The Boss tells me that, in the olden days, those drawings were the main entertainment while a lad waited for the dentist.
In his late teens, though, he was urged to read it more thoroughly by an old sub-editor, who told him: “If you want to learn how to write concisely, vividly and make your meaning clear, you need to read The New Yorker.”
That was about 50 years ago and, while it hasn’t taught him how to train a dog or do anything useful, he stuck with it, hoping desperately for some truth or insight that might explain to him the likes of me.
He reckons the magazine has spent the last 95 years trying to help New Yorkers understand their dogs, so he doesn’t feel like a total dope, even if he should.
From its earliest years, in the late 1920s, New Yorker writers like James Thurber and E.B. White (of Charlotte’s Web fame) constantly used dogs as a foil or a literary device: The Boss has a tattered copy of Thurber’s Dogs and a more recent copy of E.B. White On Dogs, compiled by White’s granddaughter and literary executor, Martha.
Then there’s The New Yorker Book of Dogs, a hefty tome from 2012, with a foreword by Malcolm Gladwell; and The New Yorker Book of Dog Cartoons from 1992.
The book of dog cartoons came out about the time of his first trip to New York, when the lights went on and he realised how many New Yorkers actually kept their dogs — of all breeds, shapes and sizes — in tiny high-rise apartments.
All dogs need a walk, of course, and so it was the New Yorkers who, out of necessity, first got into the habit of picking up dog poo instead of leaving it on the footpath.
This was a little confronting for The Boss, particularly when he saw well-dressed ladies depositing their plastic sacks of poo in their handbags, or gentlemen slipping them into a suit pocket.
The Boss determined there and then that he had his limits: apartment living with a dog wasn’t for him, not then, not ever.
But the technique must have stuck in his head because, in recent years, I occasionally savoured the exquisite pleasure of watching him gingerly harvest a solid lump of my piquant poo in a Melbourne dog park — although he pulls up short of dropping it in his pocket — as he looks around anxiously for the nearest bin.
The other surprise he had in New York was seeing all the dog walkers that the dog owners hired to exercise their dogs while at work. The Boss marvelled at some of these walkers collecting 8-10 dogs from the foyers of various apartment buildings, all the time keeping them under some semblance of control as they willed their sturdy handlers towards Central Park for an off-leash frolic.
So it is not surprising that the magazine that carries the city’s name should reflect an unmissable aspect of daily New York life — and continues to do so in a cheerfully generous spirit.
Last week, The New Yorker announced its most popular cartoons that people had “borrowed” and posted on Instagram for 2021 — and this one won the prize. Happy Christmas. Woof!
The General is The Boss’s dog. For more yarns, visit sheppnews.com.au/thegeneral
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