Omar Khayyam Revisited was a book of 67 Rubaiyat–like verses by Hakim Yama Khayyam, with 21 illustrations by David Stone Martin. It was published by Lyle Stuart Inc of Secaucus, New Jersey, 1974. Though in imitation of Omar Khayam, this is not a parody, but, as the author tells us in his preface:
With apologies to Mr Edward Fitzgerald (sic), who did the original English translation of The Rubaiyat in 1859, I am rewriting some of Mr Khayyam’s verses the way he would write them, were he alive and living in our society today.
Actually, the majority of the verses in Omar Khayyam Revisited are FitzGerald’s own, left untouched (1), and where they have been updated, the emphasis is on cannabis as opposed to wine (though wine does still feature occasionally.) Thus, for example, we have “sans pot, sans song, sans singer and sans end” (verse 5); “Ah my beloved fill the pipe that clears” (verse 6); “Smoke! For you know not whence you came nor why” (verse 8); “Come fill the pipe and in the fire of spring” (verse 10); “better be merry with the fruitful hemp” (verse 16); “The hemp has struck a fibre; which about / it clings my being” (verse 25); and “with the hemp my fading life provide” (verse 66). Of hemp–less updates, verse 9 opens with “whether at Washington or Babylon” and we are urged to “pity Sultan Nixon on his throne” in verse 11. Hakim’s opening two verses are also of interest:
I sent my soul through the invisible,Some letter of that afterlife to spell: And by and by my soul returned to me,And answered: “I met Omar Khayyam in hell.”
Omar was presumably in hell on account of his support for wine drinking in defiance of Islamic decree; Hakim was in support of cannabis use, despite its illegality. The first three lines are from verse 66 of Fitzgerald’s 4th version, the last line is Hakim’s.
The second verse reads:
Greetings he sends to those who would despair,The problem is not style or length of hair, Nor hassle with the question of eternity,For your reward is neither here nor there.
Length of hair in men was, of course, an issue for many, one symptom of what was generally seen as a decadent hippie movement. The last line is from verse 24 of FitzGerald’s 1st version, the first three lines are Hakim’s own.
Ten examples of Hakim’s verses with their accompanying illustrations are shown here.
Fig.1a faces Hakim’s verse 3, which is a direct quote of verse 67 of FitzGerald’s 4th version. It is the first of many mysteries surrounding Martin’s illustrations, for what has it do with the verse, and indeed, what does it represent ? It looks like some sort of elaborate harness, but if the big black object behind it is a highly stylised plough, then the ‘harness’ isn’t right for that of a plough drawn by a pair of oxen. In other words, I don’t really know what it all means if it doesn’t represent the yoke of mortality! Note the three (decorative ?) little birds.
In Fig.1b, Hakim’s verse 14 replaces “this Juice” and “twisted tendril” of verse 61 of FitzGerald’s 4th version with “this weed” and “tender leaflets”, whilst the illustration shows a cannabis plant growing out of what could well be a wine jug. This, of course, echoes Omar’s argument that wine (like pot) is God’s creation, so how can it be a sin to use it ? The naked girl here is perhaps symbolic of the “free love” associated with the pro–pot hippie era – the year 1967 had been the “Summer of Love,” remember. Also, of course, The Rubaiyat has developed a history of illustrators featuring nude or scantily clad women in their work. Not that the verses themselves are erotic in any way (there are no nudes in the original!), but their carpe diem message, combined with the harems, houris and dancing girls of the “exotic orient,” have given illustrators a sort of licence to thrill. Plus, the cynical might add, nudes do sell books.
In Fig.1c, Hakim’s verse 17 replaces “the Grape” of verse 59 of FitzGerald’s 4th version with “the hemp”, whilst the illustration seems to represent “the Two–and–Seventy jarring sects” by two rampaging bulls.
In Fig.1d, Hakim’s verse 23 is a direct quote of verse 107 of FitzGerald’s 2nd version. It presumably shows the Hand (of God ? or Fate ?) holding a paintbrush from which souls drip onto the Scroll of the Universe “drop by drop.”
In Fig.1e, Hakim’s verse 26 is taken from verse 65 of FitzGerald’s 2nd version, but with “pot” in the first line replacing “vine” in the original. Its relevance to the verse is again obscure, but what is clear from the upper half is that Martin started with an inkblot and folded the paper over, creating in effect a Rorschach test in which he saw the outline of a naked woman. However, this is not the sensuous nude of Fig.1b, but one more akin to a Venus of Willendorf without her head! Martin has then put the figure on a plinth supported, Atlas–like, by kneeling figures. Who the caped observer is, that is anybody’s guess!
