So long, so few, so faint, so true! Welcome back to the Gromboolia Anthology Recent Quackisitions!
We have a single bill this time, which is a kind of double bill singly. Or perhaps a bubble sill bingly. In the case of one or both, I present to you Bogey Beasts, a 1923 publication by Sidney H. Sime (1865-1941) and Joseph Holbrooke (1878-1958). Sime was an English illustrator of the odd, whimsical, and grotesque, but also a poet. In 1905 he published pairings of grotesque illustrations of fantastical creatures with his own verses (which, interestingly, he called “jingles”) to describe them.
A few years later, he asked his friend Joseph Holbrooke to compose musical pieces to accompany the earlier work, not as settings but as complementary to them. The result was Bogey Beasts, published in 1923, with illustration, “jingles,” and scores. The music is dramatic and prankish, adding a whole new approach to the creatures described. Click here for a reading of the texts over the music, which is not how we were supposed to hear this. Each element should be given its own space. Alas, for this shoddy world. Click here for the text.
Check out more in: THE GROMBOOLIA ANTHOLOGY OF NONSENSE
