The Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam

This is an illustration inspired by The Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam, a book of 11th Century poetry from Persia which you should read if you get the chance. Most printings include a series of colour illustrations, much more detailed than my simple watercolour.

Ancient Writings

Ahoy there, matey! Today Rob Scholten and I met up after nearly one and a half years. He's been living in Thailand, you see. On a trip around St. Kilda, I found this old book in a bookshop called Nefertiti. It's a Latin religious text printed in 1733, and published only once. The bookshop owner was only able to locate one other copy in the whole world.

What made this book intriguing was that on the endpaper was half a page of handwriting in that was done in the 18th century – well, it mentions "January 1766", at least. How's your Latin?

I Know My First Name Is Sweden

A proud bearded Viking-helmeted Swede, seen at the Scandinavian Christmas Bazaar at the weekend.

I'm On The Shelf

Ahoy, lubbers! 'Tis my very own book, Airbury Academy Volume I, on the shelf at All Star Comics.

If you wanna check 'em out they're at 53 Queen Street in the city most people refer to as 'Melbourne'. If you see my book buy it. Go on, do.

Top Ten Flashback: August 19, 1995

Time once again for another flashback to the Australian top ten of 20 years ago. This time it's the week ending August 19, 1995 – when I was in my final year of high school. A month before, four friends and I had gone to see the movie Batman Forever, a film I still really enjoy, and especially its soundtrack, which creates vivid memories. Speaking of the soundtrack, it yielded two number one singles, both of which feature in the top ten below.

10.  Michael Jackson – "You Are Not Alone" ºº
Those two little circles mean a chart debut, by the way. Ol' Mick Jackson had yet another hit on his hands. It spent 13 weeks in the top ten despite only reaching number 7, which it did on two separate occasions.









9.  Merril Bainbridge – "Under The Water"
I'll just get this out of the way first – that cover art is bloody awful. Why any record company wunk would think members of the public would buy a single when it had such a crappy cover image is beyond me. That said, I preferred this single to Merril Bainbridge's previous one, the irritating "Mouth", which had reached number 1. This one managed to get to number 4, higher than I remember.




 
8.  Chris Isaak – "Somebody's Crying"
A bit more up-tempo than his usual stuff. Not a bad tune. I'm not really into Chris Isaak's music, but the man himself is a pretty entertaining guy.






7.  The Steppers – "Alice, Who The F..k Is Alice?"
This song has a rich and colourful history, if your definition of "rich and colourful" is "mildly entertaining to a music nerd". It began life as "Living Next Door To Alice", by Australian band New World, and charted at number 35 in 1972. They must have been annoyed when British MOR band Smokie covered the song in 1976 and their version topped the Australian charts. In 1995, Dutch novelty act Gompie (named after the nightclub where the crowd would shout the titular expletive chant) put out a cover, as did Smokie again with 'comedian' Roy "Chubby" Brown (who should be shot for being so "funny", as TV Hits magazine so memorably put it). The Steppers' dance version reached number 2, stuck behind Seal for two weeks.

6.  Bryan Adams – "Have You Ever Really…"zzzzzzzz
I can't be bothered typing out the stupid song title, or putting the cover art in. Why? Because it's turgid dreck that should be long-forgotten. From its incredibly condescending and patronizing lyrics to its video with those idiotic masks, everything about this is just plain awful. And yet, it even got to number 1 for a week. Dreadful. This guy was really wearing out his welcome on our charts as far as I was concerned.


5.  Hootie & The Blowfish – "Let Her Cry"
I know everyone rags on these guys, but I don't think this song is all that bad. It's definitely more listenable than the previous rubbish.






4.  U2 – "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me"
Having just dropped from number 1, where it debuted and stayed for 6 weeks, U2's ace Batman Forever single evokes strong memories of the closing months of high school for me. It had a great video too, with animated band members doing crazy Batman-like things, plus scenes from the film. It's still one of my favourite U2 songs.







3.  Seal – "Kiss From A Rose"
Continuing with Batman, this soon-to-be number 1 single was racing up the charts. A tuneful ballad, it's one of the few ballads I can stand, due to its unusual lyrics, plus Seal's range of harmonies. I should watch the movie again to see exactly which scene it can be heard in.