In Fig.1f, Hakim’s verse 29 is a direct quote of verse 28 of FitzGerald’s 4th version. Consistently with the verse, the illustration shows a (nude ?) young woman deep in thought, but what is the head of a cat doing there, and who is the man fleeing through the door in the background ? He could relate to the last line of the previous verse, “Came out by the same door as in I went”, but then what of the figure visible under the young woman’s right arm ?
In Fig.1g, Hakim’s verse 34 is a direct quote of verse 17 of FitzGerald’s 1st version, but what it has to do with this verse, or indeed any other verse, is a mystery.
In Fig.1h, Hakim’s verse 50 is a direct quote of verse 51 of FitzGerald’s 4th version, but again, what does it have to do with this or any other verse ? A man’s tie on a hanger hooked over the end of a bed; a woman’s purse on top of a book, and a violin with no strings, bridge or tuning pegs, on the bed itself; a woman’s shoe at the bottom right; a figure on top of the right bed post, but not the left; a picture of a nude on the wall at the back, almost hidden by a light bulb; and an open door in the background, curiously tilted – are these “all shapes from Mah (Moon) to Mahi (Fish)” ?
In Fig.1i, Hakim’s verse 51 is a direct quote of verse 52 of FitzGerald’s 4th version, but yet again, what it has to do with the text ? The artist here seems to have gone off on a complete tangent in an expressionist whirl to the extent that one wonders if this was an automatic drawing done “under the influence,” or imagined as if “under the influence”.
In Fig.1j, Hakim’s verse 63 is a direct quote of verse 58 of FitzGerald’s 1st version. But what do the three naked women and a naked child signify ? Presumably they relate to the sinful lust initiated when Eve was tempted by the Serpent / Snake in the Garden of Eden into eating the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis ch.3), thus leading to the Fall of Man and the condemning of Woman to the pain of childbirth. But here there seems to be no Eve and no Snake. Again, the curious use of blotches of ink (cf. Fig.1f) suggest automatic drawing, a technique used by many artists, and which can certainly lead to some bizarre effects (like Fig.1e !) Incidentally, this illustration was used on the dust–jacket of the book.
Finally, Fig.1k is the frontispiece of the book, another drawing which, though intriguing, seems to have little to do with its contents. On the left we have the figure of the Church seemingly protecting a naked young girl under its cloak, perhaps from the gun wielding military man on the right, but why is it here in this book ? There are certainly images of the Virgin Mary protecting numbers of children under her cloak, but the face of Martin’s ‘Church’ seems rather sinister, as if he is protecting the girl only to reserve her for his own lustful ends. Of course, that may be to read way too much into it, so I leave readers to make of it what they will.
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
One’s general feeling regarding Martin’s illustrations is one of bewilderment at the seeming irrelevance to the text of most of them, even allowing for the fact that relevance is to some extent in the eye of the beholder. But to continue.
We are fortunate that the story behind this unusual book was recorded in The Tampa Tribune on 13 April 1975 (p.198). I quote the account in full:
He calls himself Hakim Yama Khayyam, taking his pen name from the name of his literary hero, Eleventh Century poet Omar Khayyam.
This Khayyam, a bearded and gentle man who lives in Tampa, three years ago did something that many authors dream of doing:
He went to New York and badgered a major publisher into publishing a book he had written. Just like that. Just called the head publishing man up on the telephone and insisted that he be given a chance.
“It was funny,” he remembers now. “The secretary kept saying ‘if you’re selling anything we’re not buying.’ But I was determined, and I kept saying I wanted to talk with the publisher myself.”
Khayyam was trying to sell a contemporary version he had authored of the famous Khayyam’s Rubaiyat. The updating involved changing references to the repression of wine to the repression of marijuana. The Tampa Khayyam is an avid proponent of the legalization of the drug, and that’s why he doesn’t want his real name known.
In 1971, after completing the revision of the famous work, Khayyam had decided that Lyle Stuart Inc. was the publisher for him. He wrote a letter to the publisher then tore it up.
Finally, on a trip to New York the next year, he made the fateful telephone call. Khayyam sounded so convincing that Lyle Stuart personally invited him up to his penthouse apartment to look at the manuscript.
Stuart liked what he saw, and said he would discuss the project with his board of directors.
“Six weeks later,” Khayyam says, “I got a contract in the mail. I guess I had been so determined to sell what I had done that the vibes were very strong.”
With the contract came a $500 advance, although Khayyam had asked for nothing.
His contract calls for seven per cent royalties on sales of hardcover and 50 per cent on paperback sales, he says, on the volume titled “Omar Khayyam Revisited.”
The publishing house commissioned artist David Stone Martin to illustrate the work, which was not actually printed until last fall.
Khayyam’s book sells for $8.95, and he received 25 free copies mailed in a cardboard box.
So far there have been no royalty checks, but Khayyam is not discouraged. “It hasn’t been out a year yet. I expect I’ll hear something in September.”
One hopes that the royalty checks were indeed forthcoming.
