Some piano music, rumbling in the bass, using a C minor scale with an F-sharp in it.

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This story appears in Black Scat Review 19. Owen has rather a difficult time in it. Here’s how it begins: UP TO THE SUMMIT Owen slipped, and fell 25,000 feet to the jagged rocks below. Fortunately, he was unharmed. “Whoa!” he exclaimed, as he staggered to his feet. “I’d better be more careful.” A tall […]

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Upside-Down Stories is now available from Black Scat Books! Charles Cros and Émile Goudeau were quintessential Bohemian poets of the 1880s. Cros also experimented with the phonograph and color photography; Goudeau founded the Hydropathes, who met to declaim poetry while not drinking water. Cros and Goudeau’s only collaboration was a series of five exuberant stories […]

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Uncle Bertie’s ankles are subjected to quite a bit of abuse in this song.  In subsequent verses, they’re bitten, kicked, broken, stung, and burned.  Finally, he’s eaten by a bear, leaving the ankles unharmed.  Poor Uncle Bertie!

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The Unknown Adjective has arrived! “Mr. Skinner knows many terrible, terrible secrets about us. We are once again fortunate that he chooses to share them so deftly and so altruistically.” —Mark Newgarden “Witty and ingenious comics from the exceptionally-talented writer, musician, performer, ventriloquist, and cartoonist Doug Skinner. It’s exciting to finally have these little-seen strips available […]

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I’ve long been intrigued by the hapax legomenon, the word that appears only once.  (See here for a musical version.)  There is, as it happens, a hapax in the Pater Noster; I confected this cartoon essay about it (this is just the first page, mind you).  

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The Ullage Group deserves a mention on this site. Anthony Matt and I had contemplated forming a Fortean Society, along the lines of John Keel’s old group, and like those currently meeting in pubs in Dublin and Edinburgh. We finally opted for a semi-fortean group, and chose as our emblem “ullage,” a fine old word […]

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For the 2006 UnConvention, the annual convention organized by the Fortean Times in London, I gave a talk on “Evolution and Pop Culture,” and presented a “Cabinet of Musical Curiosities.”  Here’s the line-up; I was in fine company..

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For my first appearance at the UnConvention, the weekend bender organized by the Fortean Times, I gave talks on the Count of Saint-Germain and Richard Shaver.  The nice folks at FT even hired a ‘cellist for me, so that I could sing a couple of the Count’s songs with a proper continuo.

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In 2002, the nice people at the Fortean Times invited me to give a couple of talks at their annual UnConvention.  I gave one on John Keel and the Mothman, tying in with the film that was just released; and the other on the scientific method.  At Keel’s request, I introduced a talking frog puppet […]

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