2.  F.C.B. – "Excalibur"
Utilizing the harmonics from Carl Orff's 13th century choral piece sung in Latin, "O Fortuna", this Italian group made a hard dance version of the classical tune. Shooting up to number 2 from last week's debut at number 14, Australia was apparently the only country where the track was a hit. I like it more for its memorable video, which used footage from Paul Terry's black and white 'Terrytoons' cartoons from the early 1920s.



1.  Jann Arden – "Insensitive"
Meh, more unmemorable pap. The only thing I can say about this is that in its solitary week at number 1, it interrupted a 12-week run of Batman Forever singles being at the top. Also, I hate it for preventing "Excalibur" from having a shot at number 1. And now this 'song' is duly forgotten. Seriously, who ever talks about 'Jann Arden' anymore? Nobody, that's who.

Newtown Signs

On July 4, I spent the day taking photos around Sydney's hipster suburb of Newtown, a very interesting area visually. Even the Fire Department has a sense of humour! 

Cemetery of the Dead People's Graveyard for Deceased Persons

John, who loves Grimes (whoever that is) and the grave of Ernestine. 

Newtown

Iroha

'Iroha' is a famous Japanese poem from the 11th century; each hiragana character is used once in it. Read vertically right to left, the poem translates as:

Iro ha nihoheto (Colours are fragrant, but they)
Chirinuru o (Will eventually scatter)
Wa ka yo tane so (Who in our world)
Tsune naramu (Is unchanging?)
Uwi no okuyama (The deep mountains of karma)
Kefu koete (We cross them today)
Asaki yume mishi (And we shall not have superficial dreams)
Wehi mo sesu (Nor be deluded.)

Permission to come aboard, Cap'n?

"No."

Queen Victoria

Listen to the ta-may-tah wit' da melons, the great Herschel "Krusty the Clown" Krustofsky once quoth, and he knew what he was talking about, believe me. And on that note, I've spent my birthday week in Sydney, folks! Here's the first of the sketches I did there: the statue of Queen Victoria outside the building that bears her name.

I've made her look a bit less of an old crone here, not to say the actual statue doesn't look good though. And if you're in Sydney and want to see a beautiful old 1880s building with an amazing interior with stained glass, tiled floors, incredible clocks hanging from the ceiling and heaps of shops, you'd be well advised to check out the QVB. Go now! Tell 'em Pete from Nonesuch sent you!

Leap Second

The last minute of June 2015 will have one extra second added to world time (giving it 61 seconds – my lucky number!). What will you do with your 'leap second'?

Eurovision Sketches

A couple of quick sketches done at about 6am while watching the Eurovision Song Contest final – the performers from Cyprus and Austria. Poor Austria, not a single point for the host nation (this hadn't happened since 1958!).

(On the other hand, Australia was in it as a one-off appearance and came 5th. Yeah!)

Wall Street

Dead

Melbourne Sunset

Knob Gags

Chocolate Cravings

Who takes photos in a supermarket? Me, that's who? Some illustrator and graphic designer guy who sees stuff he likes for his blog.

Anyway, my sad life aside – here are various packages of Alter Eco brand chocolate that I think makes a good themed set in terms of their design. Clean fonts, recognizable shapes and bright colours combine for an appealing look.

I'm in the mood for chocolate now. See ya!

100,000

Hey there! My car's odometer hit 100,000 km today. Just thought you'd like to know.

Top Ten Flashback: February 17, 1990

It is time once again to revisit the Australian top ten chart of 25 years ago today! This chart for the week ending Saturday, February 17, 1990 was a memorable one for me, because the first two songs I really liked in the '90s (and still do) both reached their highest chart positions this week, and only this week. I was 11 at the time and just getting into watching the charts on Rage every week. So, what was the nation's preferred listening a quarter century ago?

10.  Deborah Harry – "I Want That Man"
For some reason Rage always used to put her name as 'Debbie' Harry in their titles. The sleeve art clearly says 'Deborah' though. When I first started watching Rage weekly this song was at number 2, so it had already had its shot at the big time and was on its way down. I don't think 'Debbie' Harry ever showed up in the Australian charts after this.







9.  Lisa Stansfield – "All Around The World"
Check out that sadfish muzak maestro on the cover image. One of those cases where the look didn't fit the voice, so to speak, but watch the video and yes, that voice really is coming out of that face. This song didn't have much of an impact on me, but I can still remember the chorus. How strange.







