Historical Marburg's Most Interesting People.

Recently I visited the medieval German city, Marburg. Towering the city, is Marburg Castle which houses a fabulous local history museum where art and history buffs from all over the world flock to see these beautifully constructed portraits of Marburg's most interesting people. (click to enlarge)

Marion Zwiebel (1790 - 1840): The town's most enthralling raconteur. People would flock to hear her* stories about her days fishing the Lahn for prize winning pike.

Bildnis Auguste Von Knoblauch (1750 - 1810): A stunner in her youth (look here, cor!), Von Knoblauch gave so much to the city's fledgling fashion industry, organising the first of many more biennial Modellierung Marburg Festivals.

Kylie Von Minogue III (1802 - 1840): Minogue was one Marburg's most promising young tennis stars until she tore her hammy during the grand final junior pennant stoush against traditional rivals Butzbach. People still talk about her thundering backhand.

Countess Cristina Apfel Flugsteig (1790 - ): Known mostly for her zesty performances in Married With Children and Anchorman, Apfel Flugsteig attributes her longevity to a stable diet of carrots, gruel and horse meat.

Baroness Angelina Pflaume (1802 - 1829): Renowned flautist and heiress to the Pflaume fortune. Threw it all away to join the three piece afrobeat group Afrikanish Rhythmus - the band that helped made most of Germany rethink their attitudes to the African diaspora.

Carly and Paul Simonich (1802 - unknown): Brother and sister known all over Hesse for their cocksure japery and zany pranks. Infamous for burning down the local haberdashery. Peter Weir has been connected to a film adaption of John Steinbeck's book about the incident, "Jene Verrückten Kids"  

Professor Peter Hanswurst (1790 - 1870): One of the main players behind Marburg's short love affair with Romanticism, Hanswurst was best known for his entertaining lectures. Vilified in later life for backing the Prussians with a series of awkwardly worded letters to the editor of a local gentleman's picture magazine.

Rear Admiral Davide Sylvian (1795 - 1870): One of Otto Van Bismark's closest confidants, Rear Admiral Davide Sylvian (friends called him 'RADS'), hung up his battle boots soon after the famous victory at Königgrätz to grow the whitest spargel in the land.

Matthias Grammp (1802 - 1888), Gloria Grammp (1802 - 1855) & Nanette Grammp (1820 - 1860): Matthias and Gloria were Marburg's power couple. Matthias ran the local abattoir while Gloria edited all three of the city's major newspapers. Their child, Nannette, invented the telephone 20 years before Bell and Edison 'just came up with the idea'. 

* there's some doubt.

Dinking As Modern Art

Good lookin' Melbourne hipsters who weren't at the fashion festival were doing blockies at a an art launch/installation thing last night.

Local artist, Lane Cormick gave many of his fancy dressed mates dinks around the block. In a room upstairs from where this photo was taken was a scrawled note of explanation.

Something about how when he was a young roustabout, he would hear local folklore about an older hoodlum who dared to ride his unregistered trail bike into Melbourne's CBD.

After so many years, last night was Cormick's chance recreate the legend by giving his mates illegal dinks around the city streets.

And he did so without being caught by the fuzz!

Bogue Postcards Vol 1

The front and back bars of The Wheelers Hill Hotel on a drab and overcast day.


The wildlife lake down the hill at Jells Park on the same drab and overcast day.

Both postcards were bought from my local newsagent.

Next week Mitcham and Mentone!

My Penguin

No I don't have a penguin anymore. Larry went to get some cigs and never came back. Happened a couple weeks ago. I'm over him anyway. Always hogged the TV remote. Kept it on Channel Seven all day in case Trapper John MD came back. I was sure it was on Channel Ten anyway. Larry never believed a word I said.

Farken penguins.

No.

The "my penguin" I refer to in the subject line of this posting refers to a new thing by Penguin Books where they're releasing a bunch of classics with blank front covers so you can design, draw or paint your own.

Above is my own effort at Virginia Woolf's The Waves.

What Does The Black Dahlia Smell Like?

Telemovie. That's what the Black Dahlia smells like.

Fah Fah Fah Fah Fashion!

Even though I picked the quinellas in the Melbourne Cup and Cox Plate and the trifecta in The Oaks, I'm quite disappointed my bet didn't come through for the winner of this year's Oaks Day Myer Fashions On The Field National Final tm.

I really thought Vicky Hislop of Wonthaggi had a good chance to snatch it with her fetching embroidered blouse in the theme of Milton's Paradise Lost (the gory bits) race frock/baby shit brown micro-mini and puce Dr Scholl stilettos combination.

Her solar powered, Mikimoto pearl, decorated fascinator was not only a hit with the ladies at the Thaggers RSL Club but with the Channel Seven technicians who needed her to "go back a little... more, more, more... there that's it," for them to deal with interference caused by the eventual winner's precariously placed hemlines.

I'm free!

Books For Looks

Penguin - The Case Of The Caretaker's Cat, originally uploaded by joe_kral_tpc.

A fellow named Joe Kral has a flicker set of the coolest Penguin book covers he could find.

Unfortunately no covers of Graham Greene's 1960's novels, so I've decided to scan one and send it to him.

I've always loved those covers. Most were illustrated by Paul Hogarth but I'm sure there was one done by Sidney Nolan.

Graham Greene would get cranky if his publisher stuffed up his book covers. After a few stuff ups, Penguin mostly employed Greene's fave illustrator, Paul Hogarth to do the covers at £35 a drawing.

Here's a nice little piece on Hogarth and Greene's long partnership.

Why Is This Interesting?

Found this handy bit o' history on Wikipedia.

What was your favorite Yahtzee logo?

I like the first version.

Another Melbourne Festival!

The 2006 Biennial Bugger All Going On Here This Week Festival Of Melbourne

Curated by Paul Grabowsky, Rachel Griffiths and Franco Cozzo, it's a celebration of our city with DJ's, street theatre, buskers™, coffee, street art, cold architecture, underrepresented world music, dagwood dogs, fully ticketed football, dirty needles, P Plates, star fruit, fresh bread, slow caravans, knackwurst, high fringed dark haired ACMI goers, toenails, bullets, nice shoes, local bands, public toilets, sandblasted graffiti, beggars who need a couple of bucks to see their niece in Frankston, remote controls, Phil Cleary, infrastructure works, security staff, baklava, camera crews, brochures, IKEA, outreach, digital cameras, scarves of all types, cookbooks, sub woofers in the boots of Toyotas, heroin, sachel bags, health workers, stencil art, strong coffee, ragged tiles, ragu, pools hanging over back lanes, yesterday's washing, SMS massaging, landslides, bicycles, gargoyles, The Johns (Thwaites and So), Port Melbourne supporters, the BLF, jus, spanakopita, feral cats, poker machines, torn gig posters and so many more events which will make this festival the biggest and best in the earth's history.