My friend Don Jolly once remarked that in this society we’re just a tube for money. With his permission, I turned the idea into a song. Here’s the first page.

TYPO 9 is now available from Black Scat Books! I contributed a translation of Alphonse Allais’s story “The Crocodile and the Ostrich,” from my upcoming translation of his book Feeding Time. Caroline Crépiat drew a lovely illustration for it, as only she can.

My fellow contributors are a stellar bunch: Chiara Ambrosio, Robert Archambeau, Pierre Bettencourt, Greg Boyd, Terry Bradford, H.V. Chao, Norman Conquest, Lynn Crawford, R J Dent, Mark Ducharme,  Jean-Luc Garneau, Edward Gauvin, Vasilisk Gnedov, Kirpal Gordon, Michael Gould, André Hardellet, Jordan Jones, Amy Kurman, Joel Lipman, Emilia Loseva, Stephen-Paul Martin, George MacLennan, Henri Michaux, Claudio Parentela, Angelo Pastormerlo, Gabriel & Marcel Piqueray, Bernard Quiriny, Renée Vivien, Danny Winkler, and Bill Wolak. The whole thing was edited and designed by Norman Conquest.

There are many songs praising sports, but few expressing disinterest in them. This song fills that need.

The Virtuoso Parrot is now available from Black Scat Books!

Claude-Sosthène Grasset d’Orcet (1828-1900) wrote hundreds of startling articles and stories about secret societies, hidden bloodlines, and his own idiosyncratic views of history. His obsession with finding puns and rebuses, in both ancient inscriptions and modern speech, influenced generations of occultists; it was the inspiration for the “language of the birds” expounded by the enigmatic Fulcanelli.

My translation is Grasset d’Orcet’s first appearance in English. It contains five of his odd and often hilarious stories and a contemporary obituary, as well as my introduction and detailed notes on his ideas and allusions.

At last, the virtuoso parrot speaks to English readers!

Here you can see Music From Elsewhere displayed at the Inquiring Minds Bookstore in New Paltz, NY. As the sign indicates, I’ll give a reading at the Elting Library on January 29. There’s more info here.

For many years, Meg Reichardt has invited musicians to contribute a song to her annual Holiday Recording Party. Thanks to her, I’ve written more holiday songs than I would have imagined. My latest one is about that hapless trio, the Three Wise Men. You can listen to it here, and here’s the first page.

This biliteral alphabet appears in the eighth issue of TYPO.

TYPO 8 is now available from Black Scat Books! I contributed “A Biliteral Alphabet” and a translation of “The Virtuoso Parrot,” a short story by the enigmatic 19th century writer Claude-Sosthène Grasset d’Orcet.

I’m surrounded by an international crowd of poets, essayists, fictioneers, and artists: Tim Newton Anderson, Tom Barrett, Terry Bradford, Steve Carll, Peter Cherches, Norman Conquest, Lynn Crawford, Jeanne Devlin,  Jean-Christophe Duchon-Doris, Albert Ehrenstein, James Montgomery Flagg, Shawn Garrett, Edward Gauvin, Vasilisk Gnedov, Michael Gould, Allan Randolph Kausch, Amy Kurman, Julia Lillard, Emilia Loseva, George MacLennan, Zach Keali’i Murphy, Opal Louis Nations,  Bernard Quiriny, Paul Rosheim, Marcel Schneider, Lono Taggers, Mark Valentine, Renée Vivien, Tom Whalen, Paul Willems, Carla M. Wilson, Danny Winkler, and Mark Wyatt. It’s edited and designed by the hard-working Norman Conquest, and it will entertain and stimulate you as only TYPO can.

You can now listen to selections from “Music From Elsewhere” on Bandcamp. I recorded 32 brief pieces from the book, with voice, piano, electronic keyboard, psaltery, sopranino recorder, and chord zither. Brian Dewan was the engineer. Here it is!

Behold! A review of Music From Elsewhere, by Louis Pattison, in the November 2024 issue of The Wire. (Please click for magnification.)