I can see by the gently declining number of hits on my blog that my obsession with vintage aviation isn’t necessarily shared by my readers. In that case I’ll wrap the subject up (until I unwrap it of course) with one of my favorite Three Stooges shorts ‘Dizzy Pilots’ (1942). If one could ever apply the word ‘surreal’ to the Stooges, it would have to be in connection with this film. Whoever thought of dipping Moe in rubber, inflating him, then watching him float around an airplane hangar, eventually taking to the skies, was likely in an opium by-products induced state of slapstick inspiration. By the way, I hate the way the word ‘surreal’ is overused–people now describe anything mildly out of the ordinary by using that term. I hear it a lot on the news when a random interviewee in a  demonstration sees ICE agents walking around wearing those silly masks. Nonetheless, the word applies to the above-mentioned gag–like most truly surreal images, it’s both amusing and darkly disturbing. Actually, come to think to it, those images of the masked ICE agents are just about as weirdly disturbing as the afloat Moe…though alas, much less amusing.