Offspring of the 1% (and 1% wannabes) -- featuring a great "New Yorker" cover and a swell scene from "2 Broke Girls"

This may be my favorite New Yorker cover of all time.
It's by Barry Blitt, and yes, you can click to enlarge.

by Ken

"CHANGE SHMANGE!" indeed -- now that's what I call a slogan.

It isn't always easy adjusting to the modern-day media mishmosh. I had already read two pretty substantial -- well, long, anyway -- pieces in the new (October 24) New Yorker, Ken Auletta's look at the new executive editor of the New York Times, Jill Abramson, and Slate columnist Nathan Heller's somewhat odd but not entirely off-base lookback at iconic film critic Pauline Kael (hint: I'm not a PK fan), online, but didn't realize until I opened my mailbox today that I had never seen the cover. I just love this cover! So much so that I wish I had a proper post to go with it.

While I was trying to think of one, I started watching last night's episode of 2 Broke Girls, which I'm not crazy about, but which I've continued to watch, or at least have the DVR record. The premise of the show is almost too embarrassing to rehash: Hoity-toity blonde ex-heiress Caroline (Beth Behrs) has been defrocked owing to her billionaire daddy's arrest for embezzlement, and winds up rooming with as well as waitressing alongside perpetual fringe-dweller Max (Kat Dennings). All Caroline has retained from her old life, besides her attitude, is her horse, Chester Chestnut [oops! (subsequent references also corrected) -- Ed.].

Caroline (Beth Behrs), Max (Kat Dennings),
and a couple of would-be-hipster rich kids

In this episode the broke girls -- who are saving up to launch a cupcake business -- have had the inspiration to charge rich swells who invaded their Williamsburg dive $100 a head to party with Chestnut. Caroline, however, has for the second time retreated to the safety of the dive's walk-in freezer when her slimy ex-boyfriend William, who dumped her when her life fell apart, walks into the joint. Here Max tries to talk Caroline out of the freezer.

MAX: Just go out there and tear his sorry white ass a new one.
CAROLINE: I can't face him, Max.
MAX: Why? He's the one who didn't call you.
CAROLINE: I can't face him because I'm a waitress. Last time he saw me I was a billionaire in a townhouse. Now I'm a waitress in a walk-in freezer.
MAX: So while you were laying around on your trust fund doing nothing every day, having other people scrub your toilet, you could hold your head up high? But now that you support yourself by earning your own money, that's somehow shameful? Who cares what he thinks? He's the guy who just paid a hundred dollars [slowing down] to party with a horse. He's the loser, not you.
CAROLINE: Really? 'Cause he's out there having fun, and I'm in here [noticing what she's holding] hugging a tub of expired blue cheese.

Caroline and Chestnut in their new home

Okay, it may be that I'm the only one who sees the connection. I still think it's a swell scene, though. And a great New Yorker cover.

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