In 1977 and 1978, I drew a comic strip for a paper in Oakland, CA, The East Bay Review. It was called “Art For Art’s Sake,” and took a cast of anthropomorphic creatures through the Bay Area arts scene. It seems pretty jejune to me now, in my dotage, but the discipline of meeting deadlines was salutary; and people told me they enjoyed it. It careered through both continuity and isolated panels; here’s one of this and two of that.

Back in 1981, while touring in Florence, I picked up a facsimile copy of this peculiar alchemical work. I was fascinated, and started a translation. Then, many years and moves later, I found my notes, and realized that I should either discard it or finish it. So, I Googled Nazari; and found that the book had not been translated; and that, in fact, a publisher of alchemical books had put out a request for someone to do it. I contacted him, he sent me money; and the result was published in 2002 by Adam McLean, of the Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks, in Glasgow, in a limited edition of 300.

It’s perhaps best known for its woodcuts, particularly the three-headed dragon below. And here’s a bit of the passage in which our narrator encounters that beastie.

I’ve often performed this song on the ukulele. I recorded it with an obbligato for baritone uke; in performance, David Gold has joined me on viola. Here’s how it begins:

A brief crab canon. I notated it in the style of a baroque puzzle canon; that saves ink.