The New Yorker last page has been running a cartoon caption contest since sometime early May, late April (I can not put my hands on the exact issue, is it so important that I actually get out of my chair?).
I will say that I miss the range and variety of the more free form last pages that preceeded this contest. I haven't gotten any satisfaction at trying to supply my own caption. And I haven't found the choice of three submitted captions as the cartoon advances a week preferrable to the one inevitable caption found with all the other drawings in the magazine.
Is this simple jealousy of the creativity of other readers? I don't believe so. I'll stop here so as to not protest too much.
No, what I think is wrong-headed is the attempt to bring some interactivity to a magazine. I am not looking for interactivity when I pick up a magazine. We have the web (for instance) for that.
There is always the recourse to ignoring this feature, like I do with a (un)select few of the (not)funnies in the daily paper. But it is The New Yorker, and a weak cartoon there is still pretty good.
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