A photograph of Hakim seated at his typewriter, with a copy of the book in the foreground, was printed with this article, but unfortunately it is too dark to reproduce well here. However, a good photograph of him was given in The Tampa Bay Times on 11 October 1974 (p.67) under the heading “Poet to read modernised ‘Rubaiyat’”. The photograph is shown in Fig.2a and the accompanying short article is again worth quoting in full:
Poet Hakim Yama Khayyam, a pen name for a Tampa businessman, will read from his modernized version of “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” and answer questions about the newly published book at 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday, at the Beaux Arts Gallery, 7711 60th St. N., Pinellas Park.
Illustrated by David Stone Martin, one of America’s top illustrators, the book is issued by Lyle Stuart (publisher of “The Sensuous Woman”) in an unprecedented first edition of 10,000 copies.
The color film “Zen in Ryoko–in” will also be shown twice each night beginning at 8 p.m. Admission $1.25 except $1 Sunday and includes folk music performances.
A typical advert for these events is shown in Fig.3a, this being from The Tampa Bay Times on 13 October 1974 (p.92). A similar advert in the same paper on 1 November (p.68) made great play on Hakim having the “World’s Record for Largest 1st Edition of 1st Book.”
Sadly, Omar Khayyam Revisited was to be a ‘one hit wonder’, and he was to enjoy no further literary success on that scale again. Indeed, it was to be the only book he ever published, for though billed as a poet in the above, I could find no record of any of his work being published in book form. The Tampa Bay Times on 9 July 1974 (p.45) reported that in the Beaux Arts Gallery’s 23rd Americana Original Music and Poetry Festival competition, Hakim Yama Khayyam had won third place for his poem “The Prescription”; the same newspaper on 13 July 1975 (p.114) reported that in the Beaux Arts Gallery’s 24th Americana Original Music and Poetry Festival, he had won the grand prize for his poem “Genesis”; and the same newspaper again on 2 December 1977 (p.83) tells us that Hakim was awarded one of seven equal prizes in a poetry competition in which 500 poems from 239 writers had been entered, the results being announced in the Beaux Arts Gallery, no title given. His renown as a poet, then, centred on the Beaux Arts Gallery in Pinellas Park, Florida, close by Tampa, where he lived, seemingly in the brief period between 1974 and 1977.
Though the Beaux Arts Gallery sounds like a minor venue, and had an appearance rather less grand than its name (Fig.3b), it was in fact an ‘in’ place to go for artists, musicians and poets. It was founded in 1950 by the eccentric painter, poet and journalist Thomas Bruce Reese (1917–2006) (2). Nominally a “no booze, no dope” establishment with its modest entry fee and free coffee downstairs, what went on in the upstairs rented rooms seems to have been more ‘relaxed’. Jack Kerouak spent a brief alcohol–fuelled stay there in the 1960s, until he was thrown out by Reese. Allen Ginsberg is known to have dropped in, and in about 1961, a few years before he achieved musical fame with “The Doors,” Jim Morrison did poetry readings there (apparently with his back to the audience). Andy Warhol seems never to have visited the Gallery, though his films were certainly screened there. Plus the place was famous enough for Marilyn Monroe to stop by and buy a painting in 1961. There was a fire at the Gallery in 1977 which, though it didn’t close the place down, put a dampener on its activities, and this seems to have sent it into a steady decline, the last straw being a bigger fire in about 1989 from which there was no recovery. The building was demolished in 1994. This, then, was the playground of Hakim Yama Khayyam in the period 1974–7.
According to the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries, Third Series, July to December 1974 (Books), Hakim Yama Khayyam was the pseudonym of Joachim Yama Hurst. This is true, to some extent, in that that was the name of the copyright owner, but in fact, he appears to have been born Joachim Horst Mühlfelder in Frankfurt, Germany, on 13 February 1920. The family was Jewish, his father being Gustav Israel Mühlfelder and his mother Nanny / Nancy (née Levi.) At the approach of the Second World War the family fled Germany, ultimately ending up in America. Suspicion of anyone German as the war got under way made it expedient to Anglicise any obviously Germanic names. That, plus the unpronounceability of the surname, led our poet to drop his surname altogether, and change Horst to Hurst. Thus in the 1940 US Federal Census he is Joachim Hurst. His father, on the other hand, opted to change Mühlfelder to Millfield, subsequently becoming Gus Millfield.
Hakim (meaning “the wise”) is an epithet often attached to the name of Omar Khayyam, and our poet may have opted to use it as the first part of his pen–name, or he may have chosen Hakim because it sounds so like the last two syllables of Joachim. Either way, the Khayyam of his pen–name clearly comes from his hero, but whence came the Yama? It first appears in connection with his marriage in 1942 (see below) and in his military draft registration card of 1943, where his name is given as Joachim Yama Hurst, so he had adopted the Yama sometime between his arrival in the USA in December 1937 and his marriage in May 1942. But where did it come from ? It is neither Jewish nor Persian in origin, but Hindu, and this requires a little digression.
