You Say It's Your Birthday?

Looks like Roger Allen used his birthday on the fifth row, and added sayings and aphorisms from his personal collection, not those closely associated with Jack Flanders or ZBS. 39 sayings fit into 75 spaces. 37 of them have the 'great wave' background, with 2 using a plain black background.

Here is Hokusai's original The Great Wave of Kanagawa, the wood block print published between 1829 and 1833. This print is part of a series, "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji". You can see Mount Fuji in the background, and Wikipedia points out that the little wave in front mirrors Fuji. The original print has three boats being threatened by the great wave - but Roger's version has the boats artfully edited out.

The inscription in the cartouche is the title, "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji / Offshore from Kanagawa / Beneath the Wave". The inscription to the left is Hokusai's signature, "From the brush of Hokusai, changing his name to Iitsu" - the artist changed his name for each new cycle of works.

To do these wood blocks, the artist would turn the drawing over to the woodcutter, who would paste the drawing on the wood, and carve the block of wood into the printable image - destroying the original drawing in the process (although the drawing had to be duplicated, since each color used in the print would be produced by a different block). Since this is a wood block print, originals are in many Western museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago.

Roger shows a deep artistic sense in his choice of artwork for the game. Was he a quickly serial monogamist, where an impressive series of girl friends educated him in multiple disciplines? He was in a degree path that leaned into the liberal arts, maybe it was mostly on his own.

The Dreams of Rio sound clip is used for these buttons, adding to the birthday festive feel. Many of these sayings reflect a love of the sea and sailing - something you can understand from someone originally from the midwest, newly exposed to Chesapeake bay sailing. 

I can't see a message pattern in the spaces for this fifth line of the jukebox.

And now, a treat. As I was hacking into the game for images ('purely by accident, of course') I discovered that one saying appears twice, while some others have only been seen by Roger Allen in thirty years - until now! The jukebox selection Y-2 brings up a completely black panel, but evidence points to this graphic as being the intended display:

The saying is from the Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen. Which may sound familiar - it's part of the slowed down sayings presented at the end of Moon Over Morocco.