F.D. Pratt

Circulation Director
#bill #cool #day #great #jayme #letter #november
  • Profile picture of the author Andrew Gould
    There's a couple of different versions available, as far as I'm aware this is the more famous one:

    THE ALTERNATIVE PRESS
    READING & DINING SALON

    invites you to sample the bill of fare of

    UTNE READER

    by sending for the next issue without cost or obligation.

    FREE

    Dear Reader:

    If you believe that exercise will help you live longer… that small companies are better to work for than big ones… and that you can’t possibly make money while maintaining your principles…

    …there’s something you should know. It won’t. They aren’t. You can. And if revelations like these contradict axioms you learned at your mother’s knee, there are more surprises to come. Just open UTNE READER to any page. Overturned truisms. Shattered shibboleths. Debunked bromides. Truth!

    UTNE READER? Yes, UTNE READER. It’s the new magazine that rekindles the kind of intellectual excitement we all enjoyed here in America before complacency set in. The magazine that’s got people making up their own minds again instead of swallowing ideas whole. The magazine that gives you perspective. Opens your eyes. Saves you time and money.
    Free issue. When you mail the enclosed card promptly you’ll get the next issue of UTNE READER with our compliments. No cost. No commitment. Free. If you like it? Subscribe and save yourself some silver. Read on!
    UTNE READER was created a little over four years ago to bring you the best of the alternative press. Economic Forecasts like you find in Dollars and Sense. Lifestyle how-to like you get from Mother Earth News. Politics -- American Spectator, Mother Jones, The Nation. Activism -- Ms., Earth First!, Dissent. Commentary -- The New Statesman, Foreign Policy, The Guardian.
    The Cutting Edge -- The Village Voice, Washington Monthly, Rolling Stone. Fitness and Health -- Medical SelfCare, American Health, Whole Life Times. Science, technology and the environment -- Audubon, Resurgence, Orion. Any and everything you ought to know about that you won’t find in mainstream media.
    UTNE READER isn’t slick. No lavish color spreads. No centerfolds. No scratch-and-sniff perfume packets. Outside of its full-color covers, in fact, it’s printed entirely on newsprint. But nonetheless it’s where more and more of the brightest movers and shakers are congregating. And what our magazine is doing for them, it can also do for you.

    UTNE READER adds to your perspective. Here’s Barbara Ehrenreich on today’s crazed pursuit of “excellence”. Ken Kessey on coming to terms with the death of his 20-year-old-son. Alice Walker on saying goodbye to a dying friend. Gary Snyder on life in general. The meaning of marathoning according to Hunter Thompson. The jogger’s prayer according to Tom Wolfe.
    Here’s Chris Mullin on Vietnam today. Allen Ginsberg on Nicaragua. Deena Metzger on careers in prostitution. Jonathan Rowe on Ralph Nader. Noam Chomsky on disarmament. Garrison Keillor on porches. “A good porch,” Keillor observes, “lets you smoke, talk loud, eat with your fingers.. without running away from home.”
    UTNE READER opens your eyes. Child abuse -- how parents can scar their kids worse than any molester. Dieting -- why are health authorities now telling you to forget it? Central America – how is the administration censoring the news? Nazis -- if you think that they’re ancient history, why should you think again? AIDS -- what’s more dangerous than the disease?
    Family farms – how does saving them start at your supermarket? World peace – what might you be doing? Stress – How can you lessen it by taking on more responsibility? All these have been the focus of recent UTNE READER stories that reveal the facts without bias, pull no punches, help you get at the truth.
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    Send no money. To get a taste of UTNE READER, just mail the enclosed card. If the magazine goes down easy, your introductory price for a full year’s subscription (6 bimonthly issues in all) is only $18. Single copy costs come to $24. You save a full $6.
    Owe nothing. If UTNE READER doesn’t sit well, though, just return the subscription bill marked “cancel,” and that’s the end of the matter. You’ve spent nothing. You owe nothing. You’re under no further obligation. The issue is yours to keep with our thanks.
    Early postmark. Only so many copies of each issue are published, and no more. In fairness, first come, first served. Avoid disappointment. Mail card quickly. Our gratitude. And bon appétit.

    Cordially yours,

    Kali Senjem (?)

    For the Alternative Press
    READING & DINING SALON
    Signature

    Andrew Gould

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  • 'its where more and more of our brightest movers and shakers are congregating' - what a golden statement!
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  • Profile picture of the author fbyrne
    Thanks a million, Andrew

    Fergal
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