We marvel today at the sorry state of the arts, but the Muses were suffering from exhaustion all the way back in 1892.  We find proof in The Idler.

An illustration from an 1899 issue of Pall Mall magazine.

We were, of course, reminded of our Divination by Punctuation project when we encountered this percent sign in The Saturday Evening Post, 1909.

An illustration from an 1887 issue of Harper's magazine.

"The only certainty is that you cannot run a business without cash."
—Project Management Accounting: Budgeting, Tracking, and Reporting Costs and Profitability

An illustration from a 1921 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "The guardian ghost of the treasure."

"You drop the anchor, the boat stops.  It's not rocket science."
—Cindy Dees, Her Hero After Dark (2012)

An illustration from an 1895 issue of The Strand magazine.  The caption reads: "He called some strange, weird-sounding name three times."

A ghostly illustration from a 1901 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "I knew him to be behind me."

"Call it a hunch, but it's based on some of the oldest saws in the book."
—Linda Barnes, Deep Pockets (2004), as if referring to two scenes from Young Frankenstein




Two stills from the perennially hilarious Young Frankenstein.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't seem so upset."
—Zoraida Cordova, Vicious Deep

An illustration from a 1902 issue of The Strand magazine.  The caption reads: "The overhead table shot."

"This might surprise you, but I don't want to be here, either.  Just show me where the privy is, give me my hat and I'll be gone."
—Pamela Bauer, Mail Order Cowboy

An illustration from an 1888 issue of Harper's magazine.

photo by Cobalt 123

"The pictures were apropos of nothing; they had been suggested by nothing I had been reading or talking of; they simply came as if I had been able to look through a glass at what was occurring somewhere else in the world."
—Swami Panchadasi's Clairvoyance & Occult Powers: A Lost Classic (2011)

An illustration from an 1893 issue of Pall Mall magazine. 

We had the pleasure and honor of illustrating the hysterical wordplay in the chapter titles of famed magician Jeff McBride's new book, The Show Doctor.

"It bears repeating yet again that the keyboard is not merely constructed of white and black keys, but that the rows of each are positioned in their respective horizontal planes."
—Jon Verbalis, Natural Fingering: A Topographical Approach to Pianism

An illustration from an 1887 issue of Harper's magazine.

An illustration from an 1873 issue of Harper's magazine.