The question in the post title comes from "The 8 Weirdest Unsolved Andrew Cuomo Mysteries" (New York Magazine). The article considers the poster a mystery that remains unsolved even though Cuomo gave an explanation back when he introduced the poster in July 2020:
"I love history. I love poster art. Poster art is something they did in the early 1900s, late 1800s, when they had to communicate their whole platform on one piece of paper. Over the past few years I’ve done my own posters that capture that feeling. I did a new one for what we went through with COVID and I think the general shape is familiar to you. We went up the mountain, we curved the mountain, we came down the other side and these are little telltale signs that, to me, represent what was going on."
What "early 1900s, late 1800s" posters did he have in mind? I found this one:
And I wanted to show you this one too, even though it's not trying "to communicate their whole platform on one piece of paper":
Posts
18 comments:
" Over the past few years I’ve done my own posters that capture that feeling." Loosely based on a true story.
The Cuomo poster confirms the famous quote that "A camel is a horse designed by a committee." It has a hump.
Ha. That's the most unflattering caricature of WJ Bryant I've ever seen. I love the 1900 Republican poster even though its absurd. We're in the Phillipines for "Humanity"? LOL. The current 21st century poster is a mess.
I'm not generally interested in fashion, but it struck me that McKinley sports an upturned collar typical of the time, whereas Roosevelt is dressed in the more "modern" look.
Out with the old, in with the new? Was this poster a harbinger of things to come only a year or so later?
I see Benjamin Harrison dressed in the "newer" way in 1896.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Benjamin_Harrison%2C_head_and_shoulders_bw_photo%2C_1896.jpg
Yes, it's all love, community and support ... unless you're Donald Trump and pow, zoom you get exiled to the moon.
Ya know......when you have to label all the icons in the poster......cuz otherwise no one will understand the message.
I mean.....only Jay Inslee has a faster shovel to the bottom.
So, William Jennings Bryan swallowed the Democrats? Then came FDR.
So there is hope yet for Republicans. Maybe we won't be quite so much the Richie-rich party in the future.
Nah.
I don’t see any nursing homes on that poster.
That poster is fucking hilarious! If he had waited only another 4 months, he could have put another curve up and down for COVID, and another 200 days of Hell.
Cuomo was none too smart or disciplined, and way too loving.
"Cuomo was none too smart or disciplined, and way too loving."
Dad was the sharp one. Neither boy has even a fraction of old Mario's brains. But for being kind of dumb (especially Fredo), they have done OK for themselves with the ancestral name filling their sails (and pockets)...
You can really see the political mind at work, thinking what they put on the poster would stand the historical test of time.
For instance:
"Tell the People the Truth and They Will Do The Right thing" - A.J. Parkinson. Well, the truth came out about Andrew Cuomo, and he resigned. But then, there is no A.J. Parkinson. A.J. Parkinson was a fictitious person made up by Mario Cuomo. Parkinson is a lie that was repeated by generations of the Cuomo family, and used for the purpose of making people think the Cuomo's conversed regularly with a philosopher to help guide them in their decisions. Perhaps the inclusion of the quote and attribution was a telltale sign of what was going on.
That third poster is excellent, though perhaps the labels are a bit superfluous. An 1896 voter would have no trouble decoding that image without any helpful text -- a boa constrictor with the head of William Jennings Bryan lustily engulfs a feckless jackass. Easy peasy -- the Populists guarantee a Republican victory.
Speaking of helpful text, Cuomo's poster is so full of unhelpful texts that seem to be tangible echoes of psychotic inner voices that it is truly terrifying coming from the mind of a sitting governor. At best the whole thing looks like a Hieronymus Bosch allegory as executed by a rather dull and perhaps grievously troubled nine-year-old. Curious how long it took for New York Magazine to point out the obvious.
Frankly, the most comical and least mysterious aspect of this conversation is the MSM's sudden dislike of Handy Andy. Ten months ago they couldn't contain their blasphemous adulation. Hop in your TARDIS and ask any member of the usual suspects gang his opinion of Governor Cuomo -- why, he's the Second Coming in Glory but without that Jesus person's troglodyte attitudes toward adulterers, homosexuals, crossdressers, and the (insert alphabet soup here) like.
The snake is William Jennings Bryan.
Just saying that after seeing a comment, not published, that made an incorrect guess about it.
I know I’m not the first to say it.
It's a clumsily executed Howard Finster painting as confusing agitprop. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Howard+fenster+painting&t=h_&iax=images&ia=images
"Over the past few years, I’ve done my own posters that capture that feeling."
Perhaps I've misread the cited New York Magazine, but as I understand it Cuomo has not done his own posters in the conventional sense. Instead, he designed those offerings that were in fact executed by others in his employ. If true he has something else in common besides mass death with another famous politically powerful kook, German Emperor and King of Prussia Wilhelm II -- good old Kaiser Bill, himself.
Wilhelm designed a number of allegorical paintings, which he often presented as gifts to other monarchs whom he hoped to coopt for his own purposes. Generally, these paintings featured an idealized version of himself, clad in armor with a drawn sword, pointing dramatically to a stormy horizon signifying some burgeoning Eastern threat -- Chinese, Japanese, or Jews -- with the other crowned heads looking on in awe.
To be fair, William II could not have personally brought his inspirations to paint-and-canvas fruition due to his useless right arm inflicted upon him at birth through a totally botched breech delivery of his agonized mother, Princess Victoria, wife of Crown Prince Frederick and firstborn daughter of Queen Victoria. The poor man could hardly feed himself, let alone draw or paint. Andrew Cuomo, on the other hand, is just a man devoid of any detectable aesthetic sense whatsoever.
I wonder if Gareth and Larry feel a bit short-changed by Rob and Melissa being granted the modifiers "smiling" and, especially, "magnificent"?
Sadly, it looks like after all that work struggling over the mountain we end up in "The Sea of Division". He got that part right.
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