August 15, 2013
It was a Thursday, but it felt like a Monday to John. And John loved Mondays. He thrived at work. He dismissed the old cliché of dreading Monday mornings and refused to engage in water-cooler complaints about “the grind” and empty conversations that included the familiar parry “How was your weekend?” “Too short!”. Yes, John liked his work and was unashamed.
I should probably get another latte. I’ve just been sitting here with this empty cup. But then I’ll start to get jittery. I’ll get a decaf. No, that’s stupid, it feels stupid to pay for a decaf. I can’t justify that.
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August 14, 2013
I.
I love my father, but sometimes he can get on my nerves. It’s hard to explain why exactly. It’s just little things he does, here and there, that bother me. For example, sometimes he shits into his hands and then throws the shit into my face while jumping up and down and screaming. I know he’s just trying to be funny—and it is funny, I can see that. But there’s just something about it that bugs me. I’ve asked him politely not to do it anymore, but I always get the same reaction. He just rolls his yellow eyes and says, “I’m sorry, your majesty.”
My father’s been calling me “your majesty” for as long as I can remember. He does it whenever I rinse off fruit before eating it, or catch grubs with a stick instead of my fingers. Basically, he does it whenever I do anything differently than he does.
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August 10, 2013
Last week’s post on Anatol Kovarsky presented a number of lovely examples of a cartoon genre that I’m very fond of: the captionless, textless cartoon. One reason for my soft spot, no doubt, is that my earliest published cartoons in The New Yorker were of this type. A few examples from the seventies:
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August 9, 2013
The “Wizard or Hipster?” Test is administered to any person who applies for work in the comic-book or
Comic Con industries. Its purpose is to ascertain whether the applicant can successfully distinguish
fantasy (“wizard”) from reality (“hipster”) while dealing with customers.
The rules are simple: correctly mark each of the following statements as that of either a “wizard” or a “hipster.”
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August 7, 2013
Now that the Blackwell boys were captured and locked tight in a jail cell, the mysterious Ranger spurred his magnificent white steed through the outskirts of Red Oak and into the wilderness. Perched on the edge of a rocky bluff, bathed in the rusty sunset, the masked man smiled wistfully and turned to his dusky friend.
“Well, Tonto, it seems that our adventure has come to an end.”
“Yes-um,” said Tonto.
“And now, you must leave this place and return to your ancestral lands, while I must push on alone—utterly alone—in the crushingly solitary pursuit of justice.”
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August 6, 2013
Skyler was grouchy. The car wash smelled funny, like the chemicals they use to wash cars. Suddenly, Saul drove up and said something about a sandwich. Skyler just sort of stared at him, her soul being all dead and rotten from living with the terrible secret of Walt being a meth kingpin. She had a lot to think about, between the car wash and the kids and the dead rottenness of her soul, not that that was her fault. “Sandwich,” Saul said, snapping his fingers. “Sandwich.” And Skyler went to the place where the sandwiches were and got him one.
* * * “Damn, Skinny Pete,” Badger said. “I never knew you had such a boss collection of lanyards!”
“You know it, bro,” Skinny Pete said proudly. “I learned how to make lanyards at Camp Watonka when I was eleven, and I was the lanyard king, yo.”
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August 6, 2013
SEATTLE (The Borowitz Report)—Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, told reporters today that his reported purchase of the Washington Post was a “gigantic mix-up,” explaining that he had clicked on the newspaper by mistake.
“I guess I was just kind of browsing through their website and not paying close attention to what I was doing,” he said. “No way did I intend to buy anything.”
Mr. Bezos said he had been oblivious to his online shopping error until earlier today, when he saw an unusual charge for two hundred and fifty million dollars on his American Express statement.
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August 5, 2013
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—As House Republicans began their five-week summer vacation, their leader, House Speaker John Boehner, urged them to rest up for “the many symbolic and meaningless votes that lie ahead.”
Mr. Boehner, while congratulating his colleagues on having voted to repeal Obamacare forty times, reminded his fellow-Republicans that their work is “far from over.”
“I want you to come back from vacation rested and refreshed, because we’ve got another year of futile, time-wasting votes to cast,” he said. “Only the strong will survive.”
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August 1, 2013
First and foremost, thanks to everyone for the selections that appeared in last week’s slide show of readers’ favorite New Yorker cartoons. Second and foremost, I’m still getting more selections, and when I get enough of them, voilà: a new slide show. So do your part, if you haven’t already, by sending a note to newyorkercartoon@gmail.com with your favorite or favorites. Usually, if you remember anything about the cartoon, I can find it for you, and there are two databases online to help you. One has been created for licensing the cartoons and the other for getting prints. The selection is pretty complete for cartoons published since 1985, but it’s very spotty before that. Which is too bad, because there are many great cartoons, and many great cartoonists, from the earlier years of the magazine that deserve to be seen.
Some of those cartoonists, like Charles Addams, Peter Arno, and Saul Steinberg, are still well known. But many cartoonists who were once as regular a presence in the magazine as that trio, such as Mischa Richter,
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August 1, 2013
Dear Mr. Smith,
A dream in which you “do something nasty with a family member”—and particularly a “distant cousin,” which, frankly, we hear about all the time—in no way merits inclusion in our magazine, no matter how arousing you may have found it.
Please see the Frequently Recorded Dreams page on our Web site to determine whether your dream is worthy of submission.
Sincerely,
Donald Wembly
Submissions Editor
Dreams Quarterly
American Academy of Dreams
* * *
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