Although Poe’s poem “The Raven” is a nice piece of work, it is rather insistent with its rhymes. Therefore, I’ve removed them for your reading pleasure. I’ve fixed the whole poem, but I’ll post only the first two stanzas. THE RAVEN UNRHYMED Once upon a midnight gloomy, while I pondered, weak and sleepy, Over many […]

[Read more →]

Here’s the first page of a talk on Charles Fort and his influence, which I gave at the Morbid Anatomy Museum on September 10, 2015. I tried to cover as much fortean history as possible in 45 minutes.

[Read more →]

The Blaireau Affair is now available from Black Scat Books! Alphonse Allais’s only novel, first published in 1899, has never been out of print in France, and has inspired four movies. It’s summer in the provinces, and Blaireau, the local poacher, is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. There are futile political squabbles, a […]

[Read more →]

Although Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” is an excellent work in its way, it doesn’t rhyme. I’ve remedied that with the following verses. I post here only the first and last sections. 1 I sing myself, and as I celebrate, I’ll just assume that you reciprocate; For all my atoms also are in you, So […]

[Read more →]

Here’s another excerpt from The Doug Skinner Dossier. Since it’s puzzled a couple of readers, I’ll point out that both the letters and words are complete alphabets, just not in alphabetical order. ALPHABET F is a vapor Z is an elk U is a paper S is a whelk I is a chukka W is […]

[Read more →]

Here’s another excerpt from The Doug Skinner Dossier (see last post). It’s the first bit of “Trevor’s New Job.” TREVOR’S NEW JOB “I didn’t think I’d need a job in the afterlife,” said Trevor. Mr. Wallingford smirked at him from across his desk. “Didn’t you need a job in life?” he asked. “Well, yes,” said […]

[Read more →]

The Doug Skinner Dossier is now available from Black Scat Books! This blessed compendium features articles, short stories, verses, columns, literary essays, alphabets, metrical translations, monologues, talks, cartoons, rounds, lipogrammatic smut, a puppet show, a ventriloquism routine, and a one-act play. 248 pages of pure, unadulterated Skinner. Holy cow!

[Read more →]

Here’s the beginning of a short story, “Baby Bay.” The whole thing will appear in The Doug Skinner Dossier, to be published next month by Black Scat Books. You can read this while you wait… BABY BAY High up in the treetops, old Mr. Stork shuffled into the Baby Bay, and peered over his specs […]

[Read more →]

Just in time for June Gloom, Black Scat Books proudly presents the first in a series of Black Scat Broadsides: Alphonse Allais’s “A Curious Physiological Industry,” translated by Doug Skinner. In the spirit of Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” this rare text is the master absurdist at his devilish best — a full-color, poster-sized (12 x […]

[Read more →]

In 2012, Norman Conquest kicked off the Absurdist Texts and Documents series at Black Scat Books with his illustrated adaptation of Alphonse Allais’s story Un drame bien parisien. The original limited edition is now out of print. He has just republished a new expanded edition, with an introduction and notes by Doug Skinner. You can […]

[Read more →]