I dreamed about being in the New Yorker

In honor of the magazine’s 100th anniversary, here’s how I got in.

My parents sent me a subscription to the New Yorker magazine when I first moved to New York in the 1980s. I didn’t want one. I didn’t want to be influenced by those cartoons. I was going to do my own thing. Yet, just like the old joke about Playboy, I started reading it for the articles. Those cartoons were there, and I couldn’t help myself. I was hooked. When I was younger, I dreamed of getting my cartoons published in the New Yorker. I have the rejection notes from my frequent attempts.

My New Yorker rejection letter.

Later I became friendly with Robert Leighton. Robert was creating puzzles and games and started getting his “drawings” (what the New Yorker calls its cartoons) published in the New Yorker. Initially, I was dismissive, then jealous, then I just had to admit it: He was damn good. I texted him recently with the ultimate compliment, “ I laughed at a cartoon — then realized it was yours.”

I was always into the folklore of the New Yorker and the Algonquin Round Table. Dorothy Parker’s quip, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come and sit here by me,” was always a…

Years later I was contacted by New Yorker cartoon editor, Robert Mankoff, to design wallpaper for the Algonquin hotel featuring classic New Yorker cartoons. It was a dream job — even if it wasn’t my actual dream. I received a selection of cartoons and had to create a balanced repeatable pattern that would work collectively as wallpaper. The wallpaper graced the walls surrounding the elevators and stairs just outside of the lobby. I used to sneak into the hotel and take a peak from time to time. It’s not there anymore, but all’s not lost, Bob Mankoff told me he had some at his home and that Tina Brown, the New Yorker’s fourth editor, had requested some to decorate her summer home.

The New Yorker wallpaper that once adorned the walls of the Algonquin hotel.

I never expected to be in the New Yorker, but in 2018 that changed. Shelley and I attended an Andy Warhol retrospective preview at the Whitney Museum. Shelley likes to dress up. I don’t. That night, Shelley pulled together a sexy Edie Sedgwick outfit and brought me a big white Warhol wig. I agreed to wear it and spent the night telling anyone who would listen that this was my 15 minutes of fame. We were given free drinks and enjoyed our crazy night on the town. A week later we were in North Carolina visiting our friends Jeff and Suzanna and telling them about our adventure. Suzanna found this reference to the Warhol gala in the New Yorker’s Talk of the Town:

“Somebody showing up in a wig, I see,” Donna De Salvo, the retrospective’s curator said, pointing across the room. (Warhol wig, Breton skirt.) She looked amused. “That said, we cannot sell wigs in the bookstore. I’m too invested in moving beyond the myth.”

We got dissed by the New Yorker. But this meant I was in the New Yorker. Jeff made the “Warhol” style artwork to commemorate the event.

A tribute to Andy Warhol, photo illustration by Jeff Wilson based on a photo by Shelley Langton.

I was finally in the New Yorker as a subject, but not as a contributor. That changed in 2023 when my Letter to the Editor was published. I have written numerous letters to local newspapers and was even published three times in the New York Times. But being published in the New Yorker was something altogether different. I teach a course in 2D Design at Hostos College/CUNY and had been sharing the Milton Glaser “I Heart NY” story with my students for years. When Adam Gopnik’s feature on Milton Glaser was published in the New Yorker I felt I had an interesting tidbit that built upon the original story. My letter was published, and now I can truly say, “I was in the New Yorker.” Though it’s still not exactly what I had in mind.

Letter to the Editor, published in the New Yorker, April 24 and May 1, 2023.