is there a thread about the new yorker obama cover?

loooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

baby bam ain't too happy about it, apparently.

i think it's an awesome cover.

nope haven't seen one yet

skot theres a big fun argument on the general election thread

STOP THE MADNESS

"skot theres a big fun argument on the general election thread"

ah, i should have checked there.

i think it's a brilliant way of underscoring a point and anyone offended by it really needs to think about that and who/what it is that they should truly be offended by.

xposts - that thread is gigantic, so not checking it for this one issue!

"big fun"

max, u dawg

lol thermo theres like 250 posts on it today, no one is talking about anything else

it's the most seismic New Yorker-related tempest since "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah"

max - i now see this. i think i was confusing it for the previous "candidates" thread.

michelle obama = smashable even in cartoon form

For real! That drawing of her is wicked awesomes.

a brilliant way of underscoring a point and anyone offended by it really needs to think about that and who/what it is that they should truly be offended by

Dunno about this. Yes, I like it; obviously the humor's in how absurd it is for people to hint at characterizing them this way; it's a funny "yeah right" joke. (And it can't be offensive on its own, since every detail is carefully plucked from other people's well-known smears and complaints.) But beyond being offended there is this slight worry where jokes repeated and addressed and bandied around often enough become "true," or the idea is free floating out there to be seized on or leaned on -- the seed gets driven deeper and deeper and just needs water, etc. And this is funny, but it keeps the idea bouncing around. (Which isn't offensive, just ... worrying.)

^^^ok, fair enough. I just think the worrying's not justified.

nabisco summarizes my gut reaction perfectly (ie otm).

my favorite part is the Afro

I am not yet awake enough to process images on anything other than an aesthetic level, if at all. WILL I EVER WAKE UP?

I'm going to convert Nabisco's "seed" to an ingrown hair and say that the NYer cover is the needle, a couple days' bloviating on the cable nets will be the squeezing-out-of-the-pus, and Stewart/Colbert will be the dab of antibiotic ointment that gets the "Obama's a muslim who got sworn in on the Quran" cleaned out of the body politic. I've already expressed my optimism on the election thread. (And yeah, before somebody else says it, sometimes you pop a zit and it gets infected worse, but I don't think it will here.)

I like the optimism, but it might be like saying "Natural Born Killers was a satire of America's addiction to violence..."

Stewart/Colbert as arbiters of the freakshow = under-45 fantasyland

NBK was a satire of news sensationalism and glorification of violence, not of America's addiction to violence.

my first reaction was the opposite of nabisco's. that the illustration - a blatant calling out of all the various smears he and his wife have endured - would serve to make any other such slanderous remarks and attacks seems absurd and nothing more than the cheap-shot mischaracterizations that they are.

xposts

gabbneb u mad

i do not understand your under-45 fantastyland speak, max

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t250/KillaKastro_2007/6fhaxc6.jpg

i don't even think i found it funny.
it's sad, really, that a man with a diverse background such as Obama's cannot be treated fairly due to, among other things, the xenophobic nature of the right (possibly even the population in general).

could be completely wrong about the reasons for it - but i find it sad nonetheless.

i do not understand your picture, max? is that person an american? is he a terrorist?

Why are they standing on a duck?

(I know, I know - joek)

Blitt missed his chance to do the lipstick-clad, beret-wearing John Kerry leading a boatful of troops down the Mekong River into enemy fire.

duck is official bird of ter'rist state.

LAME duck.

first reaction on one glance: awesome afro, michelle!

beyond being offended there is this slight worry where jokes repeated and addressed and bandied around often enough become "true," or the idea is free floating out there to be seized on or leaned on

but if the idea floating around stops being the original ridic stereotype, and becomes the idea that the stereotype is a joke, it could nullify whatever power it had to start with? i'm not pretending the original motives were anything more complex than "lol hicks believe this" but it's pretty obvious satire. i laughed.

Sure, Lex, it's clearly satire, and I find it funny as hell and kind of awesome -- this idea that they're gonna step into the White House and unmask all gotcha-style. (Though this probably has to do with the fact that Angela Davis images and Somali headwear are nonthreatening and somewhat likable to me, whereas for a lot of people those images are loaded with gut-level fear.) But the thing is that when it comes to image and branding over the course of a long campaign that most people don't follow very rigorously, it's more a matter of associations than messages, and I guarantee we'll hear voters this fall saying stuff like "I don't know about Obama, wasn't there all this stuff about his being anti-American?" -- i.e., it's not parsed out for meaning, it's just a free-floating "didn't I hear something about X," this trait that's continually associated with the candidate. Consider how often you read that someone is "dogged by allegations of X": it doesn't matter if the allegations are true or not, you just keep hearing that they're "dogged by" it, that it's an issue that's stuck to them and keeps getting discussed.

It's not the New Yorker's job to worry about that, obviously -- they've run one of their funnier and more striking and likable covers in a while -- but all I'm saying is that there are levels on which it just keeps the ball rolling.

But beyond being offended there is this slight worry where jokes repeated and addressed and bandied around often enough become "true," or the idea is free floating out there to be seized on or leaned on -- the seed gets driven deeper and deeper and just needs water, etc. And this is funny, but it keeps the idea bouncing around. (Which isn't offensive, just ... worrying.)

this is exactly why I complain when ethan reposts similar ridiculous screeds on ILX from spam emails or wherever with not attributions or sources. Maybe I think people are just more stupid than everyone else does, but I don't have enormous amounts of faith in people's ability to discern nuance.

so why even support Obama then if most people will miss the nuance in his speeches and writings?

I've enjoyed some of Blitt's covers in the past. The one of Bush and his cabinet in the flooding Oval Office after Katrina was great. There are some parallels between that cartoon and this one, in the way that both use the setting of the Oval Office to satirize their subjects. In the Katrina cartoon, the point of the satire was that Bush and his advisers were having a relaxed discussion in that most rarefied and secure of environs, the Oval Office, oblivious to the waters rising around them (symbolizing the rising tide of outrage at the government's inept handling of the crisis). In this new one, Obama is pictured already in the Oval Office, the locus of his great ambition, but incongruously, he is garbed in the negative images of him that continue to circulate and be accepted by surprising numbers of voters, despite his best efforts to dispel them. Here the contrast is between Obama's lofty ambitions and his seeming inability to control his image, a necessary step to realizing those ambitions. I guess maybe the reason I don't find this new one as funny as the previous one is because my political sympathies align differently in this case, but I guess they could both be read as sharp satire.

hmmm - any link for the katrina ones?

On the far right here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/business/media/25magscnd.html

i didn't find the previous one funny, because i don't find the bush administration funny. the political waters rising around the Bush admin don't signify much when we have a 4-year term of office and Bush's unpopularity hasn't prevented him from accomplishing most of the easier tasks on his short to-do list. joke's on the artist.

