I just saw an HBO documentary about New Yorker cartoons (called Very Semi-Serious), and it reminded me of something.
Back during the Gulf oil spill, I had an idea for a New Yorker cover. It was President Obama with an oil-covered albatross around his neck. I’m not much of a painter anymore, so I tried to get my sister to do it, who is an artist, but she thought it might make the president look bad, and she might get flack from other Democrats, so she didn’t want to do it. But the point was not to make President Obama look bad at all, but rather, to show that he’s got this thing that he has no control over as a millstone around his neck, distracting him and preventing him from getting done what he wants to get done.
Wikipedia says: “The word albatross is sometimes used metaphorically to mean a psychological burden that feels like a curse.”
I still think it would have made a good New Yorker cover. I guess I should have tried to paint it myself (so it could get rejected).
BTW: In the 1980s, the cartoonist Ron Hauge did a full-page compilation in National Lampoon magazine of what was supposedly a year’s worth of rejected New Yorker covers, and it was hilarious! In fact, here it is in blog form (and wouldn’t you know it, but there is also a proposed oil spill cover about halfway down the page):
