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 set of four.  This volume contains 15 stories and 17 illustrations, and is published in an edition of 125 by Black Scat Books.

The first volume recorded the real life Cap, Albert Caperon, and his tumultuous foray into politics.  The second is devoted to his fictional exploits, as he boasts of his dubious accomplishments, insults his friends, bullies bartenders, and consumes many elaborate cocktails.  You’ll learn the disgusting history of Meat-Land, the origin of polar bears, Cap’s plans for interstellar communication and recycled confetti, his unconvincing experiments with hypnotism, and, of course, all about the apparent symbiosis between the boa and giraffe.

Buy a copy today!  Memorize passages!  Color in the pictures!  And if you see me, I’ll be glad to sign it with the name of your choice.  You can order it from Black Scat Books.

A rooftop garden in London, in 2002.

Materialism and humanism are celebrated here.  That’s what we have to work with, after all.

The second issue of Black Scat Review contains one of my series “Shorten the Classics.”  Not this one, another.  Black Scat Review is available from Black Scat Books.

“Hide Hide the Cow’s Outside” was another piece I did for the Oberlin Dance Collective, back in 1976.  It was assembled from found material, bits of text and music, many having to do with Calvin Coolidge, our most taciturn president.  The performers all wore black, with tuned bells at their waists.  Margot Crosman made a superlative Coolidge; she got to wear a hat.  I was aiming for a maximum saturation of inter-association, each snippet resonating with all the others.  Here’s the first page of it:

And a review, from Laura Shapiro in the Boston Globe, 1/20/76.

A round on a quatrain by Léon-Paul Fargue, in my translation.

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.