In this new one, Obama is pictured already in the Oval Office, the locus of his great ambition, but incongruously, he is garbed in the negative images of him that continue to circulate and be accepted by surprising numbers of voters, despite his best efforts to dispel them. Here the contrast is between Obama's lofty ambitions and his seeming inability to control his image, a necessary step to realizing those ambitions.

this is some sharp work nate. I would maybe ask: "a necessary step?" because I'm not sure that it's so much necessary as it is hoped-for; desirable; ideal.

I mean it's necessary to keep too many people from accepting that image. It's hard to know exactly how many is too many.

Ha ha, look. His wife wears the trousers.

Deep on so many levels, or maybe not.

His wife wears the trousers.

Even the people who believe all this shit don't really think that though, right?

so why even support Obama then if most people will miss the nuance in his speeches and writings?

To be honest with you I think most people will miss the nuance of anything, which is as it should be, and which is what makes it "nuance," and which is why we say things like "most people," because rarely do "most people" all agree to do the same thing at the same time --

But to be clear I'm not saying people aren't going to "get" this! I'm not saying this is going to be misinterpreted by rubes who don't understand things! This will be interpreted fine. All I'm saying is that the longer a conversation continues about these alleged traits of Obama's, and the more people are able to bandy about the details of it jokingly, the more it becomes an accepted aspect of his image/brand -- the more it becomes a topic that springs to mind in relation to the image/brand. Which is not the New Yorker's problem, but is kinda going to be Obama's, because people on the right will try their best to keep a vague swirl of this topic going around him, to have it stick to him; it doesn't need to be true or defensible, just recognizable, at which point it's there to be leaned on.

(This is reminding me of some man-on-the-street interview I saw about John Kerry, where the person was saying "first you hear he's got all these medals, then someone else says he didn't deserve them, now some people are defending him ..." -- that's not some dolt to be written off, that's a normal guy paying a medium amount of attention and coming away with the sense that who knows, something's off about this and I don't know who to trust. That's all it takes.)

http://yirmumah.com/webcomic/draw-anything-030.gif

It's worth mentioning that the Corner has been nearly silent on the cover today. It takes some contortions to discuss this without acknowledging that the target is the right, and that people who repeat "Obama's a muslim" as true are either dupes or villains. And who on the right is going to wade into that territory? But the only other right-wing site I've had the nerve to check was Michelle Malkin's (and pretty much all she had to say was "Obama's offended? Grow a pair."), so I don't have the best view of the other side.

I noticed it too. This is the only one, and an incoherent post at that.

I get what Nabisco is saying in his most recent post, but frankly, as an Obama supporter, I'm a hell of a lot more offended at what George Packer wrote about Obama and Iraq a couple of weeks ago in Talk of the Town.

Via:

BEYOND SATIRE. It's pretty depressing* that some liberals don't get that the New Yorker Obama cover is satire. That conservatives don't even know what satire is would also be depressing, were they not ever and always blind to even the simplest aesthetic concepts.

I mean, Jesus:

IF OBAMA LOSES, THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM WILL BE that it was because sleazy rightwingers portrayed him as a Muslim terrorist sympathizer.

When that happens, show 'em this New Yorker cover and remind 'em that The New Yorker is not generally regarded as a right-wing publication.

The Ole Perfesser then follows by sneering, "but it's satire!" as if satire were some ridiculously effete and rarefied concept which he couldn't possibly take seriously, like "conscience" or "humanity." That any piece of communication has value other than as propaganda probably doesn't even compute with him; his robot brain just perceives the images, goes "Beep beep, consistent with Obama TPoint 7A, promote to morons," and moves on.

Jonah Goldberg, as usual, is even worse:

Of course, if we ran the exact same art, the consensus from the liberal establishment could be summarized in words like "Swiftboating!" and, duh, "racist." It's a trite point, but nonetheless true that who says something often matters more than what is said — and, obviously, that satire is in the eye of the beholder.

Goldberg is very fond of categorical imperatives when it comes to nearly everything, yet he imagines satire to be "in the eye of the beholder," rather than the clinical term artists (and, indeed, anyone who graduated from a decent high school) know it to be.

It's understandable that anyone whose sense of humor misfires as often as Goldberg's would be motivated to confuse definitions relating to humor, in hopes that this may provide cover for him next time he really fucks up. What I wonder is: do his, and the Perfesser's, and all the other idiots' readers really think the same way? Do they also look at the New Yorker's frequent joke covers and, instead of laughing or scowling or any other human response, think, how can this be spun for my political candidate?
'Cause if they do, having to sell John McCain is the least of their problems.

*UPDATE. Sigh. Tom Tomorrow just tipped me to this comment from Drum's site, which reads in part, "Is your objective another Crystal Night, and trains of jews, gays, minorities, and other non-Aryans headed for the ovens?... This is not satire. It is race hate, religious hate, and political hate. It is an invitation to violence, lawbreaking, and cultural war." I'd like to think it's a plant, but alas, given what I've been hearing, it may be legit. Can't we let the conservatives be the crazy ones for a little while longer?

UPDATE II. Okay, this is more like it: minutes before defending the Obama cover, Megan McArdle humphs that August Pollak's lampoon of her proves that "the left has no sense of humor" -- at least, that's what her commenters and I think she's saying; it's one of her more mysterious, impenetrable constructions. Commenters, with all the philosophical heft libertarians traditionally bring to such topics, discuss the nature of humor ("Most humor relies on the propagation of general truths with a twist of absurdity thrown in") and Megan McArdle ("Megan knows that waiting for the iPhone and being a refugee are not the same experience"). Thank God someone's working to restore the balance of the universe!

what's so offensive -- that he's going to be "cold-eyed" and "shrewd" about Iraq?

(xpost)

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/07/new-yorkers-sat.html

http://blog.wired.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/07/14/newyorkercoverobama_mccain_2.jpg

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/images/2008/07/14/newyorkercoverobama_mccain_2.jpg

nobama was the first to play the race card, and is nice to see someone play it on him. half his family is black muslim but no one mentions the truth, the emporer has no clothes. ask larry sinclair

Posted By: frank s | July 14, 2008 at 03:54 PM

i neither hate nor fear black muslims, what i dislike is people like you that accuse people of racism, simply because they speak the truth. obama's father was a black muslim and that side of the family is black muslim. it seems what nobama and his follower's fear the most is the truth and will say anything other then the truth

Posted By: frank s | July 14, 2008 at 04:24 PM

universal condemnation ... aside from noted indie rocker ...

jk lol

Plucked from that Wired blog:

Indeed, the cover has already inspired the following online poll in a forum at the conservative online tabloid the WorldNetDaily: 59 percent of the small, unscientific sample of those taking the poll agree with the statement: "The image isn't too far from the dangerous truth about the Obama family."

