The Cartoon Contest

[thedarkages]

The New Yorker has been shirking the responsibility of providing more of Roz Chast's and Bruce McCall's wonderful "Back Page" comics by holding a caption contest. Each week, a new cartoon is put on the back page, and people must submit a caption. The staff winnows the field of semi-final captions down to three, and then the readers must vote for the wiinning caption. My favorite cartoon enlisted in the ranks is by Edward Koren. It shows one of his sweet fuzzy women smiling demurely at a man-sized number six with shoes, a briefcase, hands and arms, and a head with a delighted smile. My caption was, "Why, of course I can take you to 72nd Street!"

My caption lost. The one which will probably win is "I represent several Arabic numerals who are being held without charges." Funny enough, but then why are the woman and the number 6 smiling at each other?

Comments

You're quite right

[thedarkages]

I have been away from New York for nineteen years, now that I come to think of it. The subway map has changed immensely since then, as I have found out at nycsubway.org. There is now a "V" train, for example.

Perhaps the judges at the New Yorker caught the error; on the other hand, perhaps they merely thought it was as surreal as coming face to face with a living, breathing number 6.