Sometimes there’s nothing I like more than a good trawl through Wikipedia in search of something inspiring (and in our world inspiration can come from just about anywhere). There I was reading through an entry on the possibly fictional ‘hobo graffiti’ from late 1800’s USA when I came across Leon Ray Livingston.
Leon Ray Livingston who was a hobo who travelled under the name ‘A-No.1’ and was often referred to as ‘The Rambler’. He has been lauded by historians as the King of the Hoboes. He even wrote 12 books on the subject. Once I’d checked out his A-No.1 moniker/tag on the front of his books I knew a picture was in the offing.
What we’re left with is this playing card style ‘King of the Tracks’ design featuring his own tag which looks just like something from 1980’s New York and a ‘Rambler’ ambigram over the middle. It’s just a shame the only photo of him I could find to work with was small and grainy or I would have attempted a bit more detail. Right, back to some proper work…
What are you meant to do when you wake up with an earworm already running riot in your drowsy and somewhat discombobulated brain? In this instance the words ‘After the rain come sun, after the sun comes rain again’ were on a constant loop. It took me a good while to place the lyrics as coming from Smoke City’s eventual hit ‘Underwater Love’ (it was released in 1994 but rose to prominence when it was used in a Levi’s advert).
In an attempt to exorcise my earworm I thought perhaps turning it into an artwork would help. It did. Thankfully the earworm no longer lives with me. Perhaps I’ve passed the earworm to you. I can only hope…
Created using the magic of spraypaint, stencils and and imagination on classy A2 Bockingford paper. Get in touch if you’d like to give her a new home…
A few hundred years ago a chump was a thick lump of wood. Nowadays we know a chump to be someone who is foolish or easily deceived. Without too much imagination you can see how one meaning has morphed over time into the other. The man in our picture is a chump. In fact he is the King Chump, Mr Mitchell T Lavin from Cincinnati, Ohio who originally sent the ‘chump’ ambigram used in this picture along to The Strand magazine in 1908 with the proviso:
‘I think it is the only word in the English language which has this peculiarity (being an ambigram that is), and therefore hope you will consider it worthy of insertion in your ‘Curiosities’ column’.
What a chump. You can make an ambigram out of practically any word. I should know. I love those suckers. On another note now I’ve got my hands on some marbling inks nothing can stop me! Instant backgrounds!
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