WorldNetDaily readers satirize themselves, but does anyone know?

xpost to Alfred: No, that George Packer thinks it's wrong to try to get out of this war.

And that Obama has a "problem" in that he thinks we should.

This idea of Obama being a stealth Muslim always reminds me of Putney Swope.

I'm weighing in late on this one but I didn't think it was that funny or effective as satire. It's hard to come up with a decent analogy, but it seems a bit like The National Review putting Cheney on its cover in full Nazi regalia saluting a picture of Hitler. Yes, of course the typical National Review reader is going to find it absurd that anyone thinks Cheney is a Nazi, but there are a whole range of people on the left who think it's at least an apt metaphor (to varying respective degrees). Likewise, there are plenty of conservatives who don't literally think Obama is a secret Muslim or Michelle Obama a Black Panther, but who believe that there is something *unpatriotic* and *anti-american* about the Obamas, and see them as coming out of a radical left tradition that they hate. I also think the Nazi analogy sort of works because both Hitler and Bin Laden are images that are too emotionally raw for some people to find funny.

In any case, it's an awfully obvious joke, and I think simple things like the phrase "terrorist fist bump" do a much better and funnier job of highlighting the absurdity of what this cover is trying to point out.

i would just like to say that as someone extremely uninformed about the issues at stake in this election, i found the cartoon funny!

have a good night.

see them as coming out of a radical left tradition

can someone explain to me where this comes from? based on everything i've read for months, obama is a "liberal" only in the context of right-wing america. and although there's not really that much to divide them, i have repeated heard/read that hillary was (is) more liberal than him. so where does this misconception come from? is it just because he was one of the few US politicians to come out immediately against the iraq war?

People see Obama as coming from a radical left tradition, because he comes from a place, and did work associated with, one slice of the radical left in America. He lived in and represented Hyde Park - the headquarters of the Nation of Islam and a center of black liberation theology and a university neighborhood with a lefty intellectual tradition. He was a civil rights lawyer and worked in the projects of the South Side of Chicago.

I don't think he's a real lefty, but his background is certainly more in that direction than a lot of democrats.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/03/18/hyde_park/print.html

What did Channel 4 news say about this cover? I meant to listen but I fell asleep. I think its massively insulting but it is a good cover and funny but dumb and obv. I'm not so versed on the New Yorker but is this the kind of shit it does?

i have repeated heard/read that hillary was (is) more liberal than him.

Uh?

OHMYGOD. This entire time I thought Obama was naked in that picture. I realise I have only glanced at it then. Michelle's face is OTM.

He lived in and represented Hyde Park - the headquarters of the Nation of Islam and a center of black liberation theology and a university neighborhood with a lefty intellectual tradition.

It's more diverse than that. Milton Friedman hung out there too! Better to say that it was a place of intellectual ferment.

Major roflz:

The problem is that the New Yorker - like me - is not an organ of the Obama campaign, and so is under no obligation to justify what it says on the basis of whether it may be misconstrued by idiots to the detriment of that campaign. That’s why some people read the New Yorker and blogs rather than horrible anodyne focus group-tested campaign statements - because reading PR is boring and turns you stupid. We are adults in a free country, and we are allowed - I would say almost obligated - to have, to the best of our abilities, free, adult discussions, even into the very teeth of unfalsifiable theories about how these discussions will bring about armaggedon. Similiar concern troll theories have explained to me that using bad words, employing a mocking tone, lacking respect for media elders, and generally behaving in a way which might upset someone’s pilled-up granny will bring about terrible calamity, and I’ve ignored them, too, because A) they are all silly, and B) this is fucking America, so fuck you and your stupid fucking wingnut grandma. That the leading lights of the liberal blogosphere have decided to run with this one is more a source of embarrassment for them than a selling point for the theory.

Also, I am an evil trust-fund elitist with a cigarette holder who cares not a drop of cheap Chardonnay about this country or, indeed, anything except me and my faggoty millionaire Hollywood latte-sipping art-fag friends. The previous sentence is literally true.

(Via.)

Also this (note commenter name):

Jon Swift Says:

I think Kevin Drum and Atrios are right: If you are going to use satire (and I don’t recommend it) you really should make sure people know it is satire so they won’t get confused. What is the point of trying to fool people by convincing them you mean the opposite of what you really believe? How is that funny? I don’t get it.

hurting 2 otm

i have repeated heard/read that hillary was (is) more liberal than him.

Uh?

-- If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Tuesday, 15 July 2008 10:17 (4 hours ago)

I have no idea where it was, but earlier in the spring I read an article that compared candidates, or maybe congressmen overall, based on how various interest groups rated their voting (e.g. AFL/CIO, NAACP, etc. etc. Both HRC and Obama were clearly moderate Democrats and, according to a couple of metrics HRC was "more liberal" than him (marginally so, maybe but whatever).

It's more diverse than that. Milton Friedman hung out there too! Better to say that it was a place of intellectual ferment.

Indeed. A whole slew of supply-siders and neo-cons called it home. Strange mix.

i have repeated heard/read that hillary was (is) more liberal than him.

Toward the end of the primary season, HRC was certainly trying to appear more old-school Democrat than Obama, especially on blue collar type issues.

Incidentally I was way more annoyed by that cover with the grizzly bears wearing headphones at the park entrance. WTF was that about?

On Obama the lefty - I remember when Obama first rose to national prominence with his convention speech, my sister, who has lived in Hyde Park for the past ten years, was really surprised to see him anointed by the democratic party. In her words, "he's too lefty to be president."

Should clarify: She meant "he's too lefty to get elected president." My sister is a total lefty.

yeah Hurting I didn't get the bear headphone cover either

I have no idea where it was, but earlier in the spring I read an article that compared candidates, or maybe congressmen overall, based on how various interest groups rated their voting (e.g. AFL/CIO, NAACP, etc. etc. Both HRC and Obama were clearly moderate Democrats and, according to a couple of metrics HRC was "more liberal" than him (marginally so, maybe but whatever).