 
8.  Bad English – "When I See You Smile"
You know how I feel about power ballads, so let's move on. The only thing I really liked about this was the band's name.









7.  Milli Vanilli – "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You"
Of course, the world was yet to learn of the lip-syncing scandal, so I thought these identical looking guys were actually the vocalists. My friend's kid sister had their album on cassette, and I could never find out why this song was listed on there with the word 'girl' missing from its title. Although, truth to tell, I didn't exactly break my neck trying to find out. It wasn't what you'd call a highly-sought nugget of information for me. Rob and Fab weren't actually singing, but the songs still deserve a listen now and then. Not necessarily this track for me though – I prefer "All Or Nothing". "Blame It On The Rain" is pretty good too.
 

6.  Alannah Myles – "Black Velvet"
Pretty snoozeworthy blues-stuff to my 11 year old ears. Not much excitement to be found here. Not surprising when the song cripples along at snail's pace and the lyrics are suitably banal. They can keep their 'slow Southern style', but I'll pass, thanks.







5.  Black Box – "Ride On Time"
I liked this song 25 years ago and I probably like it even more now; this Italo-house classic, and rest assured I'm not throwing that term around lightly, still sounds great today. In fact I played it loud on my stereo only yesterday, so there. I thought this genre of house would last a lot longer than it did. Australian viewers of Rage got an el-cheapo locally produced music video for this song – there's even a brief shot of the colour-bar test screen in it – and for some reason I like it better than the 'official' video with Katrin Quinol lip-syncing.




4.  Technotronic featuring Felly – "Pump Up The Jam"
This was my mate Jonathan's favourite song in 1990. He told me it got to number 1, but was fiddling slightly with the truth. It did, as you can see, peak at number 4. This song also sounds ace 25 years later, although I wish it had been mastered so that you didn't have to turn your speakers up full bore to get a decent degree of loudness. The icing on the cake, of course, is Ya Kid K's rap vocal. She was only 17 at the time!




3.  Peter Blakeley – "Crying In The Chapel"
Not a bad tune, but I can't say I've had the urge to go back and listen to it again over the last 25 years. He did a nice cover of "Heartbeat" later on.









2.  The B-52s – "Love Shack"
This is one of those songs that irritates me with every listen, especially since I must be the only person alive who doesn't like it. It's the vocals that really grind away at my sanity. Even in 1990 I'd rather not punish myself to hear the atonal squawkings of "You're what?!", "Knock a little louder, sugar!", "Tiiiiiin roof rusted", "Bang bang on the door!" and othersuch puerile nonsense. Get this song out of my earshot, permanently!






1.  Aerosmith – "Janie's Got A Gun"
Here it is! My fave song for the whole of 1990 (up until I heard "Epic", that is) having its one brief, shining week at number 1. Compelling lyrics and a dark and foreboding music video combined to make this one of the most exciting musical experiences of my childhood. Aerosmith's album Pump was the first album I got, on cassette as a 12th birthday present. (Jonathan got me Pump Up The Jam as well – two pump-related albums in one day.)




I should also add that back in early 1990 my sister and I asked our parents if we could have a compilation album. I can't remember how many were available, but we chose Let's Do It 2 on cassette. Of its 16 tracks, a whopping eight of them are in this week's top ten: numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. It also contains "Don't Know Much" by Linda Ronstadt & Aaron Neville (which was at number 11 this week), "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You" by Michael Bolton (number 15), "I Feel The Earth Move" by Martika (number 17), "Lambada" by Kaoma (number 20), "Just Like Jesse James" by Cher (number 27), "Another Day In Paradise" by Phil Collins (number 29), "The Love We Make" by Girl Overboard (number 39) and "Kickstart My Heart" by Motley Crue (number 42). What a compilation! All killer, no filler.

Cheer Up, Charlie

Hi everyone! No, I haven't given up on this blog. I'll continue updating it with the same posts as on the Tumblr page. Here's my tribute to the January 14, 2015 issue of Charlie Hebdo's cover art, the first following the attacks on their staff. Cartoonists forever, and all that!

For those who don't know, "Cheer Up, Charlie" is the name of a song from the 1971 film Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. What?