Life, 1928-05-31 · page 8 of 34
Life — May 31, 1928 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a humorous article titled "Try This on Your Pianola" by Cyril B. Egan, describing an absurd invention: using Swiss cheese holes as a punch-card system to play music on a player piano (a "Pianola"). The top cartoon shows a woman crying to her husband about infidelity, while in the background, a man operates a contraption involving cheese and a musical instrument—illustrating the article's comedic premise. The lower cartoon depicts the author's fictional successful test, with Swiss birds conducting the cheese-powered piano performance. The satire targets turn-of-the-century mechanization culture and the era's fascination with automated musical devices. It's absurdist humor exploiting the Pianola's then-contemporary popularity and the humorous juxtaposition of refined Swiss cheese with music-making machinery.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
First Movie Actress: Why the tears, dearie? Seconp (sobbing): 1-1-1 don't bub-bub-bub-believe your husband loves me any more! Try This on Your Pianola I nave a great idea for making a million dollars out of nothing—a quaint and unique plan to utilize the holes in Swiss cheese—an eminently practical dream to vary the monotonous pattern of the com- pacted curd along more melodic lines. I conceived this nifty notion one night after my company had departed, leaving five slices of Swiss cheese unconsumed upon the platters behind them. My eye roved from the cheese to the pianola records—and noted an astounding re- semblance. Quickly I took up my crochet- ing needle, emptied the platters, sewed the cheese slices together, and then, with feet vigorously working away at the pedals, ran them through the pianola. Imagine my astonishment to hear the Swiss cheese playing: O—yo—yo layee O—yoh layee— O—yoh layee—ee yo.... Just like that it went. From the first piece to the second, from the second to the third....on to the end, it was all one piece: O yo—yo lay-ee— Even the mustard on the last slice failed to vary the strain. “Bah!” I cried, ata finale that differed no note from the vamp. “This is nothing, absolutely nothing, to what can be done with a more intelligent patterning of the perforations!” And the very next day I sailed with my pianola for Switzerland, where I got myself a job as a hole-puncher in a cheesery. At the end of the first day, the manager called me to his office. “Young man,” he cried, waving sey. eral slices of my handiwork before m eyes, “do you think you can punch holes in this cheese wherever you like and get away with it?” As luck would have it, the manager, who was a music lover, had a pianola in his office. Taking the cheese tenderly, I wound a slice around the cylinder. “Listen!” I murmured, as I began to pump the pedals. It was an ancient and mellow Swiss, seasoned like an old violin; and its tune was “The Rustle of Spring!”.... As in a dream, the manager listened; then, as the final note was struck, he rushed up and embraced me. “Marvelous!” cried he. ‘My boy, the ripe cheeses of Switzerland shall yet be heard in Carnegie Hall!” So there you have the story of my unique invention. We have already opened a huge manufacturing plant in Geneva, just across the street from the League of Nations. These are some of the selections which will soon be issued on our Orthophonic Cheese Rolls: “Follow the Swallow,” “My Heart Stood Still,” ‘Comin’ Between the Rye,” “Holy, Holy, Holy,” “I Miss My Swiss” and a wide variety of classical pieces. Our laboratory research department is now working on another big idea of mine, which is to manufacture Swiss cheese flutes. Cyril B, Egan, Sue Grows on You \) | _ eee comicbooks.com