This story, in which genial King Merrimack and his garrulous physician Celso have to contend with the surly Prince Zebu, can be found in Black Scat Review 25. Here’s how it begins:

KING MERRIMACK

   King Merrimack threw back his quilt, and sat up to look out the window. It was a cold November morning, the castle grounds swirling with mist beneath a leaden sky. He arose and changed into his regal robes. No sooner had he pulled on his second slipper than the court physician, Celso, hobbled into his bedchamber.

   “Good morning, Your Majesty,” said Celso, with a stiff but gracious bow.

   “Good morning, Celso,” replied King Merrimack. “What day is it, anyway? I lose track this time of year.”

   Celso fingered his long white beard and thought for a moment.

   “It’s Tuesday,” he said, “and you lose track of the days because they’re so much alike in November. Yesterday was a damp and chilly day like this, as was the day before.”

   “Not the best day to dedicate a hospital,” the king remarked, carefully centering his coronet on his bald spot.

   “I suppose not,” admitted Celso.  

   “Why is it called Tuesday, anyway?” asked the king.

   “It’s the second day of the week,” explained Celso.

   “That makes sense,” said the king.

   “The days of the week were originally Onesday, Twosday, Threesday, and Foursday,” continued Celso, “but during the Great Vowel Shift of the 15th century, they became Wednesday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. And so they remain today.”

…

A piece for two melody instruments and keyboard.

My translation of The Art of Noises is now available from Black Scat Books!

Luigi Russolo’s treatise on enriching music with noises was published in Milan in 1916. It contains his 1913 Futurist manifesto on noises, as well as his accounts of building noise instruments, his riotous concerts, his notation, and analyses of the noises of nature and technology. My translation sticks closely to Russolo’s ebullient style, and adds notes and an introduction on contemporary receptions and on Russolo’s later work. All of Russolo’s scores and instruments are lost, but his ideas have inspired generations of experimental musicians.

This marks the tenth anniversary of Black Scat Books, and editor Derek Pell (aka Norman Conquest) designed a beautiful edition for the occasion. You can find it on Amazon.

For those keeping track, this is my first Italian translation since 2002, when I translated Giovanni Battista Nazari’s alchemical dream vision Three Dreams for Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks in Glasgow. My, how time flies.

A brooding piece for bass recorder and piano.

Here’s another study in wet tuning, the practice of slightly detuning two pitches to give a richer sound. It’s often used in accordions. Here, I detune double melody strings on a chord zither. As in the diatonic study, I offer two possibilities.

Wet tuning is the practice of slightly detuning two pitches to give a richer sound. It’s often used in accordions. Here, I detune double melody strings on a chord zither. And I offer two possibilities.

This interlude uses five pitches around middle C: 250, 255, 260, 265, and 27o Hz. I retuned a chord zither, but a digital keyboard would also work.

The 25th issue of Black Scat Review is now out and ready for you to read! This one is subtitled “Lewd, Nude, and Rude,” and contains three of my contributions: “King Merrimack,” in which the eponymous monarch and his physician Celso receive a boorish visitor; “The Noble Apothecary,” my translation of a 1664 novella by Jean Donneau de Visé, concerning love, jealousy, and enemas; and “English Etiquette,” my translation of a brief passage from Casanova on the finer points of relieving oneself in public.

You can also savor the work of Mark Axelrod, Thomas Barrett, Sebastian Bennett, Norman Conquest, R J Dent, Dawn Avril Fitzroy, Eckhard Gerdes, Alexander Krivitskiy, Amy Kurman, Hélène Lavelle, Marc Levy, Olchar E. Lindsann, Clément Marot, Lilianne Milgrom, Alison Miller, T. Motley, Angelo Pastormerlo, Gerard Sarnat, Valéry Soers, Gregory Wallace, Tom Whalen, and David Williams. The whole thing is edited and designed by Norman Conquest (with contributing editors Farewell Debut and Nile Southern), and is available on Amazon.

Seven pitches are used: 410, 420, 430, 440, 450, 460, and 470 Hz. I retuned a chord zither, but a digital keyboard would also work. Here’s the first page:

Caroline Crépiat holds up my translation of her book Le Chat Noir Exposed, at an art show in Paris.

If you haven’t read it yet, this may remind you that you’ve been meaning to.