I was fortunate in writing this essay to make contact with Becky Lawhead, Hakim’s granddaughter, and from a wealth of information supplied by her it became clear that her grandfather lived in an eclectic mix of the orthodox and the unorthodox – she calls it “Hakimism.” Thus he had a keen interest the history of Greece, Egypt & Assyria, and in different faiths like Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto & Mithraism. But he also took an interest in more unorthodox history like the lost continent of Atlantis, ley lines & the significance of global temple locations, von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods, Velikovsky’s Worlds in Collision, the Illuminati, and the sinister Lizard People. Likewise he had an interest in unorthodox religious beliefs like Satanism, Wicca, Spiritualism, and Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophy, this last with its use of psychic communication with the secret Brotherhood of the Mahatmas. Finally, he was fascinated by such controversial topics as crop circles, alchemy, dowsing, reincarnation and the possible existence of portals to other dimensions. I am rather reminded of the White Queen in Alice who sometimes believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast, though whether Hakim actually believed in all these unconventional things or simply found them interesting food for thought, without necessarily believing them, is not clear. Plus he may simply have viewed some of the proponents of these ‘impossible things’ as fellow rebels against the conventional. However, it must also be said that he had a healthy disregard for insidious brainwashing cults like Scientology and he thought Aleister Crowley a fraud, though not, apparently, Madame Blavatsky, who, as early as 1885, had been convincingly exposed by Richard Hodgson of the Society for Psychical Research as “one of the most accomplished, ingenious and interesting impostors in history.” And yet the Theosophical Society survived her death in 1891, so a lot of people must have continued to get something from her teachings. On the other hand, as C. E. Bechhofer Roberts said of this phase of things, in his book The Mysterious Madam (1931), “so bottomless is human credulity” (p.225.) It gives some insight into Hakim’s mind–set to learn that though he had great respect for orthodox Hinduism and Buddhism, nevertheless he was a rebel when it came to Karma, for, as Becky told me, “he was a firm believer that karma could be alleviated by teaching the young.” On a less serious front, a poem of Hakim’s which has survived in the family archives and which was apparently published in the arts magazine Curtain Call (vol.2, no.9), also throws some light on his unconventional approach to religious beliefs. Titled “The Agonies of Heaven” the poet imagines himself in Heaven but driven to distraction by the endless Music of the Spheres. He wrote:
Granted, at times the music was delightful.But there were other times, when Indians, Holy–rollers, Japanese and Greeksall sang in unisonin praise of the Lord.IT WAS HELL!
After 10,000 sessions of enlightenment with the Buddha and 75,000 cups of milk and honey with the Houris, he’d had enough, and applied for a reincarnation in any menial role whatever back on Earth. His wish granted, the poem ends with “God smiled / and I was born again.”
“Zen in Ryoko–in”, then, in Fig.3a would have held great appeal for him, and he was a great fan of the Bhagavad–Gita. In fact, his interest in Hinduism could well have been what resulted in his adoption of the name Yama, for it is the Hindu name for a set of 5 ethical principles: non–violence, truthfulness, honesty, moderation and non–possessiveness – Yama being one of the 8 ‘limbs’ of Raja Yoga. This might tie in with one of his mottoes: “do as you will, but hurt no–one, including yourself” and also with his views on parenting. Becky told me, “He was a fan of natural consequence parenting. He’d say instead of telling the child ‘no’, say ‘if you’re going to do it, be careful.’” But Yama is also the name of the Hindu god associated with the Judgement of the Dead, and one recalls the last line of Hakim’s opening verse, “I met Omar Khayyam in hell.” Make of that what you will.
Returning to Hakim’s life, when he arrived in the USA he spoke very little English, and took any work he could get. In the 1940 US Federal Census he was listed as a laundry worker; in his 1943 draft card, as an upholsterer (as his father was); and in the 1950 census, as a farmer. At one time, Becky told me, he had a job setting dynamite in a quarry, a job which almost led to him being blown up!
On 23 May 1942, in Tampa, Joachim Yama Hurst married Marjorie Alberta Pletcher. They had three children, Forrest Kenneth Hurst, born in 1949; Clara Rose Hurst (Becky’s mother), born in 1951; and Gustav Charles Hurst, born in 1953. A photograph of Joachim and Marjorie is shown in Fig.2b. Grandma Marge, as Becky calls her, met Joachim at a streetcar stop in Tampa: she was getting off just as Joachim was seeing his then girlfriend on, and they went back to her place, as the saying goes. She was clearly a very caring and hard working person, but rather eccentric in some of her ways – notably she wore non–matching shoes. “It would be like one blue slide shoe on one foot and one yellow leather moccasin on the other,” Becky told me. Unfortunately, Joachim had numerous extra–marital affairs and plates were thrown, though the marriage apparently still remained nominally intact, as they were only divorced in 1982. Grandma Marge died on 14 December 1993.
