Oh boy!  Oulipo Pornobongo 2 is now out, chockablock with smut and recreational linguistics.  This one features work by Opal Louis Nations, Farewell Debut, D.S. Macpherson, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Giovanni Zuniga, Derek Pell, Roger Leatherwood, Eckhard Gerdes and others.  I contribute a song, an acrostic about mating dachshunds, a translation of an 1885 story by Alphonse […]

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I was apparently interested in Oulipian constraints and recreational linguistics at an early age: I found a lipogram that I wrote when I was about ten.

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The third volume of the adventures of Captain Cap (there will be four) is now available from Black Scat Books, in a limited edition of 125.  The adventures of the prototypical ‘pataphysical antihero, first published by Alphonse Allais in 1902, have been scrupulously translated, illustrated, and annotated by Doug Skinner; they appear in English for […]

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Black Scat Review 3 is out!  I contribute a translation of Alphonse Allais’s story “Absinthes,” as well as translations of texts about Allais by François Caradec and Jules Renard.  You can purchase this desirable publication at Black Scat Books.

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Francisque Sarcey (1827-1899) was, for much of his career, the most powerful theatrical critic in Paris. He was the perfect model of the blunt bourgeois, championing common sense, anti-intellectualism, and traditional values. He favored light, commercial fare, and railed against Ibsen and Jarry. He was, predictably, a prime target for young artists. Alphonse Allais took […]

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Today is April 1, a day sanctified by the extraordinary French humorist Alphonse Allais; and I am happy to announce that it brings the release of Captain Cap, Volume 2. Allais’s stories of his absurd anti-hero, first published in 1902, have been meticulously translated and illustrated by Doug Skinner, in the second volume of a […]

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My translation of Isidore Isou’s Considerations on the Death and Burial of Tristan Tzara was displayed in the show “Manifesto,” devoted to Dada, Letterism, Fluxus, and other vanguards, and organized by Frédéric Acquaviva at Kings Place, London, 3/4/13.  Copies are still available, by the way, at Black Scat Books.

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These pinbacks are given to the first twelve who purchase Captain Cap, Volume 1.  I based the button on the only known photograph of Albert Caperon, the real Captain Cap.

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Alphonse Allais was a peerless French humorist, celebrated posthumously by the Surrealists for his elegant style and disturbing imagination.  Among other things, he wrote a series of wonderful stories about his friend Albert Caperon.  In Allais’s hands, “Captain Cap” became an adventurer and inventor, with a disdain for bureaucracy and a heroic thirst for cocktails.  […]

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