Dept. of Understatement

The following Newsbreak was published in the New Yorker in 1956 and is today rescued from obscurity here in honor of Tax Day. Sixty years ago, Barium Steel was a Fortune 500 company. Now it seems to be gone, perhaps on account of bad writing. Corporations still pay taxes, don't they?

The New Yorker, February 18, 1956, page 62

Note:  Read more posts on taxes here.

See older posts in celebration of on National Library Week here.

Posts about Passover may be found here.

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Thurber Spot

I'm not sure you'd want this character as your dinner party companion, but it's probably okay to observe him from a safe distance. This spot drawing by James Thurber appeared in the New Yorker fifty-eight years ago today and remains, as we say, spot on.

James Thurber, spot drawing
The New Yorker, February 18, 1956, page 34

Note:  The New Yorker's spot drawings are truly meant as ephemera, yet some of them remain delightful decades later. You can see just a few classics here.

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