From an upcoming issue of Black Scat Review, here’s the beginning of a story about a fisherman and the fish who promises him wishes. Unfortunately, fish with magical powers are not always trustworthy.

THE FISHERMAN’S WISH

   The fisherman started out one bright morning, toting his rod and tackle. He was in a merry mood, and as he ambled through the woods, he plucked a budding thornflower to decorate his hat. When a host of scarlet fillyflies fluttered up from the bush, he batted at them playfully with his rod.

   Once he reached his fishing spot, under a shady tree beside a gently purling lake, he settled into it with a contented sigh. He opened his tackle box and pulled out a thermos of flavored gin, which he swigged thirstily. Then he took out a wriggling grub, fixed it to his hook, and leaned back against the tree, his hat over his eyes.

   Before long, a ripple dimpled the surface of the lake, and he felt a tug at his line. He tugged back, and, after a few more tugs in both directions, landed a gasping fish on the bank beside him. Whistling cheerily, he unhooked the hook, and was surprised to hear the fish speak.

   “Please, sir,” gasped the fish, “return me to the lake, and I will grant you a wish.”

   “A wish!” echoed the fisherman. “Why is it always a wish? Whenever they want to bargain, it’s always a wish. It’s never a check, or a basket of fruit, or a piece of jewelry. Always a wish.”

   “You might as well argue with gravity,” said the fish. “That’s the way of the world.”

   “And how do I know you can follow through?” the fisherman asked. “You look like a common everyday fish, not a sorcerer.” 

   “Watch this,” said the fish, and with one wave of his fin he turned the tree into a mossy boulder. With another wave, he changed the fillyflies to swallows, which winged up into the blue, chirping.

   “Whoa!” cried the startled fisherman. “You do have uncanny powers.”

….

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

The notes do-mi-si-la-do-ré spell domicile adoré, a phrase often cited in real estate ads and framed in happy homes. This is a little canon on the theme.

There are many things I don’t understand. In fact, I don’t understand anything at all. This song can be found in The Doug Skinner Songbook and on That Regrettable Weekend.

Here, from Bedside Nonsense (see the last post), is the beginning of a story about Deucalion, the Greek equivalent of the Jewish Noah. He had to contend with all those hybrids, and it wasn’t easy.

DEUCALION’S ARK

Deucalion had different problems than Noah’s, since he had to stock his ark in the Greek mythopoetic part of the plexiverse. Noah was in the Hebraic one, based on Berashith, or vice versa, which says that like produces like, so he could just take two of every animal, except of course for the aquatic ones, which were better off where they were. But the Greek system was full of hybrids, all those harpies, satyrs, and griffins, all made by different species mating, and all sterile besides, because even though chromosomes were different enough to allow hybrids from such distantly related species in that string of the quasiverse, they weren’t different enough to make them fertile, although that did happen sometimes, just as we sometimes get fertile mules in our particular cosmopoesis, no one knows why. So Deucalion couldn’t just round up two centaurs, because if you wanted centaurs, and many people did, as did the centaurs themselves, who were very social, you needed a horse and a human. But you couldn’t use a woman and a stallion, since the fetus would be too big for the poor lady’s uterus, so you’d have to get a man and a mare. There too, you couldn’t take any man and any mare, because most men can’t just fuck a horse, even if they agreed to it when they knew the alternative was dying in the deluge that Zeus poured onto humanity because he was so angry about that one human sacrifice, which seems unfair, but Zeus was harsh back then…

Bedside Nonsense is now available from Black Scat Books! This anthology, edited by Norman Conquest, offers a dizzying array of approaches to the nonsensical, by a lively group of writers and artists. I contributed “Amerigo and Isabella” (verses about the misadventures of Amerigo Vespucci and Queen Isabella) and “Deucalion’s Ark” (a story about the Greek Noah’s troubles in stocking his ark). The other distinguished contributors are Mark Axelrod, Tom Barrett, Angie Brenner, Ken Brown, Norman Conquest, Caroline Crépiat, Haley Dahl,  Farewell Debut, Paul Forristal, Ryan Forsythe, Penelope Goddard, Jean-Jacques Grandville, Simon Hanes, Rhys Hughes, Alexei Kalinchuk, KKUURRTT, Rick Krieger, David Moscovich, Jason E. Rolfe, Paul Rosheim, Bob Rucker, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Terry Southern, Yuriy Tarnawsky, Tom Whalen, and Carla M. Wilson. You can pick up a copy on Amazon, and then read it from cover to cover.

The nightingale is obviously a loser, since it makes no money from its song. Let’s all join in and ridicule it. The complete song can be found in The Doug Skinner Songbook.

Pink and Apple-Green is now available from Black Scat Books! By Alphonse Allais, translated, introduced, and annotated by Doug Skinner! This is the first English translation, and the first annotated edition in any language. It’s 261 pages: 44 stories, plus 5 extra stories. You can get one on Amazon.

Alphonse Allais (1854-1905) was France’s greatest humorist. His elegance, scientific curiosity, preoccupation with language and logic, wordplay, and flashes of cruelty inspired Alfred Jarry, as well as succeeding generations of Surrealists, Pataphysicians, and Oulipians. As Paul Verlaine said, “Who is fresh? Allais.”

A song on the drawbacks of having to sleep. I often performed this with a viola obbligato, played by either Carol Benner or David Gold.