17 Comments

1. 

   The first two are CIDUs.

2. 

   The linked collection of NYer Instagram Favorites was indeed a very good LOL!

3. 

   Powers, in the Peter Arno I thought it took a bit of study to identify the speaker — but then it’s gotta be the guy seated on our side of the table, in right 3/4 profile, with his hand pointed across. And so that must be his wife or date he’s addressing as “dear”, with the top hat and taking charge of a tray of drinks. The joke is that his cheerful advice against coffee is covering a second message that she is embarrassing him, and he would rather see her drop off asleep than continue this gaiety charged with caffeine.

4. 

   Huh, whaddaya know? The New Yorker started out with understandable comics.

   How’s the new comics editor doing? I had hopes that he/she would be in favor of cartoons that were a little less … opaque

5. 

   Mitch4, That best of collection really was good. I particularly liked the Snow White one.

6. 

   Hi Chak, finding and publishing that Instagram link for the best-of collection was the work of editor Zbicyclist. But I am pleased with your agreement in enjoying it!

   Meanwhile, I’m still making my slow way thru the paper edition of the New Yorker issue of cover date December 25, the cartoons / games / puzzles special issue. I think it would be straining “fair use” to reproduce any feature in whole, but perhaps others who have access would care to discuss the “Seeing Stars” feature on the pp. 24-25 spread. (I am including one small piece of the illustration below.)

   It’s a multi-factor identification game, involving an outline map of some dozen areas of Manhattan; sketches of nine famous people and the areas they were/are associated with; and a set of nine rebus puzzles for the names of those people. The puzzle solving activity is to solve the rebuses; and then to match the names to the portrait drawings / neighborhoods.

   I was able to name three of the people just from the sketches (and neighborhood indications, I guess) — those were C, D (shown below), and F. With those names in hand, finding their rebuses was not hard. And then, going back and forth between the sketches and rebuses, I got most of the rest, but not all.

   I’m still missing G and H. Does anybody have them? And the rebuses I don’t have solved are 6 and 9. Also I think I do have B , rebus 7, and located to Harlem — but I think of her as a Chicagoan, specifically in the Woodlawn neighborhood near me, and I’m not sure how the first element of the rebus corresponds to the syllable needed for her name.

   

7. 

   OK, Allen Ginsberg is pretty recognizable!

8. 

   Aha, wait! Correction! I said I didn’t have G and H, but I do have G (Greenwich Village) and not B (Harlem) after all. This is getting clumsy in avoiding spoilers, so I’ll go ahead and name G: Lorraine Hansberry! I looked up a picture of her — hope that’s allowed. Also checked her Wikipedia entry, and although I’m correct that she was from Chicago (and A Raisin in the Sun is set in the Chicago neighborhood of Woodlawn), at some point she moved to New York, and lived in Greenwich Village, as the puzzle has her.

   Her rebus is #7, and altho it’s too small to be legible I think the first item (which was giving me trouble) is a cell phone or similar device, displaying a LOW battery warning. Then the rest of the rebus easily works: a RAIN cloud, a pair of HANDS, and a strawBERRY.

9. 

   @deety, you are of course quite correct, that is Allen Ginsberg. Do you have access to the magazine? His rebus will not be hard to find — find the one with a ship approaching an iceBERG.

10. 

    All I saw at first was a long list of Instagram links, which I did not want to open sequentially, but I discovered that opening the link in a private window solved the problem, and all of the comics appeared on one page.

11. 

    Einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr, alles

12. 

    @ Boise Ed (11) – Herzlichen Dank dafür!

    Over here we still have two hours to wait until the “magic moment”, but my wife and I are already thoroughly sick and tired of the massive amount of fireworks armament that is being lit off in every direction (even though we live in a small suburban town; I hate to think of how bad it must be in downtown Berlin).

13. 

    I’m a New Yorker digital subscriber, because twice before I’ve cancelled my subscription due to the guilt-inducing pile of magazines I’d “get to someday”. It’s hard to find the games and puzzles from that issue on the website; I had to visit the archives (separate login, same ID) to find it. Now that I’ve found the puzzle of getting to pages 24 and 25, it’s time to make dinner. :)

    @Powers: the joke in the first one is that the rich guy has wished him a Happy New Year, but not given the cabbie a tip big enough to make a good start on that happiness.

14. 

    zbicyclist and Powers — I agree, the joke in that first one could be simply that the rich guy is being a cheapskate over the tip. But I wondered if it would have been considered peculiar at the time for the cabbie to be so direct and outspoken in his complaint about that?

    mitch — I can help with your unknown woman at B, from Harlem. Her rebus is 6, and you must first of all identify the swordsman at the beginning from pop culture. Think of a guy who was a bandit by reputation, but still the good guy; and left his initial slashed into his victims as a signature. And the name has to have an O that can be subtracted according to the rebus instructions. That should make it easy!

15. 

    

    Thanks much, Danny! I now have woman B (Harlem) as Zorah Neale Hurston!

    

16. 

    … from this rebus:

    

17. 

    No, I’d say that was standard New York cabbie language – for then and for now (or recently at least). (note that I’ve never lived in New York, this is based off the stereotypes…if you have actual knowledge, feel free to correct me). The funny part is the cabbie responding cheerily to the well-wishes before going on to his normal response…