I’d just begun art directing New York Times Op-Ed when I set off an unseemly spectacle. The year was 1979, and Sunday’s lead piece was to be an essay accusing Henry Kissinger of catastrophic war crimes. Written by foreign policy expert William Pfaff, its authoritative tone called for bold art. I admired the oeuvre of New York Review of Books artist David Levine and thought he’d be ideal to illustrate Pfaff’s stining prose. Eager to ensure that he’d accept the commission, I gave the artist carte blanche. After all, I reasoned, no image could skewer the controversial statesman more harshly than our text’s blistering attack.

Levine jumped at the chance and delivered a satiric tour de force. Tattooed on the diplomat’s back are hallmarks of his career: shoulder hairs become Arabic script, bombs fall on Cambodia, Vietnam darkens; “Richard” shares forearm billing with “Mother;” the shah of Iran and a Chinese dragon adorn the cheeks.

But when I showed the sublime spoof to Op-Ed editor Charlotte Curtis, she turned up her nose. “That’s awful,” Curtis sneered.

“It’s kinder to Kissinger than the Pfaff text,” I ventured.

Curtis fixed me with an arctic stare, her normally fluttering eyelids immobile. Then she squeezed her lids tight as I struggled to salvage the image.

“I’ll try to negotiate a mid-dragon crop.”

“That’s not it,” Curtis snapped before pronouncing, bafflingly, “It’s the excessive midsection flesh.”

“Publishing this drawing would be a real coup,” I argued.

“It’s a cheap shot,” she decreed with withering finality.

Curtis spun around in her chair. Her turned back closed the matter.

Clutching the condemned picture, I felt like it and I were insects caught in flight and—smack!—nailed to a wall.

Levine’s satire was so clever that it might have amused the man portrayed. “The only thing worse than being in it, Kissinger once said of Garry Trudeau’s syndicated comic strip, Doonesbury, “would be not to be in it.”

All I could do was apologize to the artist.

“Send it back,” came Levine’s icy reply.

I returned the drawing and ordered a check for the publication rate rather than the half-price kill fee. But that wasn’t the end of the story.

The next cover of The Village Voice featured a detail of the Kissinger drawing above the headline, “Too Cheeky for The Times.” The article inside was written by “Mathew Levine, who works at Time and is David Levine’s son.” Matthew’s account, alongside the full Kissinger image, quoted his father: “I told her to tell her editors to never, ever, ever contact me again.”

Given the speed with which Levine delivered his caricature of Kissinger—merely one day after our phone call—I feel sure that, rather than a freshly drawn image, it had been previously created for—and rejected by—The New York Review of Books. Also, the artist would later recant his dire threat to never work for The Times again. In 1991, when I was art directing other sections of The Times, Levine offered a finished drawing of Saddam Hussein to Op-Ed. This one was published—under the headline, “The Descent of Man.” But when angry Arab-Americans contacted The Times in droves to voice their objections, the paper was forced to record an apology.

Hey, human! As the author of All the Art That’s Fit to Print (And Some That Wasn’t): Inside The New York Times Op-Ed Page, I reveal what no one else does: how, in 1970, amidst sturm, drang, and controversy, the world’s first Op-Ed page was born—a radical new space that prefigured the Internet, a space where non-staff writers could publish prestigiously. An innovation that sparked a revolutionary, new visual language, which I oversaw as art director for a record 13 years.

By publishing Op-Ed art that editors suppressed (for often unintentionally hilarious reasons), my book lifts the veil on the unseen, the unsaid, the censored.

I tend to note naked emperors, and in this Substack, I continue what began in that book. But the lens widens—to include my observations and experience of celebrities, polititics, power, sex, language, art, culture, PTSD, psychotherapy, and the Seven Wonders of the World.

If you’re seeking unvarnished truth, behind-the-scenes revelations, and a perspective sharpened by decades inside the machinery of major media, you’re in the right place.

Let us all bow our heads in a moment of silence for Vance’s political career. It’s ending as quickly as his wife’s conversion to Christianity.

Drumpf*, Putin’s groveling handmaiden, would love to possess Putin’s total, tyrannical power. As Mary Trump states, when Putin reminds her uncle who's in charge, “Donald acts out.”
That ugly Oval Office scene was simply pathetic POTUS & vulgar Vance echoing Putin’s claim that Zelensky is illegitimate.

Putin’s political survival, Like Netanyahu’s, depends on continuing the war. The Russian economy has been restructured à la Stalin: “Everything for the front.” Once-idle defense factories now run at full capacity.

After the cease-fire proposal, Putin clearly signaled his intentions to the world by wearing military fatigues for the first time.

As long as Putin’s alive, the Nobel Peace Prize Drumpf covets is as unlikely as a Trump Presidential Library.

*His real, German name; Grandpa changed it.

Subscribe now

Mump:

noun

1. A contagious disease that causes pain and confusion

2. The union of Elon Musk and Donald Trump

   Or: See definition 1

   ---

As tempting as it is for us to maintain our polyamorous relationship with this parasitic couple, we must DUMP MUMP before they dump each other.

Let’s oust them from politics so that Trump can focus on his true passion: Worshipping Elon’s Feet.

Not to worry! There’s a Silver Lining to this Breakup: We can rebound with Hot and Sexy Democrats for 2028. Let’s see who’s on Presidential Tinder…

Gavin Newsom? Pete Buttigieg? Gretchen Whitmer?

Who’ll get you to swipe right?

Leave a comment

Share

Subscribe now