As regards the farm in the above mentioned 1950 US Federal Census, though it was referred to as “the farm” by the family, it was a decidedly odd one. Located near Tampa, it was inside a castle–like compound, entered via a wooden bridge, all built by Hakim himself, and though they kept horses, goats, and chickens, the cultivation of magic mushrooms and cannabis plants were on the less conventional agricultural side of things (hence, perhaps, the wooden bridge ?) Becky also told me that having denounced his Jewish faith in favour of a mix of various other religions, he held Wiccan type services in the woods there, and seems to have run classes in Wicca practices. Curiously, though, when his three children were of school age, they were sent off to a Catholic school in nearby Tampa.
Our poet died on 10 August 2008. A brief obituary of him in The Tampa Tribune on 14 August 2008 (p.19) stated that he had lived in the Tampa Bay area for 67 years, and that “He was a philosopher, teacher, poet and a friend to many.”
In the above quoted newspaper account of the background of Omar Khayyam Revisited we were told that, “In 1971, after completing the revision of the famous work, Khayyam had decided that Lyle Stuart Inc. was the publisher for him.” What led him to that decision ?
Lyle Stuart Inc. had certainly by then published at least four volumes of poetry, the most notable being Charles Bukowski’s Crucifix in a Deathhand, published in 1965, and with some haunting etchings by Noel Rockmore. Its cover is shown in Fig.4a and one of its illustrations in Fig.4b. But of course, many other publishers had also issued books of poetry, many of these just as wonderfully illustrated.
Lyle Stuart was born Lionel Simon in Manhattan on 11 August 1922, but changed his name to Lyle Stuart on account of some antisemitism he had suffered. He founded his publishing company in 1955, and became something of a maverick in the publishing world, one who courted controversy. When protests over the Vietnam War were taking place in 1970, he published William Powell’s The Anarchist Cookbook, which contained instructions on bomb–making and home–made silencers for pistols. No other publisher at the time would touch it, and I wonder if Hakim’s pro–legalisation of pot stance, as advocated in Omar Khayyam Revisited, and not a popular view at that time, might have been one reason for his choice of Lyle Stuart, and why Lyle Stuart took him on. (Plus, of course, The Rubaiyat was ever popular!)
But there is another possibility. Becky told me that her grandpa liked a dirty joke, and Lyle Stuart was responsible for publishing one of the longest ones of those – the novel Naked Came the Stranger, ostensibly by “a demure Long Island housewife” called Penelope Ashe, published in 1969.
It was a hoax produced by a group of journalists to demonstrate that a trashy novel, if it had enough sex in it, could become a best seller. Each writer contributed a chapter, and rumour has it that some chapters were too well written and had to be more ‘trashified’ before publication by Lyle Stuart, who was, of course, in on the joke. In fact, he contributed the photo of the naked girl on the front cover of the book (Fig.5a) having found it in a Hungarian nudist magazine. As for the photograph of the supposed demure author, Penelope Ashe (Fig.5b), that was a photograph of the sister–in–law of the ringleader of the plot.
As predicted, the book became a best seller, and, strange to say, even when the hoax was revealed, it continued to be one. According to some reports, sales actually increased.
Fig.6 shows Lyle Stuart in September 1978. He died in Englewood, New Jersey, on 24 June 2006, aged 83, and his fame by then merited obituaries in newspapers across the States (3). None of these mentioned Omar Khayyam Revisited, but all mentioned Naked Came the Stranger, and his other risqué publications, The Sensous Woman by '‘J’, published in 1969 (4), and The Sensuous Man by ‘M’, published in 1971– basically detailed sex manuals.
Given his sex–oriented publications one can imagine that he encouraged Martin to “throw in a few nudes” in his illustrations for Omar Khayyam Revisited. (There are nudes in eight of them.)
One thing we do know, courtesy of Becky Lawhead, is that her grandfather requested David Stone Martin as his illustrator, so let us now take a look at who he was.
He was born David Livingstone Martin in Elgin, Cook County, Illinois, some 40 miles north-west of Chicago, on 13 June 1913, but shortened the Livingstone to Stone after too many people thought it funny to address him as “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.” There is a great deal of information about him readily available online and in printed sources, and he was well enough known to merit an obituary in numerous American newspapers on his death in New London, Connecticut, on 6 March 1992, though most of it centres on his illustrations for Jazz record sleeves (over 400 of them – see below.) Indeed, his obituary in The New York Times on 9 March 1992 was headed, “David Stone Martin, 78, an Artist Who Specialised in Jazz Albums.” His covers for the likes of Time magazine (Fig.7 is an example, dating from 1967) came next in prominence, with barely a mention of the books he illustrated – Omar Khayyam Revisited might never have been published. Accordingly I will give only an outline biography of him here into which we can slot the books he illustrated with more prominence.