-- mitya, Tuesday, July 15, 2008 9:44 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

obama had the most liberal record in the senate

yeah Hurting I didn't get the bear headphone cover either

-- Mr. Que, Tuesday, July 15, 2008 12:22 PM (37 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

this

My 90-year-old grandma was in town and she suddenly pulled it out of her bag and was like "Jxxx, can you explain this to me? I just don't get it!" And I was like "I know! I don't either!"

d'oh, partial identity reveal

obama had the most liberal record in the senate

-- deej, Tuesday, July 15, 2008 1:23 PM (6 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

according to the national journal, who said in 04 that john kerry had the most liberal record in the senate

i couldn't tell if the bears were

*park bears, on vacation and therefore listening to ipods?
*vacationing bears, listening to a park tour on their ipods?
*WTF, i hate Bruce McCall anyway

according to the national journal, who said in 04 that john kerry had the most liberal record in the senate

-- and what, Tuesday, July 15, 2008 12:25 PM (27 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

you disagree with this?
he didnt get elected so kinda hard to tell how far left he would have been operating

I thought maybe the bears were running the park, but then why were there also a bunch of them standing around listening to ipods? Were they out-of-work bears waiting to apply for jobs at those booths?

d'oh, partial identity reveal

you're welcome

http://www.cartoonbank.com/assets/2/125323_l.jpg

this one?

regardless of whether or not you buy the national journal i have never, anywhere, seen an article that suggested HRCs record was remotely to the left of obama until you get to the health care debate

lol yes that one

the bears are getting off work at the park

think about that critically for a minute deej

do you think obama is more liberal than

russ feingold?
barbara boxer?
chris dodd?
bernie sanders, an independent "democratic socialist"?

one of them has an ipod because people listen to ipods on their commutes home

according to the national journal, who said in 04 that john kerry had the most liberal record in the senate

Yeah, this is in large part because neither Kerry nor Obama were around much to vote after they started campaigning, which skewed the results. Obama's rankings for 2005 and 2006 showed him pretty much in the middle of Senate Dems.

yeah other measures have him in the middle of the dem pack -- it's not like every vote and procedural move in the senate has a clearly inked "liberal/conservative" tag on it, it takes some analysis

xps

Ok, so there's a man in the booth, so bears running shit doesn't APPEAR to make sense. But the map reveals that the tourists are spiraling into some sort of trap. Aha! That's how the bears get the ipods.

those are MUSEUM HEADSETS not ipods christ have any of you ever gone on a boring vacation

ugh the bears arent running shit, theyre just employees

yeah i mean basically what kind of national park has a spiral road

yeah for real the most liberal voting record thing was just a bs right-wing talking point that has died down lately

btw i was trying to ignore this but the joke is that the bears are vacationing outside the park like humans are vacationing in the park

you are all gabbnebs now

yeah for real the most liberal voting record thing was just a bs right-wing talking point that has died down lately

-- deeznuts, Tuesday, July 15, 2008 1:29 PM (54 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

until deej revived it & hurt obama's campaign with middle americans

o i c the bears work in the park as bears

it doesnt have to do with the bears working!

you are all gabbnebs now

-- and what, Tuesday, July 15, 2008 5:30 PM (45 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

actually you just explained the cover to us rubes so well that it appears that YOU sir, are the gabbneb

Ok, so is there a joke I'm missing in the one with the dog shaking off the water on the beach or is just one of those *slice o life* drawings?

ethan youre wrong, the bears are leaving through a door that says "employees only" and theyre wearing ID badges and carrying suitcases and shit

btw i was trying to ignore this but the joke is that the bears are vacationing outside the park like humans are vacationing in the park

This was my original take, but I think the map suggests something more devious going on.

and thats def an ipod and earbuds

max one of the bears has a fanny pack

bears do not wear fanny packs after getting off work

NO THE MAP HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE JOKE

Do bears wear fanny packs while getting off?

That bears one is great.

also the cover is called "summer job"

max otm

Have you guys met any bears? They have no fashion at all. How they expect to get any otters that way? A rather large, sentimental lot they are.

And why is it funny that Ahmadinejad is surprised to see an American wearing sandals with socks?

I like to think the map is an art of a cross-section of a very large tree, maybe?

i didnt mean that obama was actually the most liberal member, i was aware it was a skewed calculation! but that he was a liberal member. and certainly has a more liberal voting record than hrc, who was also campaigning during this period

And why is it funny that Ahmadinejad is surprised to see an American wearing sandals with socks?

;_;

and kerry actually does have a fairly progressive record on most issues also!

joeks max

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYpKZx090UE

bearack obama

when will this barry-on-barry violence stop

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's response

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l274/moonlightcowboy/Sam_and_Ralph_clock.png

"Mornin', Sam."

"Oh! Mornin', Ralph."

ILE has more interpretations for bear cover than for Haneke's Cache

it's better art

no argument, actually

that cartoon is so flawed. summer workers at yellowstone live in the park. who's the gabbneb now?

smarter than the average bear.

I don't agree with Nabisco that the Obama picture is funny. I don't think it's funny at all.

Hey everyone: so after watching the concerned brow-knitted over-heated arguments about this, is anyone gonna say I'm wrong about the end result just being that Brand Obama is ever more coated in general chatter about radicalism / anti-Americanism / suspect patriotism? There are no messages anymore that are actually received as message -- they just filter out into general associations!

Note: the sarcastic joke the cover's making has been made on this board, and I know I've made it in conversation -- it's pretty much goes "WTF 'terrorist fist jab,' yeah right, they're gonna get home from the inauguration and suddenly be all 'FOOLED YOU, we're actually anti-American radicals'" -- which, yes, I find funny in circles where everyone understands one another, but don't particularly like being on the cover of the NYer, given that the whole purpose of national politics is that not everyone understands one another.

serious q: is the right wing sound machine currently saying "hey! you know what, the NYer thought this was funny, but its actually kinda true!" or "HAHA look at these uptight liberals finding this offensive"?

is it important who the president is, and why

is anyone gonna say I'm wrong about the end result just being that Brand Obama is ever more coated in general chatter about radicalism / anti-Americanism / suspect patriotism? There are no messages anymore that are actually received as message -- they just filter out into general associations!

There's a massive disconnect between the "message" that the media is sending out here vs. what people actually believe. I think the number of people who will *actually* believe that Obama is anti-American is really really low, and, as I've said before, I doubt that a NYer cover would sway them one way or another.

why the new yorker doesn't use coverlines is a mystery to me. seriously: a short, pithy, well-reasoned headline and subdeck on there and this absurd farrago would be ... well, a bit less absurd.

</tedious copyeditor>

obama's response on larry king was pretty good about this, i imagine this will be forgotten in a week like everything else.

Hey everyone: so after watching the concerned brow-knitted over-heated arguments about this, is anyone gonna say I'm wrong about the end result just being that Brand Obama is ever more coated in general chatter about radicalism / anti-Americanism / suspect patriotism? There are no messages anymore that are actually received as message -- they just filter out into general associations!

