Strange Talismans for Strange Times is our companion to Strange Prayers for Strange Times.

"My Life Like a Feather Pillow."  From Tenderloin Times, April-May 1981.

Straight out of the Addams Family home library?  The inscription to this book on superstition hopes to "form a smile upon your face(s)."  Can't you picture Morticia knitting a two-headed winter cap for the recipient?  Also, the inscription desires that the recipient will "stay imbedded in the mirror(s) of your mind(s)."  That's surely a curse for the reader to be trapped in an inner hall of mirrors!  (Psychological halls of mirrors are even more difficult to be rescued from than the halls of mirros that wizards use to traverse long distances quickly.  Contrary to popular belief, wizards' halls of mirrors are not used to ensnare their rivals.)  The inscription ends, "When you cry, I taste salt."  That part we agree with: may your enemies' weeping season your every meal.

From Knock on Wood by Carole Potter.

"Do this when you feel jumpy."  From Photoplay, 1932.

Small world!  "I am paid not to think."  From Photoplay, 1932.

We belatedly discovered an artist's statement for our haunted grandfather clock in which the clock face has been pulled to the back of the cabinet:

"To make any real sense of our place in the cosmos and, more importantly still, to change that place, we must be open to genuine transcendence and the abolition of time through its conversion into space" (Jeffrey J. Kripal, footnote to Philip K. Dick's Exegesis).

See our video about the clock and its uncanny hauntedness, here.

The closest we've so far come to finding the hidden gold in our hair was that time we met a real-life pirate.  From Photoplay, 1932.

We're not a day over sometimes 40/sometimes 25.  From Photoplay, 1932.

From The Varsity, Oct. 22, 1975.

The finals words of Wife of the Centaur by Cyril Hume, 1923.

We presume this is a play on the famous New Yorker cartoon of 1928, in which a child won't eat her broccoli: "I say it's spinach and I say the hell with it."  In this case, the subject is toothpaste, not broccoli (the ad is for Pepsodent).  While we like the hallucinatory scenario (is one brushing one's teeth with spinach?  Has one been served toothpaste for dinner?), the famous zinger to the gag is, "the hell with it," so this comes across as some sort of anti-advertising, since the lingering message is, "The hell with Pepsodent."  From Photoplay, 1932.

I don't think I know what I think after thinking.  From What I Think After Thinking by Budd Reeve, 1898.

Yes, Google Maps blurred the face of this giant mascot, because giant mascots are entitled to privacy, too.

I think I've read this one.

Is it just me, or does this dedication page, in a book about an orphan, seem to gloat over the fact that the author is not herself an orphan?  From The House of the Red Fox by Miriam Byrne, 1907.

May you always croak at the right moment.  And yes, keep your hat on.  The text reads, "Never make love with a frog under your hat.  It croaks at the wrong moment."  From The Film Daily, 1938.

We've hit new highs, too.  Please, someone, find a crowbar to pry us off the ceiling so we can get on with our day.  From The Film Daily, 1938.

We encountered a charming wizard's song in "What If a Witch?" by Elaine McQueen (Ethos, 1964). 

I came from there

and now I'm here

and tomorrow I'll be

I don't know where ...

I'm a flunk at ghosts

I can't make toasts

and instead of boiling

my cauldron roasts ...

My name is ___,

a wizard by whim.

I spin magic marvels

when daytime grows dim ...

But you're all so friendly

I'll try to be good

and put all my magic

away in the wood.

"Your whole outlook on life changes—the whole structure is undermined because of one incident."  From UFO Newsclipping Service, 1988.