January 29th, 2008

Breaking: Art Replaces Life Altogether

by Philip Baruth

Editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes has the mashed-up photo below in circulation today, and it’s pretty amusing: the young Bill Clinton in 1963, now replaced by the youngish Barack Obama, endorsed yesterday by Ted Kennedy. But it blew my mind for another reason entirely — I wrote an entire novel based on this very picture, starring Bill Clinton at 16, and I’ve just begun work on another featuring an older Barack Obama, circa 2028. More than a bit freaky.