Friday, July 15, 2016

Sanity at stake

 

Update 16/01/2021

Quote from an email a friend wrote, with reference to the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown in the UK: 

"... I hope you are keeping sane under the current house arrest situation. ..."

Quote from my reply:

"Sanity has been an issue long before Covid – see cartoon from 2016 (just after the Brexit referendum) [pointing to the unreferenced cartoon above]. I should have credited the source really – will try and find it and rectify in due course. I think it's actually American, possibly New Yorker, but it perfectly summed up my Brexit-related feelings at the time."

Further research some time ago revealed that the cartoonist is David Sipress. According to his New Yorker article from February 2017 under the heading "How to stay sane as a cartoonist in Trumpland", the cartoon is the most published, republished, tweeted, retweeted, liked, shared, or stolen and reprinted without his permission. Oh dear, sorry for having featured the cartoon here without reference or permission for several years – I hope this postscript makes up for it. Anyway, said Trumpland article is depressing and highly entertaining at the same time, and as topical as ever. Not to mention the fact that in 2019 it inspired me to take out a New Yorker gift subscription for one of my translation team members during a sojourn in Florida.

Incidentally, the word 'angst' in this sentence: "Ironically, it’s a 'good' story that has caused me the most angst: 'Dow reaches 20,000'" triggered an entry in our "German words in the news" collection.   

And by the way, David Sipress' short bio is well worth a read too, as is Juan Astasio's article from 2018 under the heading "Why this cartoonist keeps pitching the New Yorker – even after 100 rejections".