My own eyes actually aren't magnifying mirrors (too gay?), but I make up for it with X-Ray Spex.  From The New Movie Magazine, 1935.

Infernal pestilence: a mini-episode of Prof. Oddfellow's Penetralia

Here's a most compelling argument for Marcel Proust being the greatest vampire writer.  From a great Top Ten list with only eight items, in Monster News, 2012.

The night is dark and full of spirits, and they want to help cure you of your fear of death. Because when your work here is finally done, you'll be able to join them in their nightly dance and jail-break out of the prison of matter. 

 

I mean, if you so choose.

Get out there and open yourself up to the world of the spirits.There are all kinds for you to meet: animal spirits, nature spirits, ancestor spirits, star spirits, you name it. The good ones don't want anything from you, because you don't have anything they need. 

 

You really have nothing to offer them but your company. Be generous with it, and they will soothe your stresses and anxieties and peel away your terror of the grave. Guaranteed.

"It's fun to be foolish ... that's the joy of living!"  Irene Dunne and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in Joy of Living.  From The Film Daily, 1938.

"Insight into the unknown?"  From UFO Newsclipping Service, 1981.

John Maus says the greatest evil is to be a bureaucrat and tell someone, "If I made an exception your case, I'd have to make an except for everybody, so I'm not going to make an exception in your case."  Maus says the way not to be evil is to make those exceptions.  Plus, here's his idea of genuine radicalism: regardless of your belief system, "Be a sweet dude, act as if everything will be counted, as if there will be a fullness of time."

What a great pre-apology for causing offense: it's not you, it's your next-door neighbor the author was eviscerating.  From Needles and Pins by Mina Deane Halsey, 1909.

"A soft blanket and a gay disposition are the essentials." From The Campus newspaper of Middlebury, 1964.

RSVPing while hallucinating ... it's our new video:

"Don't be afraid to use a good idea just because it's already been done" (Mike McShaffry).  Yes, it's an elephant wearing green clothes, just like Jean de Brunhoff's famous Babar. Audcious!  

What a concise way to communicate a title, year, edition number, publisher, city, editor's name, and ten major contributors.  That's sixteen units of information!  From Wheels by Edith Sitwell, 1916.

It's not "coffin coffee" unless it's brewed until the aroma could wake the dead.  From Entire Dilemma by Michael Burkard, 1998.

You've heard that dabbling in the occult is dangerous because it's not a game, but it turns out that it actualy is a game.  "The Game of Bewitchments," from Fairy Prince by Eleanor Abbott, 1922.

That's how my folks were as I was growing up -- if I indicated that I had something important to say, they encouraged me to put it on a record.  Alas, my vast record collection was destroyed by Hurrican Matthew, and now I hardly know what I think.  From Time and Tigers by D. R. Amato. 

This sort of science is rarely taught anymore ... and look at the state of the world.  "Why the butterfly is not a flower," from The Bluebird's Garden by Patten Beard, 1915.

Good news -- it won't and actually cannot ever happen again.  From It Never Can Happen Again by William de Morgan, 1909.

We double-checked this Charles Kingsley quotation, and it is untrue.  (Yesterdays sneers and frowns certainly can come again!)  But we snagged it for the hand lettering.  From Mary Washington's 1916 yearbook.

"I still live, but like 666, by the aid of drugs.  Pain, pain, pain!  But, before I die, I must tell all.  I mustn't wander - must conserve all my energies to tell all."  From Secrets of the Kaula Circle by Elizabeth Sharpe, 1936.

"To save the world just vote for Joe the space bee, present leader of the Inter Galactic Bumblebees."  From The Gateway, 1974.