Hipsters, Flipsters ...

Richard Myrle Buckley was born 108 years ago today in Tuolumne, CA. He later self-applied the deferential appellation Lord and became a fixture on the New York jazz nightclub scene, transforming into what his biographer Michael Monteleone described as "a strange but intriguing mix of a proper English peer of the realm and a street corner jive hipster." He played the Vaudeville circuit, was friends with gangster Al Capone, appeared on The Tonight Show, married six times, and died broke, leaving an idiosyncratic legacy of oral literature, some of it captured on tape, vinyl, and film.

You can hear one of his Lordship's epic declarations here. It's the title track from the very rare 1955 10" record (above) with a famous Flora illustration. The cover is available as a limited edition fine art print at JimFlora.com. Or you can order a Buckley portrait rendered by noted illustrator Drew Friedman. The Friedman portrait looks like Buckley. The Flora portrait looks like ... well, like Flora.

now you see it ...

There are presently twenty different page headers at JimFlora.com. Each time you visit the site or refresh the page, the image changes. Because they rotate at random, some images will recur multiple times before you see them all. It's a Zen exercise. Mixes well with rum.

There's also nine footers at the bottom of the homepage.

It's a Flora World. We just live in it.

The Flora Juggernaut appears unstoppable. Our new book, The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora, now in its 15th printing since publication a fortnight ago, leapfrogged two Harry Potter totboilers to perch Kong-like atop the New York Times Best-Seller list. Statues of the artist are currently being commissioned in his birthplace of Bellfontaine, Ohio, and in Rowayton, Connecticut, his adopted hometown. Premiere editions of the new U.S. Postal Service's Mambo For Cats first-class stamp became sold-out collector's items upon first day of issue.

Unfortunately, all has not gone smoothly: witness the crushing disappointment of thousands who purchased the Jim Flora Goats 'n Boats 2007 Hunk-a-Monka Wall Calendar. The calendar was discovered to be defective, with August preceding March, the June grid listing nine Sundays, and November—well, it was there when we sent files to the printer. Refund checks are in the mail. We apologize for the misprints and are working to improve our calendars to 99% accuracy by 2012. Meanwhile, please stay on the line. Your call is very important to us.