"They watch with loving and gracious eyes as you flail about, because they, too, have fallen, flailed, and found new life on the other side" (Jenny Simmons, The Road to Becoming).  Our photo is courtesy of the San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives.

An encounter with one's own ghost, date uncertain.

"Stude and Kavaleff in Helsinki Zoo, May 1898."

Jim Hester performing a night flight over Ocean Park, 1920.

From 1936.

Did you know that psychological warfare has its own pageants?  Photo by Vern C. Gorst, c. 1950.

"All set to go places and do things!"  From 1938.

From the San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives.  (The enlargement of the mysterious "face" is our own.)

The third figure from the right has two heads that don't see eye to eye.  The postcard was originally scanned by UpNorth Memories.  (For those intrigued by Janus-faced figures, our Oracle of the Two-Fold Gods is finally in print again, and the first 57 pages are viewable here.  [Note that the preview may take a few moments to load.])

"For when the frost comes, all will be safe till Spring" (R. H. Budd, The Complete Practical Farmer, 1835).  Photo courtesy of the Costică Acsinte Archive.

"Braemar Badminton Club opening tea, Edmonton, 1953."

Photo by Leslie Jones, date uncertain.

"Pres. Coolidge & family in Swampscot," as scanned by the Boston Public Library.

The Sneeuwstormbeschermer (face protection from snowstorms), Montreal, Canada, 1939.

"Hyman Gordon, 15, Boston, Mass., demonstrates his 'chemical man' he built out of bits of rubber, glass, cigar boxes and other odds and ends.  When the figure is stuck with a pin he reacts after the manner of a mortal.  He eats and digests food.  The tubes here indicate the lungs, heart, bladder, intestines, etc." (Milwaukee Sentinal, Jan, 11, 1936).  Photo by Leslie Jones.

The Chemical Man is obviously not to be confused with the Chemical Chicken (also photographed by Leslie Jones, date uncertain), nor (while we're at it) with Scrappo (the mechanical scrap metal creation made by the Marion County salvage committee, Salem, Oregon, 1942).  

The radio hat of 1931.

"I am who I am, but there are always two sides to every face.  For me, one is a myth, the other a legend" (Clair McIntyre, Shadowy Stillness).  Photo as scanned by the Costică Acsinte Archive.

Here's the radio pram of 1921.

"Many think that Egypt is upside down [because the Nile flows from south to north]" (Marci Haines, Ancient Egypt).  And it's true.  Our photographic proof is courtesy of the San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives.

Piano for the bedridden, 1935.