Life — May 31, 1928 — page 8: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 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.