Doug Skinner: An Archive on Your Gizmo

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Entries from June 2011

Let’s Ask Skinner

June 25th, 2011 · Comments Off on Let’s Ask Skinner

“Let’s Ask Skinner” ran in Crimewave USA, edited by Mark Maynard and Linette Lao, from 1996 to 2003. It usually included both accurate and inaccurate misinformation, plugs for my other projects, toilet humor, and mockery of organized skeptics and the Grateful Dead — the last not from any animus on my part, but simply to […]

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Tags: *Words · L

Tales of the Twilight Typist

June 24th, 2011 · Comments Off on Tales of the Twilight Typist

George Kuchar and John Keel visit my studio, in one of George’s inimitable videos. In other sections, George visits Mimi Gross and Whitley Strieber.

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Tags: *Other · T

Under the Weather

June 24th, 2011 · Comments Off on Under the Weather

I wrote this glum little tune back in 1983, when I was staying in Nancy. It was choreographed by Pam Quinn for a concert at Dance Theater Workshop (in NYC) in 1985. Here’s the first part of it.

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Tags: *Music · U

Mozart at the Cannery Works

June 23rd, 2011 · Comments Off on Mozart at the Cannery Works

This realization of Mozart’s “Musical Game in C” (K.516f) was written for an evening organized by the Cannery Works on Mozart’s birthday, January 27, 2005. Mozart’s piece gave the materials to construct minuets on the names of his friends; I applied it to “Cannery Works,” and harmonized the result.

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Tags: *Music · M

Tiffany Thayer

June 23rd, 2011 · 2 Comments

Nobody had really done much research into Tiffany Thayer, the founder of the original Fortean Society, and an entertaining character in his own right. So, I did; and wrote an article on him for the special 200th issue of the Fortean Times, in 2005. I read Thayer’s books, dug up photos and reviews of him, […]

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Tags: *Words · T

Keyboard Music 1

June 22nd, 2011 · Comments Off on Keyboard Music 1

You can get 49 pages of my keyboard music in this photocopied dossier. Let me know if you want one. It contains excerpts from dance and theater scores, examples from lectures, harmonizations, Solrésol translations, occasional pieces, gags, and experiments. The pieces are: Stumbling Block Rameau’s Nephew Spang Aubade Rousseau’s Three-Note Tune The Party Next Door […]

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Tags: *Music · K

Janus

June 22nd, 2011 · Comments Off on Janus

A round to see in a new year. It’s palindromic, except for that flickering F and F#.

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Tags: *Music · J

The INFO Journal

June 21st, 2011 · 2 Comments

I drew Charles Fort for the cover of the 72nd issue of the INFO Journal, published by the International Fortean Organization. The drawing has also been reproduced on a tee-shirt, and a few other places. Whenever it’s reprinted, I add a few more scraps of paper.

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Tags: *Cartoons · I

A Grim Reckoning

June 20th, 2011 · 1 Comment

“A Grim Reckoning” is one of my more gothic offerings. It began its life as incidental organ music for “Misguiding Lights,” a dance/theater piece by Pam Quinn and Michael O’Connor. I reworked it for viola and electronic organ, and performed it on the “No Soap Radio” series at Dance Theater Workshop, in NYC, in 1996, […]

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Tags: *Music · G

Fort and Those Damned Books of His

June 20th, 2011 · Comments Off on Fort and Those Damned Books of His

On the occasion of Jim Steinmeyer’s biography of Charles Fort, I contributed an article to Fate on Fort’s books: his style, models, and reception. Among other things, I pointed out his Pyrrhonist and Bohemian tendencies; and compared his comic and speculative use of science with Jarry’s ‘pataphysics. Here’s the first page.  

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Tags: *Words · F