Note: the sarcastic joke the cover's making has been made on this board, and I know I've made it in conversation -- it's pretty much goes "WTF 'terrorist fist jab,' yeah right, they're gonna get home from the inauguration and suddenly be all 'FOOLED YOU, we're actually anti-American radicals'" -- which, yes, I find funny in circles where everyone understands one another, but don't particularly like being on the cover of the NYer, given that the whole purpose of national politics is that not everyone understands one another.

-- nabisco, Tuesday, July 15, 2008 5:56 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i was basically trying to argue this in gen election thread '08 but few ppl seemed to really agree and thought i was 'butthurt' and overreacting

is anyone gonna say I'm wrong about the end result just being that Brand Obama is ever more coated in general chatter about radicalism / anti-Americanism / suspect patriotism? There are no messages anymore that are actually received as message -- they just filter out into general associations!

"there are no messages anymore that are actually received as message"

ah, this modern age, where everyone is so intelligent/stupid

yeah i agree with nabisco except for thinking the cover is funny because i am lol sensitive about turbans being played for laughs.

'everyone else', that is

i think the satire itself is in poor taste though too ... like its easy to make fun of stupid people's stereotypes about muslims when you yourself are never going to be targeted by those stereotypes. this is the parallel i was trying to draw w/ black american stereotypes; yah sometimes ill make fun of some dude who has backwards opinions of black people but really its more o_O than it is lol, esp for me as someone who isnt going to be hurt by these stereotypes in the same way they are very real for other people.

and because the new yorker audience is not primarily muslim (i am assuming), i think that its kind of weird to forward this joke about a stereotype like its 'just' a joke when most of the people 'getting' the joke never have to worry about that shit anyway

-- deej, Monday, July 14, 2008 1:24 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

i thought it was funny, but i dont think the masses will because they are so inundated to postmodern information these days that the only thing that will ultimately effect their judgment is the image of michelle & barack as terrorist radicals

omg the bears cover! my girlfriend and i stared at that for 20 minutes and couldn't figure it out!

deej its not about stereotypes of muslims, its about idiotic media tactics - if you hadnt noticed, barack obama is not actually a muslim

if you hadn't actually noticed, not all muslims wear turbans

im not going to explain the joke to you mr gay, because explaining jokes never seems to make them funnier

why the new yorker doesn't use coverlines is a mystery to me.

that would upset the NYer's aesthetic. i know this sounds prissy, but the reason-for-being of the NYer is largely its "sophistication"/aesthetic refinement and how that is embodied in a specific tradition which includes the text-less covers.

another good example might be the way they include a full-page photo or piece of art on the opposite page from a work of fiction in each issue. the possible links between art and text aren't spelled out or even necessarily predetermined--it's more suggestive, open-ended.

a caption or headline accompanying the image on the cover would seem thuddingly didactic in context.

btw i'll go out on a limb and disagree with nabisco -- i'm not sure images like this do much harm. i tend to think of them as a kind of inoculation. but i might be wrong.

The inside of the New Yorker looks like it was designed with Microsoft Publisher.

deej its not about stereotypes of muslims, its about idiotic media tactics - if you hadnt noticed, barack obama is not actually a muslim

-- deeznuts, Tuesday, July 15, 2008 6:26 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

dont know why im bothering to engage with you entirely misreading a point u goof but im saying that i dont think playing up the image of a stereotype for ironic yuks is that funny to ppl who actually have to deal with that stereotype on a daily basis. Its a safe thing to laugh at from a distance

obama not being muslim has nothing to do with what im saying

but the image is so obviously and self-consciously a mash-up of contradictory rumors--obama's dress refers to the image of him in traditional somali dress, not to some generalized image of muslimhood.

the second "image" should read "photo"

yeah i agree with nabisco except for thinking the cover is funny because i am lol sensitive about turbans being played for laughs.

-- horseshoe

you sound no better than a freeper who says he's lol sensitive about burning flags being played for laughs, or anyone who's lol sensitive about a portrait of osama being played for laughs, or a kalashnikov being played for laughs, or etc etc etc

perhaps i am not

this had no long-term effects - it has already been forgotten

perhaps deeznuts is a troll

deej i didnt see yr prior post - i (finally) get where yr coming from now, but im not sure its legit - i dont really get why horseshoe takes offense at turbans & not say, michelle obama's artificial hairstyle for example

the reason the NYer cartoon is fine & funny is because its clearly a satire of what we know (the media's at times ridiculous portrayal of barack obama) not some bullshit that no one on tv or in magazines has ever talked about (werent you the one comparing this to a cover of him eating watermelons in overalls or something)?

look i can't be objective about this shit + i have a serious chip on my shoulder. i shouldn't have posted.

jesus fucking christ horseshoe how dare you be more offended by one part of that picture than any other

no one can be objective about this shit, dont worry about it, i hope youll post more

youd think that your offense was predicated on something other than ice-cold rationality

maybe youll think more before you post an off-hand one-liner next time

<3 max, but seriously. i take it all back!

thats not what im saying max, but are we supposed to say that all images created everywhere should be scientifically proven equal opp offenders? you know what i mean? maybe horseshoe has a perfect right to be offended for reasons i dont get, ok, but that doesnt by itself impugn a fucking cartoon, jesus

xps2

It's annoying when posters roll in after hours away and basically repeat older posts.

multi-xp

That was me. But my point wasn't that the two images would be comparable as images, but that both would equally fail to be satire.

what 'off-hand one liner' are you talking about, you fucking jackass? i dont take anything ive said here back

2max

I agree with Nabisco's (and indeed, I think, Tracer Hand's) political analysis of the effects of things like this cartoon. As I said above, though as usual Nabisco did not acknowledge my existence, I disagree with him about the cartoon itself which I think, as well as being potentially reactionary in its FX, looks stupid and artless and is not funny in any way.

you people disgust me

deez i was talking about what your mom said... last night

the reason the NYer cartoon is fine & funny is because . . .

im not going to explain the joke to you mr gay, because explaining jokes never seems to make them funnier

wait, i thought you weren't going to explain the joke? why don't you figure out what your modus operandi is before you decide to troll a thread you fat burrito eater

anybody hear art spiegelman on npr today?

either everybody stop responding to deeznuts or deeznuts stop being a rampant prick to everybody

serious q: is the right wing sound machine currently saying "hey! you know what, the NYer thought this was funny, but its actually kinda true!" or "HAHA look at these uptight liberals finding this offensive"?

A little from column A, a little from column B, from what I've seen.

you people disgust me

do not give this man a fully-automatic weapon

It's annoying when posters roll in after hours away and basically repeat older posts.

