April 21 2011
Picture Puzzles
Two bits of news that share a rebus link, those old-school picture puzzles. First, if you see the latest Walkley Magazine, grab a copy. I have a piece arguing the growing importance of puzzles to papers. With news so wall-to-wall, so generic, a crossword (like a column or cartoon) operates on the personal. We turn to The Guardian for Puck or Paul – just as Fairfax readers align weekdays with initials.
Naturally the editor requested a puzzle to accompany the yarn. A chance to try something new, I thought, something visual. The fancy name is Biroglyphs, but really they’re just a modern tweak on ye old rebus formula, enlivened by the pen of Simon Letch. If the diversion becomes a regular, we may yet develop some new ground rules as the idea evolves, but thought you’d appreciate the shout.
Second, I’m off to Sydney next Thursday for the Archibald luncheon. My official title for the event is Amanda’s Sitter, as that’s my role on the post-meal panel. Other painters and their patsies are joining us, each musing on the oddness of capturing another’s soul in oil, gouache or plasticine.
One issue we’re bound to cover is the stuff of totems. What talismans do you place with the portrait’s subject? A butcher’s knife for Mark Moran, say. A sorbet for a gourmand, a barré for a ballerina? To me, the exercise evokes a pharaoh’s burial – or a rebus.
Imagine if painters turned to puzzles as portraits. Instead of an imposing picture of Peter Garrett, we get a rabbit [PETER] in an attic [GARRET].
Or for Cathy Freeman we see a prison escapee [FREE MAN] fleeing a wrecked yacht [CATHY].
Maybe a painting of David Malouf could be the author captured in two contrasting moods: D + AVID + M + ALOOF.
A bit of fun to fill out the week – what living Australian can you eloquently convert into an Archibald rebus? Treat the game like a charade clue, breaking down your subject’s name into smaller pieces, and present the tableau. Such as chef Neil Perry = scrawled LINE on a FERRY, with P on the funnel and an F being jettisoned. Or Anna Bligh = reversed BANANA – A + candle – T
And please, no suggestions for Mel-in-DA-gains-Ford. But why not let your artistic eye play, and fire away? Pick only living Aussies, with the best renditions due to hang in the Archie vault early next week – a bonus Brainstorm if you like. Get musing, Monet.
Comments
DC — 21 April at 09:55AM
Is it wrong that I first think of a ward for sex workers and their clientele?
DA — 21 April at 10:05AM
Share the joke, DC. Which JOHNS are you talking about?
Probably best if we post this way -
Mick Fanning = Pope flapping scripture to keep cool
DC — 21 April at 10:29AM
As a visual rebus, I can see Nick Cave being a featureless cliff face.
Russell Crowe = a gimmick about marketing bragging
Nicole Kidman = I clone weird developmentally challenged guy
And John Howard was shown in the sex workers sanitarium.
DC — 21 April at 10:38AM
Tim Flannery = Film about leather-making house
DA — 21 April at 10:54AM
Tim Flannery is a prime specimen for the rebus treatment. So 'paint' us the equation:
Tangled film in a leatherworks
Or Abbie Cornish = decapitated yabbie beside a pastie
DC — 21 April at 10:57AM
Christos Tsiolkas = Saviour hosts faceless and endless mass (Loki seethes within)
Boniface — 21 April at 11:27AM
Julia Gillard: An urn (jug) holding upside-down garlic cloves (ail - lia) next to a drill which is broken (illard)
DC — 21 April at 11:31AM
Fred Nile = File about Communist National leader
DC — 21 April at 11:35AM
Germaine Greer = I am inappropriate, decapitating sycophant
RK — 21 April at 11:38AM
This one kind of paints itself:
Murray Bail: on a river in a leaky boat
DC — 21 April at 11:48AM
To address the Archibald and Bald Archy winners:
Margaret Olley = Damage "glare trolley" without directions (LR)
Julian Assange = Jury halved vines, start going insane
IC — 21 April at 12:05PM
To commemorate Australia's greatest cartoonist..
First Dog On The Moon = In the beginning God got back on a heavenly body.
RK — 21 April at 12:23PM
Ray Martin = An injured princess in a trainwreck
DA — 21 April at 12:28PM
Or another cartoonist, Bill Leak - a bibbed platypus
Boniface — 21 April at 01:08PM
@DA, yes nicer than killable, which I note you also own.
And then there's Kevin Rudd: Almost an entire outboard motor swallowed by Lang.