He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in the Second World War worked for the United States Office of War Information, for which he did a series of posters. After the war he worked as a freelance commercial artist designing posters and adverts for films, TV & the theatre. Two interesting ones for the theatre are shown in Fig.8a (Antigone, dating from 1973) & Fig.8b (Othello, dating from 1978.) These were used in black & white as newspaper adverts (5), but the coloured versions here are from limited edition prints, each of 110 copies. Martin also did programmes for musical events, Fig.9 being a good example dating from 1952 – Jazz, of course. He also did work for various newspapers and magazines. The two adverts in Figs.10a & 10b are interesting for their contrast with his illustrations for Omar Khayyam Revisited. The former is an advert for “Timely Clothes” which appeared in Esquire on 2 September 1956; the latter an advert promoting US Savings Bonds from The Saturday Evening Post on 29 June 1957. But despite their conservative nature, note that the former uses blotches of ink having little regard for the outlines of the drawing, a characteristic of his Omar drawings. An interesting earlier advert is shown in Fig.10c, this one promoting the Higgins Ink Co. – an early example of using a celebrity to endorse a product. It has a date of May 1950 at the top left, but which publication(s) it appeared in is unclear. The appearance of a bull here is as incongruous as those featured in Fig.1c, though whether there is any connection is anyone’s guess!
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
Martin’s monumental career as the illustrator of record sleeves began in 1944. Since this part of his output is fully detailed online and in Manek Daver’s book David Stone Martin: Jazz Graphics (1991) (6), I will only illustrate here some of the more interesting examples – those related in some way to his Omar illustrations.
Like many others, Daver had long been puzzled by the quirky motifs and visual riddles posed by record covers which seemed to have no connection with the music. Later, when he met and got to know Martin and his second wife, Cheri, he was able to get a bit of background to some, though not all, of the more obscure designs. But often there was no explanation to be had – “I just felt like doing it that way”, he is quoted as saying (Daver p.9) – or he just started doodling until something came to him (p.25). In the end, Daver was forced to admit that “some of the oddities which confound the viewer must continue to so perplex.” (p.49) Clearly this is something we should bear in mind when interpreting his Rubaiyat illustrations!
Fig.11a is the cover for Calypso (vol.2), dating from 1946, and has elements in common with Fig.1i, though much less ‘wild’. But more than that, Martin ‘recycled’ this design to illustrate (presumably) the “magic shadow–show” and “phantom figures” of Hakim’s verse 52 (a direct quote of verse 46 of FitzGerald’s 1st version.)
Fig.11b, the cover for Ernestine Washington, dates from 1947 and in its ‘atmosphere’ rather reminds me of Fig.1k.
Fig.11c is the cover for a Jazz at the Philharmonic recording dating from 1950. It is a fine example of Martin’s quirkiness, and a demonstration that his illustrations sometimes wander ‘off track’ into somewhat surrealist realms (like Fig.1i.) Though the stylised musicians are relevant enough (cf. Fig.9), it is not clear what Lady Godiva (?) and a set of traffic lights (?) are doing there! (Unfortunately this one isn’t in Daver, and even if it had been, we might still not have an explanation!)
Fig.11d, the cover of a Charlie Parker recording of 1952. Note the bull with matador, recalling Fig.10c & the bulls in Fig.1c. According to Daver (p.78), the illustration depicts Parker as a toreador taming the bull with the music of his alto saxophone. Martin also did several covers for Charlie Parker using cartoon–like birds with musical instruments, which Daver explains as denoting the musician’s nickname as Bird or Yardbird (p.78).
Fig.11e, the cover for Billie Holiday, dates from 1954 and shares a bed theme with Fig.1h, as well as prefiguring Martin’s penchant for the nude in Omar. Daver explains this cover as “symbolic of Billie’s songs on unregulated love”, adding that the model was Martin’s wife, Gloria (p.92), which is odd, as his (first) wife at that time was called Thelma. Beds feature in several of Martin’s record covers. An Artie Shaw cover of 1954 features a bed like that in Fig.1h with an assortment of musical instruments on and around it, for example, and a Dinah Washington cover of 1955 has a clothed woman draped across a bed of this type, with a wire coat–hanger hanging over one end, and the pages of a love letter (?) next to her (Fig.11f). The first is probably connected with Shaw’s career & love life (Daver p.70), the latter to the theme of the record, “The Blues” (Daver p.115.) An earlier Josh White album cover (“Women Blues”) of 1946 also shows a clothed woman on a similar bed, with one man standing at the foot of the bed and another hiding underneath it. This one is self–explanatory, I think. Given all this, of course, one’s thoughts are drawn back to the possible significance of the bed in Fig.1h.
