Doug Skinner: An Archive on Your Gizmo

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Shorten the Classics: Chicken Little

November 4th, 2021 · Comments Off on Shorten the Classics: Chicken Little

In another shortened classic, Chicken Little doesn’t think the sky is falling. What a relief!

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Tags: *Cartoons · S

Shorten the Classics: Black Beauty

September 29th, 2021 · 2 Comments

I’ve drawn a few pages under the rubric “Shorten the Classics.” Each is four panels, and abbreviates a famous work of literature, usually by nipping it in the bud. Tragedies are averted, murders prevented, adulteries blocked. Derek Pell of Black Scat Books urged me to draw a book of them, so that’s what I’m doing […]

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Tags: *Cartoons · S

Selby Yarrow’s Private Diary

September 9th, 2021 · Comments Off on Selby Yarrow’s Private Diary

“Selby Yarrow’s Private Diary” can be found in The Snowman Three Doors Down. Poor Selby Yarrow starts a diary, but runs into difficulty with both his intentions and his materials. He also decides to keep it in code, only to realize that anyone can crack it, since he described it before using it. Here’s how […]

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Tags: *Words · S

The Secret Sentence

June 22nd, 2021 · Comments Off on The Secret Sentence

In this univocalic story from The Snowman Three Doors Down, Ebenezer and Celeste have to decipher a coded message sent by the settlers. This may mean trouble for Fessenden. Here’s how it begins… THE SECRET SENTENCE Ebenezer’s beeper beeped. He pressed the desk beeper; Celeste entered the belvedere.“Yes?” she beseeched. He greeted her, petted the […]

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Tags: *Words · S

Sleeping Beauty and Rip Van Winkle

June 8th, 2021 · Comments Off on Sleeping Beauty and Rip Van Winkle

Sleeping Beauty and Rip Van Winkle had much in common, but never met. In this tale in verse, they switch places on awakening, to general confusion. Here’s how it begins. SLEEPING BEAUTY AND RIP VAN WINKLE Sleeping Beauty, Rip Van Winkle, Slept beneath the wheeling twinkle Of the starry sky on high, Slept as decades […]

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Tags: *Words · S

Le Scat Noir Encyclopédie, Tome Deuxième

December 15th, 2020 · 2 Comments

The second volume of Le Scat Noir Encyclopédie is now available! This cornucopia of information, like its predecessor, is edited by Norman Conquest and published by Black Scat Books. I was among over forty contributors; my contributions include articles on Aleatoric Temperament, Boxing Kangaroo Rats, Communion Waffles, Spicy Railroad Stories, Viper Midwives, and other more […]

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Tags: *Words · S

String Quartet 17: Lockdown

November 2nd, 2020 · 2 Comments

My 17th string quartet was written during the pandemic. It consists of two movements: a brisk tune and round, strictly diatonic in C, E-flat, and A; and a slow movement in not-strictly-diatonic G. More may follow.

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Tags: *Music · S

String Quartet 16: Piano Pieces

September 1st, 2020 · 1 Comment

My 16th string quartet consists of arrangements of some of the piano music I’ve written over the years. Here’s “Radio Valentine,” written for a radio show in San Francisco long ago.

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Tags: *Music · S

String Quartet 15: On Melody in Speech

August 25th, 2020 · Comments Off on String Quartet 15: On Melody in Speech

In the course of my miscellaneous musical reading, I found an article by the organist and composer Friedrich (or, in England, Frederic) Weber, “On Melody in Speech,” in the Feb. 1887 issue of Longman’s Magazine (pp. 399-410). Weber notated the pitches and rhythms of the cries of several animals (dogs, birds, donkeys), and added some […]

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Shorten the Classics: Prometheus Bound

March 8th, 2020 · Comments Off on Shorten the Classics: Prometheus Bound

Here’s another classic nipped in the bud, from Black Scat Review 18. This would save everyone a lot of trouble.

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Tags: *Cartoons · S