This is a classic (and quite famous) weird photo.
Charles Tripp, the "Armless Wonder," performed with Barnum's circus. He could do just about anything with his feet, including shaving and carving wood. Eli Bowen was known as the "Legless Acrobat." He also toured with the Barnum and Bailey Circus. It was when the two of them paired up together that they achieved the peak of their popularity. This photo apparently happened spontaneously.
From thehumanmarvels.com:
While the pair posed for promotional photographs one of them spotted a tandem bicycle. In no time at all the two gents not only mounted the bicycle-built-for-two, but rode off together laughing as boys would. The photographer quickly snapped the pair mid-ride and the resulting surreal photograph still draws perplexed smiles.
"Best Yearbook Photo Ever"
I don't know that this photo ever actually appeared in a yearbook, but it's circulated all around the web with this caption. It could be an engagement photo, but it's more fun to imagine it in a yearbook. [
Accordion Guy]
"Most Whipped"
The 2005 Boynton Beach High Yearbook included this shot of Robert Richards being held on a leash by his girlfriend, Melissa Finley. The fact that he's black and she's white didn't sit well with some people, including Richards' mother, who demanded that all copies of the yearbook be recalled. [
Palm Beach Post]
Going Medieval
Patrick Agin wanted this photo in his Portsmouth High School yearbook, but the school refused, citing its zero-tolerance weapons policy. Critics of the decision noted that the school mascot was a Revolutionary War soldier carrying a rifle. [
NY Times]
Too Pale, Not Smiling
11-year-old Asheana Maiheapt was sick the day class photos were taken, so the school used a picture of her taken by a school photographer. But Asheana's mother hated the photo, arguing that her daughter looked too pale in it and wasn't even smiling. She demanded the school recall all copies of the yearbook. She must have felt much better when the New York Post plastered the photo on its front page. [
ABC News]
Here at WU Central, the proprietors believe in training up the next generation to be observant and appreciative of all things weird. Hence the photo you see here.
This image was taken by my tweener niece, Becky Fuller, at the farm my brother Frank and his wife Beverly own in Medford, Oregon. It depicts a curious beast Becky calls "the curly horse."
Becky is enrolled in 4-H, and they've plainly been conducting secret experiments to hybridize sheep and horses. How else to explain the odd woolly fur of this anomalous quadruped, its mullet-like mane, or the unnaturally symmetrical appearance of its brown "stockings"?
Be afraid--be very afraid!
A new book titled
Perfectible Worlds by the photographer
Sage Sohier, devoted to people who amass oddball collections, seems a winning item for all readers of WEIRD UNIVERSE.
[Photo copyright by Sage Sohier.]