Fig.11g, the cover for a Kenny Drew recording of 1954 – seemingly another fine example of Martin ‘wandering off track,’ even stranger than Fig.11c, with vultures, two doves with an olive branch (?) and tombstone–like ‘doorways’. Actually, this has nothing to do with the record at all, being, originally a design for a Christmas card (hence the doves of peace), but even that doesn’t explain all, for, as Daver put it, “The buzzards though are beyond me.” (p.104–5)
Fig.11h, the cover for Bud Powell, dates from 1956 and has a blotchy element in common with Fig.1f.
Fig.11i, the cover for Tal Farlow, dates from 1968, and features Martin’s use of crude and often incomplete outlines with a colouring that doesn’t fit that outline, again like Fig.1f.
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
It is quite possible that Hakim decided that he wanted Martin as the illustrator of his Omar through seeing the artist’s modernist and unconventional jazz album covers, for our author loved all kinds of jazz, particularly Louis Armstrong and Perez Prado. Equally, though there are less of them ‘out there’, he may have seen some of Martin’s book illustrations, done for various publishers, to which we now turn.
David Stone Martin illustrated over 20 books between 1947 and 1978, though apparently none for Lyle Stuart aside from Omar Khayyam Revisited. A photograph of him taken in 1947 is shown in Fig.12a and one taken in 1974 in Fig.12b.
Curiously, the first book he illustrated – actually a booklet of 16 pages – seems to have been All Thy Neighbors, a fundraising prospectus for the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York, published in 1947, for which he did no less than six full–page illustrations. This is very scarce today, and being such a rarity as well as Martin’s ‘first’, I give two illustrations from it here – Fig.13a (medical care) & Fig.13b (personal and family problems.)
In contrast, Alan Lomax’s Mister Jelly Roll, illustrated by Martin and first published by Duell, Sloan and Pearce of New York in 1950, has been reprinted numerous times by various publishers, and is very common. A biography of Jelly Roll Morton, the so–called “Inventor of Jazz”, it would clearly have been a pet project for Martin. Its frontispiece, depicting Jelly Roll at the piano, is shown here as Fig.14a; a neat line drawing of a drummer in action in Fig.14b; Buddy Bolden’s arrest after a shooting in a bar in Fig.14c; and a drum kit adorned with one of Martin’s rear–view nudes in Fig.14d (compare Figs. 8a & 11e.) Incidentally, the design in Fig.14b was also used for a Norman Granz record cover (Daver p.55) – indeed, several illustrations from Mister Jelly Roll were similarly ‘recycled.’
Martin had done a couple of children’s books in the 1950s, both by Beatrice Landeck and both published by Edward B. Marks & William Sloane of New York, Songs to Grow On (1950) and More Songs to Grow On (1954). Their illustrations are pretty much what one would expect in song books for very young children, Of more interest is a later book for older children, Henry Chapin’s Tigertail; the Game Chicken, published by William R, Scott of New York in 1963. It is the story of a Bahama Game Chicken carried by a hurricane to Florida, and the struggle of a young boy, Joe, to tame it as a pet – its fierce nature and distinctive tail feathers led him to name it Tigertail. Two illustrations are shown in Fig.15a (Tigertail pounces on Mrs Gandy’s wig – p.27) & Fig.15b (Joe and his friend Ada, with Tigertail – p.65.)
Slightly later came Augusta Walker’s book A Back–Fence Story, published by Alfred A Knopf of New York in 1967, the story of a family of city cats and the lady who provides for them. Fig.16a shows the dust–jacket and Fig.16b a typical feline scene (p.36) – very different from the bulk of Martin’s output!
Next, Pauline Tabor’s book Pauline’s, subtitled “Memoirs of the Madam on Clay Street”, is the true story of a Kentucky brothel first set up in the 1930s and which ran for many years. It was published by Touchstone Publishing Co. of Louisville, Kentucky, in 1971. Martin did 12 full page illustrations for it (one as a frontispiece for each chapter) and 12 illustrations for the broad margins of this large quarto sized book. Fig.17a fronts the opening chapter (“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this ?”) – note the bed theme again; Fig.17b fronts the third chapter (“A madam builds a dream house”) – a rather messy illustration; and Fig.17c fronts the fifth chapter (“The ‘tricks.’”) The same blotchy characteristics of his Rubaiyat illustrations are self–evident, though unlike the Rubaiyat, there is no doubt here about what he is depicting! To be honest, I prefer his marginal illustrations – Fig.17d from the opening chapter is a good example, the two young women on the right being subsequently re–cycled on a record sleeve of the Derek Smith Trio, appropriately titled “Love for Sale” (Daver p.120.)
