“Whoops, I lost me muff!”
April 6, 2016 11:51 AM Subscribe
Arno the socialite stayed at the Ritz-Carlton until dawn, keeping Frazier company, and was captured in photos holding her hand while the 17-year-old looks utterly exhausted by the event. (She was.) Five nights earlier, Arno the satirist and his friends—publisher Condé Nast and George Balanchine among them—held a well-publicized debut at the nightclub Chez Firehouse for Miss Wilma Baard. A fashion model, Baard had spent much of her childhood on a Hoboken tugboat captained by her father, so reporters at the event dubbed it the debut of “Tugboat Minnie.” “I think most debutantes are dopes,” she told reporters. While Arno and his friends worked the receiving line in shifts, she stood there for hours, saying only of society that it made “my feet hurt.” - The Double Life of Peter Arno, The New Yorker's Most Influental Cartoonist by Ben Schwartz (NSFW warning: butts)
The New Yorker's Most Influental Cartoonist
Charles Addams, surely?
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:27 PM on April 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
Charles Addams, surely?
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:27 PM on April 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
Boy, is it just me or did they really try to get their milage out of that butt picture? Could be a quirk of mobile view but I saw it no fewer than three times before the end.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:34 PM on April 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:34 PM on April 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
Charles Addams may have had the most influence outside the New Yorker, but I think they're saying that Arno was the most influential *on* the New Yorker, setting its style in the early days.
That said, I wasn't familiar with Arno before this article, and I haven't seen any discussion of how much effect Addams may have had on the style of the New Yorker.
posted by Four Ds at 12:34 PM on April 6, 2016
That said, I wasn't familiar with Arno before this article, and I haven't seen any discussion of how much effect Addams may have had on the style of the New Yorker.
posted by Four Ds at 12:34 PM on April 6, 2016
Could be a quirk of mobile view but I saw it no fewer than three times before the end.
It shows up 3 times on my laptop's Safari. I'll check to see on all the other browsers now.
posted by bonobothegreat at 12:43 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
It shows up 3 times on my laptop's Safari. I'll check to see on all the other browsers now.
posted by bonobothegreat at 12:43 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Could be a quirk of mobile view but I saw it no fewer than three times before the end.
It looked like they had a gallery of available images, of which that was the first one, and the gallery appeared twice. The third time, it appeared as just one of the pictures in the article. (Some of the other pictures in the gallery likewise also appeared as in-article pictures, but not all.)
posted by Four Ds at 12:47 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
That was a fascinating read. If he were a fictional character he'd seem completely implausible. ("Celebrity cartoonist? Suuuure. Disowned by his judge father, don't you think that's reaching?")
posted by zompist at 12:58 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by zompist at 12:58 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Boy, is it just me or did they really try to get their mileage out of that butt picture? Could be a quirk of mobile view but I saw it no fewer than three times before the end.
Christ, what an ass loop?
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:02 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Christ, what an ass loop?
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:02 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Annnd close tab.
Too bad. You would have come across this:
He drew America’s ruling class as unpleasant, unlikable, sometimes awful people, reducing them to pompous, often sexually avaricious, arrogant boobs—not as a class-warrior but as an insider, as one of them.
posted by My Dad at 1:16 PM on April 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
Too bad. You would have come across this:
He drew America’s ruling class as unpleasant, unlikable, sometimes awful people, reducing them to pompous, often sexually avaricious, arrogant boobs—not as a class-warrior but as an insider, as one of them.
posted by My Dad at 1:16 PM on April 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
It is a Kubrick butt photo...
posted by maggieb at 1:19 PM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by maggieb at 1:19 PM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
It is a Kubrick butt photo...
But not of Kubrick's butt, unfortunately.
posted by chavenet at 1:48 PM on April 6, 2016
But not of Kubrick's butt, unfortunately.
posted by chavenet at 1:48 PM on April 6, 2016
Nothing personal, I would just as soon not see Kubrick's ass
posted by Ber at 2:23 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Ber at 2:23 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
A paragraph in, and I just knew Harpo Marx would show up before the end.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:37 PM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:37 PM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Nothing personal, I would just as soon not see Kubrick's ass
I understand it's highly symmetrical, if somewhat cold and formalistic.
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:37 PM on April 6, 2016 [12 favorites]
I understand it's highly symmetrical, if somewhat cold and formalistic.
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:37 PM on April 6, 2016 [12 favorites]
> In one, a nude woman, in bed, yells at her sleeping lover: “Wake up, you mutt! We’re getting married to-day.”
Oh my Lord I have this one.
A while back ('90s, maybe?), the New Yorker released a CD-ROM set with all of their cartoons up to that point, and I acquired through a book club. For whatever reason, that was the first cartoon that I opened up. I remember it because it really hit my funny bone that day.
I never knew anything about Arno; thank you for this post.
posted by magstheaxe at 3:03 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Oh my Lord I have this one.
A while back ('90s, maybe?), the New Yorker released a CD-ROM set with all of their cartoons up to that point, and I acquired through a book club. For whatever reason, that was the first cartoon that I opened up. I remember it because it really hit my funny bone that day.