-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, July 15, 2008 7:00 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i wasnt sure nabisco had read it and was reposting from a separate thread. tangentially it also seemed to relate to what horseshoe was saying

im sorry i argued with deeznuts, what a crepe

you are truly a fucking idiot arent you

clearly you enjoyed your last temp ban eh dude

no es, but if a guy decides to debate w/ me by calling me a 'crepe' after repeatedly stating idiotic opinions i think i have a right to call him an idiot

do not give this man a fully-automatic weapon

I dunno. I would just feel safer With him having a semi-automatic. Can't just spray down an area so easily.

some more work from this genius

http://www.newyorker.com/online/covers/slideshow_blittcovers?slide=1#showHeader

http://www.newyorker.com/images/covers/2000/2000_01_17_p323.jpg

does
not
parse

see cuz even mlk can't catch a cab! on his holiday!

yeah a lot of them are pretty zzzz. i like the ahmadinejad one though.

you sound no better than a freeper who says he's lol sensitive about burning flags being played for laughs, or anyone who's lol sensitive about a portrait of osama being played for laughs, or a kalashnikov being played for laughs, or etc etc etc

-- deeznuts, Tuesday, July 15, 2008 11:39 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

wut's wrong w/that? that's some sensitive ass subject matter! what's wrong with being sensitive abt it?

whats wrong w/ it is that its all jumbled together - its a joke!

yeah but some jokes hit 2 close 2 home 4 some ppl - and there's nothin wrong with that imo. u dont make any sense. ps. homo

thats ok im down with homos dude

i dont care if some jokes hit 2 close 2 home 4 some people, & i recognize their right to say as much, im saying that doesnt mean the joke itself is a bad one

equal opportunity nuts

why not? what else would make a joke bad? what does it even matter 2 u if someone isn't into some fool-ass JYer cover? look fagnig, it's just asinine as hell that u would jump on someone for bein like "eh that joke is not 2 my taste" esp when the list of "oh how DARE U"s that u rolled out were perfectly reasonable things 2 object 2 in a jokin ass context

GOOD ONE

why is everyone posting in prince-song-title fashion?

how dare u

that was seriously in bad taste, amateurist.

the reason the NYer cartoon is fine & funny is because its clearly a satire

You'd think the BBC would work that out, instead last night's main use showed the cover with the commentary (paraphrased) "with a prominent New York magazine portraying him as an anti-American radical Muslim and his wife as gun-toting terrorist he clearly has some image problems."

last night's main use
uh
main news (wtf fingers)

i don't necessarily expect the BBC to understand anything these days. especially dubious satire.

i think that's the point: if you're going to satirise, you cannot afford to miss and hit the wall. private eye in the UK, for all its faults (public-school smugness, woeful misunderstanding and misappreciation of popular culture) gets it right 99.99% of the time.

the reaction to this cover -- be it OMG or just o_O -- suggests the new yorker's satire has failed. "lol stupid ppl not getting it" isn't a defence.

which brings me back to the coverlines:

but the reason-for-being of the NYer is largely its "sophistication"/aesthetic refinement and how that is embodied in a specific tradition which includes the text-less covers

tradition be damned. this isn't a magazine read by refined aesthetes in gentlemen's clubs any more. this is a major newsstand publication, which, in a case like this, is going to become global news itself. the impression i get (and this is backed up not just by your post, amateurist, but by a couple of hacks i spoke to yesterday) is that the new yorker sees itself as something apart and aloof; above the quotidian concerns of the rest of the print media.

and my point is simple: in a (shudder) global multimedia age, it fuckin' ain't.

another good example might be the way they include a full-page photo or piece of art on the opposite page from a work of fiction in each issue. the possible links between art and text aren't spelled out or even necessarily predetermined--it's more suggestive, open-ended

ah, but by that point you've bought the thing, haven't you? you've made your engagement with it. you've said: "i am the kind of dude that will buy (or at least open and read) the new yorker. i have an expectation of what i will find inside. i expect it to speak to me on a certain level."

whereas if it's sitting on the newsstands, it's a rather different matter. the new yorker's editorial executives might argue differently, but fundamentally covers (and cover lines!) exist for one reason alone: to get people to pick up and buy the magazine. what's on the cover exists in a much larger public realm than what's inside the mag.

a caption or headline accompanying the image on the cover would seem thuddingly didactic in context

uh-huh, because their finely honed and expert satire here is in no way "thudding", is it? :)

also, to pre-empt the response i know i'd get from a lot of UK journalists: hacks who moan about "dumbing down" as a consequence of a wider global audience are the dumbest of the lot.

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/steve_bell/2008/01/08/barak.jpg

steve bell weighs in

that's a very interesting piece. especially this:

Cartoons don't work as shopping lists of points to be made with labels tacked on to clarify things for the culturally deprived. Too much cartooning operates on that level, especially in the US. Cartoons need to be disturbing, and they should also dare to ask questions. People in the US aren't generally fools (even though the fools have been over-represented of late, particularly in the current administration), though some may be a little over-literal, and these are not always the psychos. Not so long ago I drew a cartoon of Obama as rifle-range target, and received a torrent (OK, a very heavy trickle) of emails, mostly from concerned liberal supporters asking me if I really wanted him dead.

two things:

1) context is all. i think -- the more i think about it -- my initial shock and suprise at the new yorker cover is because it's a cover (see above).

2) "culturally deprived" is a problem. i'm a liberal wanky brit but i don't necessarily claim to be in tune with the new yorker: ie to me it's, umm, a news magazine published in new york. its values and cultural significance etc are something i'm not instantly aware of; therefore i think i can be forgiven (along with huge swathes of the rest of the world) for maybe not instantly "getting" it (and for continuing to have a problem with it, because to me it exists as something separate to the magazine behind it).

presumably on the newsstand there's an additional half-cover with some mention of the articles inside. has anyone seen this? presumably it references the articles about obama inside? i'm always really surprised at how different the magazine looks on the newsstand to my subscription copy (i think i took way less notice of the covers before i subscribed).

Ha - I used to hate that. The first thing I'd do was rip off that half-sleeve and throw it in the nearest trash can.

That Steve Bell quote is very much OTM.

Also, surprisingly for ILE we have had over 1000 posts on this on various threads and no one has mentioned the characterisations of the obamas' lips.

Maybe they're part of the obvious satire?

Steve Bell quote might be OTM but he is still total dogshit as a political cartoonist.

presumably on the newsstand there's an additional half-cover with some mention of the articles inside. has anyone seen this?

HAHAHAH, i didn't know they did this. so much for their cultural aesthetic. it's called "worst of both worlds", i think.

We'll have to disagree about that, Mr Patrick, as I think he is one of the best cartoonists currently drawing editorial cartoons.

