Translating verse is difficult enough; it’s harder to try to retain the rhyme and meter.  Some paraphrase is always required, but it often comes closer to the original poem than a more literal rendition.  It is, at any rate, a challenging writing exercise.  Here’s my version of a verse by Jean de la Fontaine, from his […]

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I delivered this brief talk at the “Congress of Curious Peoples,” at the Coney Island Museum, May 1, 2014.  It concerned the attempts by fans of the pulp writer Richard Shaver to build the machines he described in his stories.  Here’s the first page…

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Bill Irwin, Michael O’Connor and I performed The Regard of Flight frequently between 1980 and 2003.  It seemed, at times, that we would spend the rest of our lives doing it.  Its last run at the Signature Theater in NYC, however, laid it peacefully to rest.  I wrote this verse in 1991, as we prepared […]

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The sixth issue of Black Scat Review is now out; and it contains my translation of “The Unicolorist” by Jules Moy, a monologue about monochromatic painting from 1897.  I also contributed an introduction about Moy, and about the history of monochromatic painting in the Belle Époque.  It also contains delightful work by Nin Andrews, Ivan […]

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Merde à la Belle Époque is now available from Black Scat Books! Doug Skinner has chosen, translated, and annotated a choice selection of scatological texts from Paris’s Bohemian heyday. The texts range from 1883 to 1902, and include poems, stories, a play, a rebus and a letter. You will find Alphonse Allais, George Auriol, Georges […]

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Videos of me reading from my translation of Alphonse Allais’s book, Captain Cap: His Adventures, His Ideas, His Drinks, have been posted here and here.  Thanks to Farewell Debut for shooting them; and to Derek Pell for posting them.  And thanks to Anthony Matt for the photo.

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Although I had sometimes suspected this was true, it was gratifying to see it in print.  Linette Lao and Mark Maynard visited Italy in 2003, and wrote some travel notes for the 14th issue of their magazine, Crimewave USA.  I had given them some useful advice, which, fortunately, they finally remembered.

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There will be a reading and book launch, from and for Captain Cap: His Adventures, His Ideas, His Drinks, by Alphonse Allais: now translated, annotated, and illustrated by Doug Skinner, and published by Black Scat Books. Allais’s proto-pataphysical antihero, the inventor and explorer Captain Cap, expounds on such subjects as the kangacycle, the antifilter, and […]

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  Black Scat Review 5 is now available from Black Scat Books!  This one contains “Captain Cap Plays a Trick,” an excerpt from my translation of Alphonse Allais’s  Captain Cap, also available at the same link.

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I wrote an introduction for this collection of magazine articles and lectures by John Keel, edited by  Andrew Colvin.  For more on John Keel, look here.  To order the book on Amazon, look over here.

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