Life — December 5, 1901 — page 15: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a futuristic satire imagining air travel as commonplace personal transportation. The scene shows a couple in what appears to be a high-rise apartment or building, with the husband arriving late wearing what looks like an early aviation suit or aircraft. The joke plays on the idea that in some future time ("in futuro"), mechanical air travel failures will become as routine and mundane as modern transportation breakdowns—so commonplace that "my air suit broke down" becomes an acceptable excuse for tardiness, delivered with the same casual resignation we might use today for car trouble. The artwork's Art Deco style and futuristic cityscape suggest this was likely drawn in the 1920s-1930s, when such technological speculation was popular satirical fodder in magazines like Life.