HAHAHAH, i didn't know they did this. so much for their cultural aesthetic. it's called "worst of both worlds", i think.

on the contrary - i think it's a great way to do things! you get to have your pretty cover, but you get to sell copies too.

one thing i don't know is that how their sales figures at newsstands compare to subscription figures. i always guess that in the US subscriptions must account for 90% of sales - even the new yorker, which is relatively expensive to subscribe to, is far cheaper that way. i'm paying $25/year vs $5/issue, i.e. a 90% discount.

Sometimes the artists do something clever with the foldy-over half cover, don't they? I can't think of any off the top of my head though.

Also, surprisingly for ILE we have had over 1000 posts on this on various threads and no one has mentioned the characterisations of the obamas' lips.

i thot we should deal with the afro first, but maybe you're right

obama's expression is totally off in this cartoon - he should be all 'YEAH, GOTCHA' but instead he's all reposed and peaceful; michelle's expression is a little better if still inscrutable

I think that's supposed to be a "YEAH, GOTCHA" expression.

i think czn's right. maybe it's a michelle wears the pants thing, or maybe it's an osama thing.

Sometimes the artists do something clever with the foldy-over half cover, don't they? I can't think of any off the top of my head though.

-- Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 16 July 2008 13:09 (17 minutes ago) Link

The most recent travel issue had a triple or quadruple cover where in each one the same couple was traveling in the wrong season's clothing.

But I can't really think of any "clever" examples.

that sounds clever, if not intelligent

sorry I confused clever clever with clever

Sometimes the artists do something clever with the foldy-over half cover, don't they? I can't think of any off the top of my head though

they should do that thing mad used to do. that was fuckin' genius.

(maybe mad still does do it, actually. i dunno. i think i was the only kid in blackpool who ever regularly read mad magazine.)

anybody notice that it seems like the nyer has more "big"/theme issues that "cover" two weeks than they used to?

also, like every other bloody publication, its page count is shrinking. i've been a reader/subscriber since the 90s, and stumbling upon the "Bill Clinton's last days in office" ish (from 2000 or 2001) a few months ago, i was stunned by how many articles it contained compared to today's issues.

also: the cover was funny, dead-on satire. but i'm sorta the mag's target market so i'm not a great barometer of anything.

If I were a betting man I'd bet you that behind closed doors the Obama campaign found the cover pretty funny, but, of course, to the outside world they had to disparage the thing so as to put distance between themselves and the deathless East Coast lib elitist bullshit meme.

(maybe mad still does do it, actually. i dunno. i think i was the only kid in blackpool who ever regularly read mad magazine.)

As it happens . . .

Great article from the NYT from March of this year on Al Jaffe, MAD fold-in artist still going strong at age 87.

I want a full, collected hardcover copy of "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions".

xpost awesome! thank you.

This whole debacle has made me want to read the New Yorker next time I am over as the only inkling I have of what goes on in there is from teh Heiman Kaplan story from some time in the 1930s.

you could always get this:

http://www.thenewyorkerstore.com/books_completenewyorker_middle.asp

often on sale, too (i got the dvds for $25).

I want a full, collected hardcover copy of "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions".

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^this

EJ Graff sez Nabisco OTM.

hey if Slate says so, it must be true, right?

The newest issue of The Al Qaedain hasn't even hit newstands and is quickly causing a stir for its graphic portrayal of a patriotic Osama.

http://static.tripartisan.org/inset/alqaedain.jpg

anybody notice that it seems like the nyer has more "big"/theme issues that "cover" two weeks than they used to?

This is specifically so they can get more advertising dollars. It's easier to target specific high-end advertisers, hey Prada, the fashion issues is coming up!

Same thing with all those New York Times Magazine special sections...."Travel" "Style" etc etc. It's all about expensive color advertising.

Personally, I live for the New Yorker and have read it religiously for the last 6 or 7 or so years, and it's changed my life, though maybe I should be spending less time reading about women scratching through their skull or giant squids or mexican castaways and more time being productive. What's that you say? I spend more time on the internet then reading the New Yorker. I suppose so.

EJ Graff sez Nabisco deej OTM.

-- jaymc, Wednesday, July 16, 2008 3:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

women scratching through their skull

that story was fascinating and deeply, deeply disturbing. plus i couldn't stop itching the whole time while i was reading it.

care to sum it up for this local news reading commoner?

the solution to itching is mirrors. no shit.

nevermind - i found it. yikes.

Nation and Atlantic/National Review guy on the cover (key content starts around 3:45)

both them dudes are tite

why is everyone acting like its some kind of confusing avant garde move to not depict the object of satire? wasnt that the point of this old saul steinberg cover:
http://www.thenewyorkerstore.com/assets/2/50326_l.jpg

I don't think the "not depicting the object of the satire" thing is really the strongest argument against the Obama cover, but it's much clearer there that the object of the satire is the viewer, i.e. a New York City-based New Yorker reader.

(or just a New York-based New York snob.)

Posting that cover as a counterexample really highlights how weak the Obama cover is.

i thought the joke was 'this is what non-new yorkers think new yorkers think about america'

Um...

No

yeah, i think that cover is about new york's provincialism rather than the rest of the country's impression of new york's provincialism.

David: Lemme ask you something - lemme ask you something
Ian: What?
David: Have you seen Duke Fame's current album?
Ian: Um... yes, yes.
David: Have you seen the cover?
Ian: Um... no, no, I don't think I have.
David: It's a rather lurid cover, I mean...ah, it's, it's like naked
women, and, uh....
Nigel: He's tied down to this table,
Ian: Uh-huh.
Nigel: And he's got these whips and they're all...semi-nude.
David: Knockin' on 'im and it's like much worse...
Ian: What's the point?
David: Well the point is it's much worse than 'Smell the Glove'...he
releases that he's number three.
Ian: Because he's the victim. Their objections were that she was the
victim. You see?
Derek: I see....
Nigel: Oh...
David: Ah....
Ian: That's alright, if the singer's the victim, it's different. It's
not sexist.
Nigel: He did a twist on it. A twist and it s-
Derek: He did, he did. He turned it around.
Ian: We shoulda thought of that....
David: We were so close....
Ian: I mean if we had all you guys tied up, that probably woulda been
fine.
All: Ah....
Ian: But it's...it's still a stupid cover.
David: It's such a fine line between stupid an'...
Derek: ...and clever.
David: Yeah, and clever.
Nigel: Just that little turnabout....

http://rawstory.com/rawreplay/?p=1515

the saul steinberg cover is quite explicitly from, you know, a point of view

http://www.ta-nehisi.com/2008/07/is-this-cover-offensive.html

o boy

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2306/2512426921_b9bef73920.jpg?v=0

Coates is kind of out on a limb with his contention that the cover doesn't exaggerate right-wing beliefs. (Say what you will about conservatives, but I don't think many of them believe Michelle will actually carry assault weaponry around the Oval Office.) There's this weird perspective bias in his claim that satire of the right is clearly exaggerated whereas the right really believes these things -- just like there are always conservatives who believe the same thing in reverse, that left-wing satire of conservatives is what leftists really believe.

