Doug Skinner: An Archive on Your Gizmo

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Entries Tagged as 'F'

Frankincense

December 25th, 2022 · Comments Off on Frankincense

What’s Christmas without frankincense? I wrote this for Meg Reichardt’s annual Holiday Recording Party, and recorded it with Brian Dewan at the controls. It marks my debut on the bass recorder. Here’s the first page, and you can listen to it here.

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Tags: *Music · F

Fixative

February 22nd, 2021 · Comments Off on Fixative

A piano piece from my student days. These are some of the savory dissonances I was stirring up when I was 18.

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Tags: *Music · F

The Fisherman’s Wish

August 5th, 2020 · 2 Comments

From an upcoming issue of Black Scat Review, here’s the beginning of a story about a fisherman and the fish who promises him wishes. Unfortunately, fish with magical powers are not always trustworthy. THE FISHERMAN’S WISH    The fisherman started out one bright morning, toting his rod and tackle. He was in a merry mood, […]

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Tags: *Words · F

Flake Food

February 23rd, 2020 · Comments Off on Flake Food

A song about an old woman and an old man who don’t meet, and the tropical fish who just want flake food. It can be found on That Regrettable Weekend and in The Doug Skinner Songbook.

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Tags: *Music · F

The Funeral Dinner

October 20th, 2019 · Comments Off on The Funeral Dinner

This unusually brief story appears in my collection Sleepytime Cemetery. It’s short, but long enough for a happy ending. THE FUNERAL DINNER Little Tommy sat under a tree, pulling the wings off flies. When he pulled the wings off one, he tossed it onto the grass, where it died. He then plucked the next one […]

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Tags: *Words · F

The Fetuses

February 17th, 2019 · 2 Comments

The idiosyncratic poet and cabaret performer Maurice Mac-Nab had a short but appreciated career in Paris in the 1880s. He was known for his deadpan delivery and limited vocal range; it was said of him that he could sing only three notes, but each was flawless. My translation of his poem “The Fetuses” is a […]

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Tags: *Words · F

The Functionaries

January 20th, 2019 · 2 Comments

From a projected book of my verse, here’s a translation of a song by the surprisingly prolific Jules Jouy (1855-1897). The problem was to translate the lyrics as closely as possible, within the original meter and rhyme scheme. It’s a paraphrase, but (I think) comes closer to the original than a literal rendering could. THE […]

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Tags: *Words · F

Faust Gets Soused

January 1st, 2019 · 3 Comments

My version of the Faust legend is 152 lines, in tetrameter couplets alternating masculine and feminine rhymes. It has a cheerier ending than most; Faust and the Devil get drunk, become friends, and open a bar together. Here’s how it begins. I’ll cut it off before we get to the sex magick. Perhaps you’ve heard […]

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Tags: *Words · F

Free Wine

October 15th, 2017 · 3 Comments

A song about the free wine at gallery openings. There was originally a second chorus about the free wine once offered in Chinese restaurants, but the chorus was removed when the practice was abandoned.

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Tags: *Music · F

Frontispiece for “Double Over”

September 18th, 2016 · 2 Comments

Black Scat Books will soon publish my translation of Alphonse Allais’s first book, Double Over: Blackcattish Stories (A se tordre: Histoires chatnoiresques). At my publisher’s request, I drew the following frontispiece for it. Since the stories were taken from Allais’s contributions to Le Chat Noir, the paper published by the cabaret of the same name, […]

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Tags: *Cartoons · F