Money is Everything

"To the dollar - as we knew it!" by Joseph Mirachi

Money money money! Let’s face it, we are obsessed. Every time I open the New York Times website I am confronted with news stories about Obama’s financial plans. The Economist makes me even more uneasy in my seat with all its talk about the worsening global recession. Everywhere I turn, the media is telling me I should hold on to all my loose change that I scrounge for my daily double espresso. But don’t let me get you down. There are plenty of people who can see the dollar for what it really is: an over-glorified piece of paper. These people that I speak of are George Booth, Lee Lorenz, and Charles Barsotti (to name a few) who’s original New Yorker cartoons about money are being displayed at the Morgan Library and Museum in the exhibition On the Money: Cartoons for the New Yorker from the Melvin R. Seiden Collection.

The exhibition, designed by curator Jennifer Tonkovich and on view until May 24^th, displays about eighty original works by some of the New Yorker’s best cartoonists poking fun at the dollar-obsessed personalities. From the gold-digging woman to the IRS, the show will make you laugh as you realize over and over again that issues of the dollar bill from the early twentieth century still prevail today. The Morgan’s delectable pickings will make you anxious for the next issue of the New Yorker, because I’m sure there are more on the way.

Here’s to the Morgan and America’s 7.6% unemployment rate!