Hang in There, Baby
In/Appropriate Language ©
This is a riff on the Victor Baldwin poster from 1971. I tried to look Mr. Baldwin up, to see what he is doing now, but I could not track him down.
I had a straight job for twenty-five years, back in the land of team building exercises and icebreakers, and in the meeting rooms at work there were motivational posters with pictures of snowy mountain peaks and bald eagles in flight. They were emblazoned with bold, serif, giant-font words like SUCCESS! and LEADERSHIP! and accompanied by empty, platitudinous run-on sentences. Here’s one: “Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise, risking more than others think is safe, dreaming more than others think is practical, and expecting more than others think is possible.”
My coworkers and I would be walking to work, perhaps thinking about killing ourselves, and these framed posters, sprinkled on the walls of the meeting rooms when we arrived, were present to inspire us to carry on.
I did not want to actually kill myself. Let’s be clear. It’s kind of like the French Revolution. I don’t want to do that either, but being a man of a certain age, I get it1.
It occurred to me then to combine mass-produced popculture imagery with profound and meaningful quotes from genuine cultural heroes to create a new style of corporate, propagandizing, art-furniture. The single panel cartoon above is the first one I came up with.
Fo those without 20/20 vision, here is the quoted text2 beneath the cat’s dangling feet:
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest–whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories–comes afterwards.” (Camus, 1942/2018, p. 11)
So, that’s the story behind this cartoon. Until next time, have a great week and try to stay out of trouble. Best! G. A. P.S. Appreciate this work? Buy the cat a coffee and keep it going.
"Avoir le cafard" sums it up. Cafard is the French word for cockroach. Those French have a facility for pithy, colourful expressions.
Camus, A. (2018). The myth of Sisyphus (2nd Vintage International ed., H. Yentus, Cover Design). Vintage International. (Original work published 1942)