Sam — 21 April at 02:03PM
Robert Hughes = Anchor in the rip – gutless
Not sure about this – does ‘the rip’ equal ‘rough’, and is there a better way to get ‘es’
DA — 21 April at 02:25PM
Not so keen on rip = rough, Sam. I'd me more inclined to 'paint' Robert Hughes this way:
Street goon putting on bath gown [ROBER THUG], with four bees leaving hives [HIVES - IV]
Impossible to decode perhaps, but eat your heart out, Dali.
Boniface — 21 April at 02:39PM
Eric Bana: Fluffed rice with two-thirds banana.
Maybe that works well as a recipe too...
RK — 21 April at 02:41PM
My daughter would love that.
Ken Done = Bradman contained by a crippled knee
DC — 21 April at 02:56PM
Chopper Read is almost too easy, so for something different:
Rascal and bounder even free inside
(Coincidental to Eric Bana above)
RK — 21 April at 03:01PM
I was just thinking about my Ray Martin clue and the fact that my injured princess is an indirect anagram. I guess it would be clear in my painting that it was Princess Mary (poor thing).
Sam — 21 April at 03:14PM
Fair enough, DA - certainly a more surreal image rather than my sea-side art.
A medical illustration for Clive James: Push in burst vesicle
Boniface — 21 April at 03:15PM
Totems for Amanda Marburg:
Morning and a dirty jumbuck facing west
IC — 21 April at 03:19PM
I think I'm getting the hang of this now...
Aunty's resident psephologist, Antony Green, could perhaps be depicted with an insect on a can of Red Bull (ant on drunk energy).
DC — 21 April at 03:23PM
Phillip Noyce: Epic pony lost on peak
DA, do you know if there will be a SMH tomorrow?
DA — 21 April at 03:33PM
Probably a jumbo edition to cover the Friday and Saturday, with a DA and DS puzzle.
Some grand canvases too. I might nominate Tim Winton: 999 inside 200
Boniface — 21 April at 03:41PM
Casey Stoner:
Broken cane, oysters.
DA — 21 April at 03:53PM
Moving away from anagramania, what about Sigrid Thornton? I'm picturing a backside squashing a crossword barb [GRID THORN in SIT ON]
Sam — 21 April at 03:57PM
A pastoral landscape for Kerry Greenwood: Cow field copse
dg — 21 April at 04:09PM
Guy Pearce = Random bore?
Sam — 21 April at 04:16PM
Reg Grundy = About horse race dandy
IC — 21 April at 04:22PM
What about a 7:30 host pictured with a couple of pots of Coopers? (Leigh's Ales = Leigh Sales)
SK — 21 April at 04:43PM
I will apologise in advance, but you can see where my mind is wandering on a Thursday afternoon before along break...
Ita Buttrose = a small tattoo of a flower on the tushie
Abigail = a huge rack
Naomi Watts (channeling Janet Jackson, perhaps) = a woman's tit popped out
Sorry....
SK — 21 April at 04:49PM
Speaking of Ita-
Asher Keddie = under-age smoker who swapped ice cream for hard drugs
RK — 21 April at 05:03PM
Curtis Stone = The dog on the tuckerbox
DA — 21 April at 05:24PM
Curtis Stone - too good. Inspired, RK.
Nib — 22 April at 01:34AM
Slim Dusty - Fast like a sandstorm?
Nib — 22 April at 02:45AM
Jimmy Barnes - Pry open sheds louldy?
Nib — 22 April at 02:59AM
Dame Edna Everage: Queen demeaned, beheaded, chopped and crammed into average space.
Nib — 22 April at 03:04AM
Yeesh, that was messy.
"Fix amended fail grade to fit in average."
Nib — 22 April at 03:06AM
Bob Hawke - Duck sounds like bird of prey?
Nib — 22 April at 03:25AM
Azaria Chamberlain- Framing letters and charts, buried by crypt.
SK — 22 April at 04:31PM
Mark Webber= X-rated Barbie
SK — 22 April at 04:33PM
And amend an earlier-
Asher Keddie = under-age smoker who swapped ice cream for party drug
Alec Ihm — 23 April at 12:22PM
Billy Slater - Goatbug
Nib — 23 April at 05:49PM
Pat Rafter - Turn tap on scaffolding
(or 'caress shaft'?)
DA — 25 April at 10:40AM
A variation on Alec's Billy Slater: a swaggie spitting out his tea
Or another Leaguie, Willie Mason: an obelisk sculptor