This one was "over my head." I'll post now for other English majors to ponder, and update after the weekend with some relevant details and links.
Addendum: As I was preparing this series of memorial posts about George Booth, one of the library books included some biographical material. They indicated that Booth did not tend to use "gag writers" to provide the captions accompanying his cartoons, but that when he did encounter a potentially useful phrase, he saved it up until an appropriate cartoon came to mind. Two examples were cited.
The cartoon above has text based on the play Cymbeline (in Act III, Scene 6 "Wales. Before the cave of Belarius"), when they spot Imogen (dressed as a boy) in the cave:
BELARIUS[Looking into the cave]Stay; come not in.But that it eats our victuals, I should thinkHere were a fairy.GUIDERIUSWhat's the matter, sir?BELARIUSBy Jupiter, an angel! or, if not,An earthly paragon! Behold divinenessNo elder than a boy!Re-enter IMOGENIMOGENGood masters, harm me not:Before I enter'd here, I call'd; and thoughtTo have begg'd or bought what I have took:good troth,I have stol'n nought, nor would not, though I had foundGold strew'd i' the floor. Here's money for my meat...
The scene has been illustrated for various publications of the play, as in this example (a reproduction from the Dallas Museum of Art):
and yet again here:
So the scene appears to be well recognized by artists and thespians. But the phrase "By Jupiter, an angel..." was totally unfamiliar to me (in my defense I would suggest that Cymbeline is one of Shakespeare/deVere's lesser-performed works). It wasn't until I read the Booth biography and the cartoon at the top was discussed that I was prompted to search Google for the true source of the quotation.
Interestingly, the biography went on to offer one more cartoon based on a quotation from someone. The caption in this cartoon -
- was credited to "Hank Martin." I spent a lot of time fruitlessly Googling that name before finally deciding that the reference must be to Henry Martin, who like Booth was a longtime New Yorker cartoonist.
But... to what is the text of the caption referring??? I have been unable to find a primary source for the "lone grape" sentences (searches typically lead to cartoon compilations that include both Booth and Martin). Perhaps the excitement on the bus was something spoken to Booth by Martin privately, or perhaps it exists in some correspondence or book. For now it remains a mystery unless some reader of this blog can suss it out.
Related: Humor for English majors and A jury of English majors.
Resposted from 2022 to accompany a new post about humor for English majors.
Cymbeline!
ReplyDeleteI don't think you needed to have been an English major to understand what's going on here. The old guy thinks the old lady is hot and is fluent in Flowery. He's also kind of blind: He's using binoculars to see ten feet away.
ReplyDeleteNope. You're missing the point. Details to follow after the weekend.
DeleteThere are already three relevant (and suitably subtle) comments,
DeleteI agree with "thirteen"! I can't wait to see what you come up with?
ReplyDelete@Minnesotastan - Perhaps after the weekend is over, you could also tell us how to keep a flock of turkeys in suspense.
ReplyDeleteI'll tell you that after Christmas...
DeleteFidele has never looked better!
ReplyDeleteThis was the only link to that line, and that cartoon, that I found:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.walkingraven.com/2008/08/prednisone-rant-sort-of/
At least it took me back to Walking Raven again....
Now, in the site you provided, what is the meaning of the reference to "Kerouac’s bathtub" ?
DeleteI think he came home to an empty apartment / life, except for the dog. He wanted to talk but only the dog was there to listen. His boring life only produced the green grape that day. He would have to the same story to a wife or mother.
ReplyDeletexoxoxoBruce
The "green grape" caption took me by complete surprise. When my older brother went away to college, my father sent it as the complete text of a letter, by way of complaining about the low quality of brother's letters. We all thought it was a funny, snarky poke at my brother, but for all of the 45 years since, I thought it was original with Dad.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what would be the caption if your first cartoon was in The New Yorker cartoon caption contest?
ReplyDeleteI can't find anything about the caption on Martin's cartoon being from elsewhere?
ReplyDeletexoxoxoBruce
It was in one of these three books: The Essential George Booth, Here George, or Pussycats Need Love Too. I don't remember which one, and I've already returned all three to the library. The comment was on the same page as the "By Jupiter..." cartoon.
DeleteAI came up with this:
ReplyDeleteThe core joke of George Booth's iconic 1974 cartoon is the absurdity of applying hyper-serious, detailed analysis to something completely mundane.The cartoon relies on three layers of humor to deliver its meaning:The Anti-Climax: The caption starts off with dramatic tension—an older man sitting in a chaotic, messy living room is recounting a story from his day to his wife. It builds anticipation like he is about to share a profound, life-altering epiphany from his commute, only to reveal it was just about a single, stray piece of fruit rolling on the floor.The Overly Scholarly Language: The phrasing "looked to be of the seedless variety" is clinical and overly scientific. Treating a random, dirty bus grape with the level of classification you would use for a rare botanical specimen creates a funny, pretentious contrast.The "Everyman" Mundanity: Anyone who has taken public transit knows the strangely specific, meaningless things that catch your eye when you are bored. Booth captures the absolute essence of "bored commuter thoughts" where your brain just latches onto a rolling grape because nothing else is happening.Essentially, it is a celebration of the ridiculous, pointless thoughts that fill our everyday lives.Would you like to explore more of George Booth's artistic style, look at other classic The New Yorker cartoons, or share a weird commute story of your own?
Quite interesting. Were you able to plug the image of the cartoon into the program, or did you enter a description/cartoonist name etc?
DeleteI entered the "It was pale and green..." sentence.
DeleteSo from that it deduced the name of the cartoonist, and then presumably looked up published commentaries, critiques etc. Imagine how much text data must have been loaded into the LLM for it to recognize that sentence.
Delete