Cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé (1932-2022) was completely at home in the world of music. His movie poster for the French-language version of From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China (1979) expresses the joys and challenges of music making in the monumental shadow of Mao. An example came up for auction yesterday at Eldred's in Hanover, Massachusetts. Spoiler alert: It did not find a capitalist buyer.
Jean-Jacques Sempé Eldred's, July 21, 2023, accessed July 20, 2023
Please handle with care my entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #740 for January 18, 2021. The drawing is by Joe Dator.
"So much for our hopes of cashing in on the insurance."
These captions didn't shatter any expectations:
"And YOU weren't going to hire him." "The rest of us don't have a shot at employee of the month." "The only thing he's broken is our sales record." "The only things he's broken are the hearts of collectors." "We were the only firm willing to hire Ferdinand." "He just wanted to get away from Pamplona." "He hated working in the ring." "He still keeps one hoof in the ring."
January 25, 2021 Update: The Finalists
February 1, 2021 Update: I voted for the caption from London.
Mischa Richter's cover proposal for the New Yorker magazine shows Uncle Sam lobbing a ping-pong ball over the Great Wall of China. The artwork is undated, but such an illustration surely must refer to China's ping-pong diplomacy of April 1971. Table tennis players were the first American delegation of any sort to visit the Chinese capital since 1949. This thaw in Sino-American relations was to lead to President Nixon's historic visit to China.
As an artistic comment on contemporary current events, the rejected cover art is more akin to today's topical New Yorker covers than to the type of art the magazine was publishing in the early 1970's. In fact, Richter's conception is not all that dissimilar to the photograph by Norman Webster that was published on the cover of Time magazine's April 26, 1971 issue. That week the New Yorker's published cover was an impressionistic image of Central Park by Arthur Getz which brilliantly captured the light and color of early spring while making no comment whatsoever on any momentous international events.
Mischa Richter, Proposed New Yorker cover art, c. 1971
No, it isn't "tennis."
Swann Auction Galleries, January 22, 2015 Sale 2372, Lot 198 Hammer Price $300
More and more my political view of the world has taken on the perspective of a blogger. A year ago, while commenting on the increasing number of visits to this blog from China, I noted the then-current all-time leaders in page views as ranked by countries. At the time only the United States, the U.K., and Russia had accumulated more than 10,000 page views of this blog. Today they remain the top three countries and the only ones now with more than 20,000 page views each. Right now more than half of this blog's page views come from the United States, which is not really a surprise. It is a bit surprising to me to have Russia placing third, but over time the strong page view rankings from this country have been consistent.
Attempted Bloggery All-Time Page Views by Countries, July 4, 2013
China itself didn't make it onto the top-ten list until September 19, 2013, when it edged out Brazil for tenth place in all-time page views of this blog. At the time, I conjectured that virtual private networks were allowing some Chinese citizens to circumvent government censorship although, admittedly, I didn't have any proof of this. To this day, though, it's really the best explanation I have.
Attempted Bloggery All-Time Page Views by Countries, September 19, 2013
Meanwhile, Poland, Ukraine, and Serbia were themselves making some headway in the monthly blog statistics, suggesting that one or all of them might be making their way eventually into the all-time page views hit parade.
Attempted Bloggery Monthly Page Views by Countries, September 19, 2013
When Attempted Bloggery attained 400,000 page views just this May, I noted that Ukraine had come seemingly out of nowhere to tie China for eighth place in all-time page views. Of course, as I've already suggested, it really wasn't out of nowhere. Nevertheless, I conjectured that the Pro-Russian conflict had led to this happy (for me) state of affairs, and I all but declared Vladimir Putin to be my new best friend.
Attempted Bloggery All-Time Page Views by Country, May 24, 2014
Today Ukraine has pulled well ahead of China in page views--in fact, China has lost some ground in the page view count since May as Google possibly may have discounted some referrer spam--but my assessment last May of what was going on in Ukraine may have been altogether incorrect. For one thing, as we have seen, page views from Ukraine were increasing last September or even earlier, suggesting that the current Pro-Russian crisis which started in February may not be the precipitate cause of my newfound Ukrainian readers. Furthermore, I have really no idea what percentage of these 3,500 or so total page views now come from the part of Ukraine under Russian control or the part under Ukrainian control. My initial belief that Russia may have loosened the reins of internet censorship in the Crimean Peninsula may be completely mistaken, as I have found no news articles reporting general censorship in Ukraine. To complicate matters further, I have written a good number of blog posts since April about Russian-born artist Constantin Alajálov and these may have been of some interest in Ukraine, particularly among those who identify themselves as Russian.
Attempted Bloggery All-Time Page Views by Country, June 29, 2014
All this leads me to conclude that I have a very incomplete understanding of what drives readers here, whether from Ukraine, Russia, China, or anywhere else. One of the more refreshingly simple ideas I've stumbled upon is that just maybe it could be my own content such as the Alajálov pieces, rather than far-off political intrigue, that is bringing people here. It's just too bad that I've already said all I have to say about Constantin Alajálov. Or have I...?
Constantin Alajálov,The New Yorker, September 26, 1942
I like the unconventional use of space in this magazine cover. It reads from left to extreme right with the triangular group of GI's pointing like an arrowhead to the true object of their attention.
