Today at the bookstore, I saw this cover for the recent New York magazine. Looking at it, what is the first thing you thought of when seeing the combination of the prominent word on the cover and the prominent picture?
My immediate thoughts… I suggest posting your own immediate thoughts before reading the spoiler below.
When I first saw it, I immediately thought “the presidential race”. It wasn’t until after I looked at it for a few more seconds that it dawned on me that it was referring to the skin-tone idea of “race”.
I thought it was about race/ethnicity, but with an emphasis on the word, along with the posture of Obama in the picture chosen, which in some way highlights its dual meanings.
I thought that it was about the recent relay swimming race in the Olympics between the US and France (and a couple of other countries like Australia )…
Ok, just kidding (was a hell of a race though)…I figured it was about black/white/other race relations.
I figured it was about Nazis, because the Nazi colors were black, white and red. Man, those were some badass colors. All things considered, the Nazis - whatever you want to say about their politics - really knew how to design stuff. They had the best designers of any evil fascist dictatorship in history.
Oh, yes! And their architecture! In The City in Mind, chapter on Berlin, James Howard Kunstler characterized Nazi architecture as a form of art deco with any feminizing curves subtracted. Which sounds kind of creepy, so stated, but look how well it compares with so much of the modernist crap built after the war!
Me too! Then I thought of propaganda posters and the whole look of the cover made me slightly uncomfortable for reasons I wasn’t sure of until Argent Towers mentioned the Nazi connection.
First thought: race as in ethnicity? Second thought: race as in presidential race, maybe. Third thought: hey, that’s a pretty clever dual meaning there. Fourth thought: nah, still not going to buy the magazine, so it’s not really an effective cover, just a clever one.
Fifth and bonus thought: kinda looks like Zaphod, whatwith that second head growing out of his shoulder.
Michelle’s on his left shoulder, like she’s the devil part of his consciousness. So I infer this to mean that the artist believes a black woman’s going to destroy the country.
)…