Say what you will about conservatives, but I don't think many of them believe Michelle will actually carry assault weaponry around the Oval Office.

It's not necessarily conservatives who view her in the fashion being satirized, and the people who view her in this fashion are really afraid of her and what she portends, however explicit you want to make the 'militant' label.

Unless you want to argue that every wacko posting comments on political blogs is a made-up character, I think there is a demonstrably small segment of the population who would not see that cover as an exaggeration. Granted, they are idiots and it is unlikely that there are many of them, but they exist.

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

I think what Coates might be thinking of is the way that -- had a right-wing entity published this -- it might have been received as an exaggeration/caricature like any political cartoon, a literal exaggeration of stuff people believe is figuratively true.

That's a whole different thing from straight-up literally believing in a president burning flags in White House fireplaces while he wife holds an assault rifle -- call me optimistic, but whatever portion of Americans believes this is both tiny and insane enough not to even be worth including in the conversation.

generally, people tend to exaggerate the traits of those they dislike or fear. the recognition that this is an exaggeration, and even the recognition that the image is not drawn from the artist's own perspective, is not going to stop those who share the sentiment from holding the cover up as confirming/validating their perspective.

is not going to stop those who share the sentiment from holding the cover up as confirming/validating their perspective.

as HI DERE stated above, this number is very very small.

No, I don't think that number is particularly small -- I think in the end that number is significant. Just harping on the difference between true (as in "I literally believe this") and "true" (as in "it's funny because it's -- figuratively -- true").

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3170/2692704799_4d8cf07a88.jpg?v=0

o lord

"We're through the looking-glass here, people."

http://www.whatdvd.net/WhatDVD-Graphics/main/174.jpg

haha is that for real

I like how no matter who you vote for, the Constitution's going in the fireplace

What's she holding? Cookies? Cans of beer?

pills

the amrikan flag was in the fireplace on obama's, shakey!

this one's awesome

http://www.condenet.com/images_covers/cover_newyorker_190.jpg

i suppose the security barriers would have busied up the art

I chortled over the New Yorky hare-hailing-cab / tortoise-taking-subway one.

(Also the Saunders inside)

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/65590-Parody-flunks-out/

yeah only read 3 paragraphs of that before deciding that person was talking out of his ass

I don't love Harvard but I don't think you can call it the birthplace of political correctness, nor do I think negative reactions to a poorly-executed satirical cover can be held up as proof that satire is forbidden.

yeah it was weird, dude basically has my position on the NYer cover but then when he started defending that horrendous sounding article about the dead professor he lost me

That's pretty typical Boston; start out with a rational position, then link it to something egregiously brain-damaged, thus undermining all of your credibility.

actually I don't know if I mean Boston in general or Boston Phoenix in particular

i hope it's just the Boston Phoenix!!!

Oh, whew, that Phoenix link didn't work for me, and I thought you were talking about SAUNDERS talking out of his ass, which would be ... umm ... well here's the thing, it was funny:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2008/09/22/080922sh_shouts_saunders?yrail

yeah that saunders thing was great

here's a better link but it's really not worth it

http://thephoenix.com/tools/Print/?id=65590

Yup, y'all are spot on about that one

wow sometimes i think "when will i be a real writer" and then i see people making a living on articles like that and then i think "wow do i really want to aspire to that"

saunders made me laugh out loud on the PATH train a couple times tho

wow sometimes i think "when will i be a real writer" and then i see people making a living on articles like that and then i think "wow do i really want to aspire to that"

i take it yr talking about the Boston Dip and not Saunders here, yes?

Please bring a moose to me, over by me, and down that moose will go, and, if I had a kid, I would take a picture of me showing my kid that dead moose, going, like, Uh, sweetie, no, he is not resting, he is dead, due to I shot him, and now I am going to eat him, and so are you, oh yes you are, which is responsible, as God put this moose here for us to shoot and eat and take a photo of, although I did not, at that time, know why God did, but in years to come, God’s will was revealed, which is: Hey, that is a cool photo for hunters about to vote to see, plus what an honor for that moose, to be on the Internet.

lol yeah id kill to be saunders, he basically writes 800-wd ILX posts and gets them published in the nyer

really good 800-wd ilx posts

seriously.

basically nabisco

nabisco is good on ilx but he is no george saunders. (sorry, nabisco.)

yah i just meant he tends to make really good 800-wd posts

Dude, I like Saunders to the extent that he is the only writer I have a T-SHIRT for; you do not have to apologize for noting to me that I am totally not him, writing-wise.

woah, what t-shirt? i didn't even realize he had t-shirts. i would probably wear one too

okay not this one

http://216.240.135.143/customtshirt/il_George_Saunders_FP.jpg

I chortled over the New Yorky hare-hailing-cab / tortoise-taking-subway one.

it's funny cos it's true

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/080924/stewart-colbert-cover/stewart-colber-cover_l.jpg

plus what an honor for that moose, to be on the internet.

The t-shirt is this one:

http://www.briefandfrightening.com/art/wigphoto.jpg

i thot the saunders thing was lame, but i usually think that about shouts and murmurs

you think annie hall is lame tho

tho if you read it strictly as political satire, sure, it's not that great or whatever. but his fictional voice in the piece is outstanding

If I go more than a few months without reading any Saunders (and it's probably been, like, six), I am pretty much guaranteed to crack up over any of his funny phrasings and/or rhetorical questions, due to I killed a man.

Okay Entertainment Weekly has redeemed that New Yorker cover.

you think annie hall is lame tho

i think, pace dave kehr, that it's not as smart as it thinks it is, and a little too much of its time (which would be more interesting if its time were).

it's not as smart as it thinks it is, and a little too much of its time (which would be more interesting if its time were).

― gabbneb, Thursday, September 25, 2008 3:21 PM (31 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

reminds me of someone...

What, everyone on ILX?

nah ilx is a little too much of MY time amirite

needs more me

saunders made me laugh out loud on the PATH train a couple times tho

― Mohammed Butt (max), Wednesday, 24 September 2008 21:08 (Yesterday)

Whatchu doin in Jersey boy?

http://www.hellomynameisfabulous.com/images/i_live_here_fc_3vjr.jpg

reminds me of someone...

this may be because you were looking in the mirror

better close-ups

http://blogs.abcnews.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/09/25/ht_ew_stewart_colbert_080925_main.jpg