I never knew anything about Arno; thank you for this post.
posted by magstheaxe at 3:03 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
I read his book, "Whoops, Dearie!" Not very good. But I love his cartoons, and I love the way that Vanity Fair is now colorizing old black and white photos. For some reason, I'm all for this, as inauthentic as it is.
posted by Modest House at 3:45 PM on April 6, 2016
posted by Modest House at 3:45 PM on April 6, 2016
Arno’s last cover for The New Yorker appeared in June, a polar bear and its cub in the zoo, parent and child, peacefully rubbing noses, a polar bear’s kiss for its offspring—a lifetime away from top hats and nightclubs.
posted by bryon at 3:52 PM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by bryon at 3:52 PM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
It is a Kubrick butt photo...
Kubrick was a genius; he would not have used just any butt. This butt his a symbol for .... um .. the fake moon landing that he was working on for the US government on a secret sound stage, and would not complete for another 20 years. Because he's meticulous.
posted by Hoopo at 4:36 PM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Kubrick was a genius; he would not have used just any butt. This butt his a symbol for .... um .. the fake moon landing that he was working on for the US government on a secret sound stage, and would not complete for another 20 years. Because he's meticulous.
posted by Hoopo at 4:36 PM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
I read New Yorker memoirs the way other people eat popcorn, but I had no idea Peter Arno was this colorful. And I certainly had no idea about Desi Arnaz.
posted by acrasis at 5:06 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by acrasis at 5:06 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
I read New Yorker memoirs the way other people eat popcorn, but I had no idea Peter Arno was this colorful. And I certainly had no idea about Desi Arnaz.
If anyone is irritated by Arno, just remember there's always a great guy like Roger Angell.
posted by My Dad at 5:50 PM on April 6, 2016
If anyone is irritated by Arno, just remember there's always a great guy like Roger Angell.
posted by My Dad at 5:50 PM on April 6, 2016
I read New Yorker memoirs the way other people eat popcorn
Wiping your fingers every three minutes and stopping at suitable intervals to floss your teeth?
posted by Daily Alice at 7:07 PM on April 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
Wiping your fingers every three minutes and stopping at suitable intervals to floss your teeth?
posted by Daily Alice at 7:07 PM on April 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
Somehow this article seems to chime with the blowjob thread - it's about nothing so much as men who perceive women as interchangeable and think of replacement young and novel ones as a sort of basic entitlement, like hot water. Not to mention the idea that it's thrill enough for women to be evaluated by men. (That beauty contest photo - ew. The butt photo with the evaluative gaze and the viewer as voyeur - also ew. The sketch of the girl dancing on the bar while the old dudes look on in a drunken stupor - that's three for three, ew.) I'd always liked most Arno cartoons - this piece certainly took the gloss off.
posted by Frowner at 8:38 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Frowner at 8:38 PM on April 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
I've long been a fan of New Yorker's cartoons. I used to look forward to dentist appointments, entirely because their waiting room had the best assortment of New Yorkers, and they tended to run late for appointments. The subtlety, the cynicism, the humor... it was great fun. Much like 60's era Playboy, sure the pictures were entertaining, but the cartoons were terrific.
I just finished reading Bob Mankoff's "How about Never--Is never good for You?" and highly recommend it. It's a light read but gives some insight into the process that goes into New Yorker's drawings.
posted by wkearney99 at 6:38 AM on April 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
I just finished reading Bob Mankoff's "How about Never--Is never good for You?" and highly recommend it. It's a light read but gives some insight into the process that goes into New Yorker's drawings.
posted by wkearney99 at 6:38 AM on April 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
Looking forward to reading the article, as I'm always baffled, reading old New Yorkers when I come across these ugly cartoons and wonder, why'd they give this guy a whole page?
posted by Rash at 7:08 AM on April 7, 2016
posted by Rash at 7:08 AM on April 7, 2016
Bob had a copy of "how about never?" Framed in his office back at 4 Times Square.
I never liked that he put his own cartoons in the magazine but that was just me.
posted by The Whelk at 9:05 AM on April 7, 2016
I never liked that he put his own cartoons in the magazine but that was just me.
posted by The Whelk at 9:05 AM on April 7, 2016
« Older UConn Basketball Completes Four-Year Sweep | How to Write a History of Video Game Warfare Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
December 27, 1938, was the paparazzi night of the season. At 17, Brenda Diana Duff Frazier, the original celebutante (Walter Winchell coined the term in her honor), held her coming-out party at the Ritz-Carlton in New York, where she also lived with her mother...Beautiful, wealthy, a Life-magazine cover girl, she could have been on the arm of a president’s son or the heir to any fortune in town. Yet she chose, of all things, a cartoonist, and one twice her age.
At 34, Arno was handsome, elegant, and famous, The New Yorker’s star artist since its founding, in 1925. “Our pathfinder artist,” editor Harold Ross called him, equal in Ross’s eyes to James Thurber and E. B. White and Helen Hokinson in defining his magazine’s voice and style. With a sexually charged wit (which he came by naturally, as one of the era’s notable roués) and the most innovative graphic mind in magazine cartooning, he resuscitated the single-panel cartoon as it was about to go the way of vaudeville and the silent movie. His collections sold enough to put him in penthouses.
Annnd close tab.
posted by clockzero at 12:17 PM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]