Gnome or Genome? The May 30th New Yorker Cover Art Begs The Question

The May 30 cover of the New Yorker by Brooklyn, NY, based illustrator Peter de Seve, led me to believe that the art work was a sly and topical commentary on the deregulation of genetically altered foods in the market place today. I always look beneath the New Yorker’s table of contents to read the cover artwork’s title, often a witty play on words. I thought the placement of the ‘gnome’ to be a clever and symbolic use of wordplay, a reference to ‘genome’. Much to my surprise the art work was simply titled ‘Small Growers‘ with no reference to genome or GMO’s. Perhaps The Muses hijacked the artist’s creative process and coerced de Seves to produce this pictorially haunting double entendre.