Finally, we come to Michel Tournier’s variation on Robinson Crusoe, Friday and Robinson. Subtitled “Life on Speranza Island,” it was published by Alfred A Knopf of New York in 1972. Fig.18a is the dust–jacket, showing the heads of Friday and Robinson ‘united’ after the manner of Othello and Iago in Fig.8b. As regards the black and white illustrations in the book, they range from the clear view of the shipwrecked Robinson in Fig.18b at the start of the book, via the obscure offering in Fig.18c which, so far as I can tell, shows Friday hiding from cannibals in a clump of dwarf palms, to the far from clear picture of Robinson with the boy Juan Neljapaev in Fig.18d at the end of the book. It has to be said that sometimes Martin’s use of blotches detracts from the quality of his illustrations rather than adding to them: the word “messy” again springs to mind.
[The illustrations can be browsed here.]
Martin was clearly capable of a wide variety of styles, and was a skilled artist when he chose to be. The style of the illustrations for Pauline’s and Friday and Robinson in many ways pre–figures that for Omar Khayyam Revisited, though his illustrations for Omar are more obscure, perhaps not surprisingly given the nature of the text. It is known that Martin would carefully research what he was illustrating, but he could start with a doodle or a blot of ink and just see where it led him, often to the mystification of the viewer, and as we saw with his designs for record covers, sometimes not even Martin himself was clear about what he had done. So in some cases we may never know what was intended, for nothing was intended – it was automatic drawing. On the other hand, though the bulls in Figs.10c & 11d are clearly not random in their execution, do they tell us anything about the bulls in Fig.1c ? That remains, as noted earlier, anyone’s guess! Perhaps the beds which feature on his record covers as “the blues” induced by love and sex (Figs.11e & 11f), and the bed scene in Pauline’s (Fig.17a), tell us something about the bed in Fig.1h (Omar’s Beloved features in Hakim’s verses 6, 12 & 65, though not in verse 50, which this illustration faces.) But then again perhaps not, for as Fig.11g shows, Martin was quite capable of using a Christmas card design on the cover of a record with which it had no real connection. Plus, as we saw earlier, his Calypso design of Fig.11a was pressed into service to illustrate Hakim’s verse 52. Finally Fig.1i surely serves as a salutary warning against trying to delve too deeply for an explanation of Martin’s Omar illustrations, the word “irrelevant” again springing to mind. Not that that stops me wondering....
Note 1: Hakim selected verses as fancy took from any of the four versions of FitzGerald. Using the verse numbering in Omar Khayyam Revisited, the following were taken (with the occasional typo or missing / misplaced word) from FitzGerald, with no modernisation: verses 3, 4, 7, 13, 18, 20 to 24 inclusive, and 27 to 65 inclusive. That is, 49 of Hakim’s 67 quatrains were pretty much pure FitzGerald – 73 % or nearly three quarters.
Note 2: For an excellent full account of Reese and his Beaux Arts Gallery, see:
https://stpetecatalyst.com/vintage-st-pete-tom-reese-and-the-beaux-arts-gallery/
Fig.3b, a photo by John Balcomb, is taken from this site.
Note 3: For example, The Sacramento Bee, 26 June 2006, p.13; Newsday (New York), 27 June 2006, p.46; The Los Angeles Times, 28 June 2006, p.23; The Boston Globe, 29 June 2006, p.33.
Note 4: The Sensuous Woman was a money spinning ‘set up’ by Lyle Stuart. Apparently, Stuart approached ‘J’ with a “great idea”, which was that she should put everything she knew about sex into a book. See The Sun–Tattler (Hollywood, Florida), 8 April 1970 (p.6).
Note 5: For example, Fig.8a appears in The Santa Fe New Mexican, 15 March 1973 (p.21) and Fig.8b in The Edmonton Journal (Alberta, Canada), 4 March 1978 (p.92).
Note 6: Several useful websites turn up on an internet search for David Stone Martin album covers, but particularly useful for its detailed chronological listing is:
https://www.discogs.com/artist/652824-David-Stone-Martin .
In print, Manek Daver’s book David Stone Martin: Jazz Graphics (1991) is also very useful. It was published by the Graphic Shah Publishing Co. of Tokyo, and is in English and Japanese. (By way of explanation, Jazz is very popular in Japan, and Japanese record companies approached Martin for album cover designs. The picture in the background of Fig.12b is the original of an album cover apparently done in part for the Japanese market – Jam Session #1, issued by Verve Records in 1974.)
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Principally I must thank Becky Lawhead, Hakim Yama Khayyam’s granddaughter, for supplying a great amount of information about her grandfather – far more than I could use here. I must also thank John Balcomb for the photograph of the Beaux Arts Gallery used in Fig.3b. Again my thanks are due to Joe Howard for sharing his views on Martin’s illustrations of Omar Khayyam Revisited.
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