Today this blog has reached 400,000 pageviews. Or is it page views? Blogger's spell-check function objects to pageviews as a single word:
Yet Blogger's very own charts refer to them as pageviews. Apparently the graphics department doesn't have spell-check:
Attempted Bloggery All-Time Page Views by Country, May 24, 2014
What's this? On yesterday's blog ranking of all-time page views by country, it's apparent that Ukraine recently has muscled in to the top ten, mirroring, I suspect, the blog's surprising popularity in Russia. From seemingly out of nowhere, Ukraine is now tied with China! Say what you will about Vladimir Putin, he's been good to this blog. My suspicion, totally self-serving, is that those developed nations that don't read my blog are subject to internet censorship. Those areas of Ukraine illegally co-opted by Russia may have incidentally gained a novel degree of internet freedom which China for the most part lacks. Now which nation, Ukraine or China, will pull ahead? Here are the early returns:
Attempted Bloggery All-Time Page Views by Country, May 25, 2014
Attempted Bloggery has been around for two and a half years now, so I no longer feel like the new kid on the block. This year, the blog published 433 individual posts, which is more than eight a week on average, and considerably more than last year's total of 375, thank you very much. Still, the daily format has been trying at times, because when I write about something I like to include everything but the kitchen sink, and then I occasionally add the kitchen sink anyway for good measure, and all this can be quite time-consuming, particularly when it's my turn to do the dishes.
The blog's format has changed a bit this year in ways I didn't foresee. Probably the most obvious change is that I'm entering the weekly New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest, something I never dreamed I'd be capable of , and I'm documenting the results here no matter how disheartening. For those of you keeping score at home, my success in this contest to date can be counted on no hands. My new pastime all got started with Danny Shanahan's Caption Contest, the very first contest I entered, although only one full round of that contest has been completed thus far. Most encouragingly, in the midst of my second round of the Moment magazine Cartoon Caption Contest, I've been made a finalist twice, and a new winning caption should be declared soon, so I still have a shot at the big time here. This latter contest represents the sum total--two--of my captioning successes to date, and I find it highly motivating, particularly after dealing with the New Yorker contest and its 5,000-odd weekly entries..
Without warning in March, this blog started receiving page views from China and of course I, student of global trends that I am, took note of it immediately. After more than a year and a half of publication, this humble weblog was being visited by someone in the world's most populous nation. Something remarkable has happened, as I believe the Chinese government still goes to great lengths to prevent its people from freely surfing the internet. I in turn certainly have never had anything remotely civil to say about the evil government there. For December, China placed seventh among nations here in page views, and they now have moved up to ninth in all-time page views, just edging out Australia. It's never been clear to me just what anyone from the People's Republic is hoping to find here, but I applaud them for taking an interest. One thing seems clear to me: when the malevolent Chinese government sees fit to shut down our internet, Attempted Bloggery will not be spared. Read it while you can.
All-Time Page Views by Country, December 30, 2013
You may have noticed that this blog has become, like this blogger, more bottom-heavy. By that I mean simply that a lot of content is now located in the note at the bottom of the blog posts, including links to older posts. I started out my blogging career doing this often, then deliberately avoided the practice for a while thinking it was getting out of hand, but as the blog has aged I've now found it useful to put in more and more references to relevant older content and to a variety of outstanding internet sites.
One very minor tweak is that I no longer attempt to write posts about the Disney short "The Band Concert" on summer Fridays, but for auld time's sake I will return to it right now on this winter Tuesday. Here's Horace Horsecollar and I say he's about to welcome in the New Year! Who's going to argue? Have a Happy New Year, everybody!
Horace Horsecollar cel set-up with nonproduction background from Walt Disney's "The Band Concert" (1935)
Film Still 8:46
Walt Disney's "The Band Concert" (1935)
Note: I'm not sure where I found this image, which appears to be an animation cel set-up, perhaps with a Courvoisier background. If you know, please drop me a line.
My archive of New Year's Eve posts can be accessed here. Bring your own champagne.
Older posts about Walt Disney's "The Band Concert" may be seen here.
For more than a year and a half after I created this blog, page views emanating from China were rarely seen here. Then about six months ago, China suddenly appeared in my monthly blog statistics and never left. I took note of this publicly in March, and expressed my pride and bewilderment.
Today for the first time China appears in the list of the top ten countries in all-time page views of this blog. Furthermore, for the current month, China has moved up to fourth among nations in blog readership. There is a bit of lag time until the all-time statistics are similarly affected, but China clearly has the potential to move into the top half of this list given enough time.
I still have no clear picture of why this has happened, but I don't think the Chinese government has changed any of its repressive policies or embraced internet freedom. Rather, I believe there must be a newfound technical ability to circumvent the government restrictions that are in place.
Attempted Bloggery All-Time Pageviews by Countries, September 19, 2013
Attempted Bloggery Monthly Pageviews by Countries, September 19, 2013
As I've mentioned here before, sometime during the remainder of this year I expect China to surpass Brazil in all-time page views for this blog, elevating it to the exalted rank of tenth in the world among nations reading Attempted Bloggery. I am intensely proud that when the Chinese people manage to circumvent government restrictions on internet surfing, one of the places they choose to come is here. I look forward to the great nation of China catching up on Pogo. This original artwork for Pogo shows that Walt Kelly was critical of Chinese political propaganda back in 1962.
Walt Kelly, Original Artwork for Pogo, September 12, 1962
Note: There's been a lot of irresponsible posting of Walt Kelly's original artwork for Pogo on this blog lately. You can see all the mischief here.
Even more irresponsible is Thomas Haller Buchanan's Whirled of Kelly blog. See it here. He also wrote the recently quiescent Pogo in Pandemonia blog? Check it outhere.
Finally, my blog has a surprising amount about China which you can see here.
