I will be presenting three programs of “Anomalous Music” at the Morbid Anatomy Museum. They will be in the form of informal talks, with musical examples on keyboard.

Wednesday, March 25: Music from the Ultraterrestrials; music attributed to fairies, banshees, trowies, gnomes, ghosts, aliens, and other supposedly nonhuman creatures. Selections include fairy tunes from Norway and the British Isles and the channeled piano music of Rosemary Brown.

Wednesday, April 1: Music from the Occult; music by Rosicrucians, alchemists, Thelemites, and members of various secret societies. Selections include Athanasius Kircher’s music of the spheres, Lawsonomy hymns, and a puzzling tune by Paschal Beverly Randolph. Plus: the proper use of a monochord.

Wednesday, April 8: A Collection of Curiosities; agricultural plainchant, artificial musical languages, the music of Rameau’s Nephew, the troubling history of the gizmo harp, and other oddities.

All events are at 8pm; admission is $8 apiece, or $20 for all three. The Morbid Anatomy Museum is at 424 Third Ave, in Brooklyn, at the corner of 7th Street. Their website is morbidanatomymuseum.org

(Depicted: Robert Fludd’s Celestial Monochord)

The Squadron’s Umbrella is now out from Black Scat Books! In the words of the publisher:

Authored by Alphonse Allais
Translated by Doug Skinner

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. THE SQUADRON’S UMBRELLA collects 39 of Allais’s funniest stories — many originally published in the legendary paper LE CHAT NOIR, written for the Bohemians of Montmartre. Included are such classic pranks on the reader as “The Templars” (in which the plot becomes secondary to remembering the hero’s name) and “Like the Others” (in which a lover’s attempts to emulate his rivals lead to fatal but inevitable results.) These tales have amused and inspired generations, and now English readers can enjoy the master absurdist at his best. As the author promises, this book contains no umbrella and the subject of squadrons is “not even broached.”

The latest issue of Cabinet, #55, is devoted to love. It contains a postcard with an excerpt from my book Horoscrapes. You can buy a copy, and send a Horoscrape through the U.S. postal system!

And the postcard can be viewed here.

Here’s a bio, for anyone who’s curious.

Doug Skinner has contributed articles and cartoons to Black Scat Review, Oulipo Pornobongo, The Fortean Times, Strange Attractor Journal, Fate, Weirdo, The Anomalist, Crimewave USA, Nickelodeon, Zuzu, Cabinet, Typo, and other fine publications. His book on anomalous music, Music From Elsewhere, was published by Strange Attractor Books in 2024. Black Scat Books has published several books of his short stories, cartoons, and songs, as well as his novel Nominata. Black Scat has also published his translations of books by Alphonse Allais, Pierre Corneille Blessebois, Caroline Crépiat, Charles Cros, Théophile Gautier, Claude-Sosthène Grasset d’Orcet, Alfred Jarry, Luigi Russolo, and Corinne Taunay.

Other translations include Three Dreams (Giovanni Battista Nazari, Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks, 2002), The Cocktail Hour (Marcel Requien and Lucien Farnoux, with Gaylor Olivier, Corps Reviver, 2017), Principles of Cerebral Mechanics (Charles Cros, Wakefield Press, 2021), and The Science of Love (Charles Cros, Wakefield Press, 2024).

He has written music for several choreographers, including ODC-San Francisco, Pam Quinn and Michael O’Connor, Virginia Mathews, Margaret Jenkins, and Helen Dannenberg; his scores for actor/clown Bill Irwin include The Regard of Flight, The Courtroom, The Regard Evening, and The Harlequin Studies.

His own theatrical productions have included Starlight (New Performance Gallery, San Francisco, 1980), Pay Attention (American Place Theater, NYC, 1984), An Attractive Production (Dance Theater Workshop, NYC, 1985), and Eddie Unchained (Dance Theater Workshop, NYC, 1993). His puppet shows with Michael Smith have been seen in such varied venues as Caroline’s Comedy Club in NYC, the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA, and Mike Kelley’s back yard. In the ’90s, he often performed with the trio White Knuckle Sandwich (with Anne Shapiro and Jen Perez); their exploits included a CD and a jingle for MTV. He also sang with The Patient Island Singers (with Brian Dewan, Clare Ellis, Nina Katchadourian, and Meg Reichardt) and performed his songs with Doug Roesch (guitar), David Gold (viola), and Ralph Hamperian (tuba). His albums That Regrettable Weekend, It All Went Pfft, An Afternoon in the Arboretum, and Music From Elsewhere are available on Bandcamp.

His cartoons have been shown at the Mary Anthony Gallery (NYC), CB’s Gallery (NYC), Dixon Place (NYC), the Flux Factory (NYC), The Mothership (Woodstock, NY), and the Elting Memorial Library (New Paltz). His videos with Michael Smith have been shown at the Whitney Museum (NYC), Somerset House (London), and the Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), and are available on a DVD from 2nd Cannons; Doug and Mike also collaborated on a mural for the Drawing Center (NYC).

TV and movie appearances include Great Performances, The ’90s, Martin Mull’s Talent Takes a Holiday, Mike’s Talent Show, Comedy Tonight!, Ed, Crocodile Dundee II, several of George Kuchar’s videos, and a smattering of commercials. He has played piano on the BBC, played ukulele on the Joe Franklin Show and at an Aerosmith release party, MC’d at the Rainbow and Stars, voiced radio spots for Listerine and YooHoo, and taught hundreds of students the ukulele. He has also lectured on various Fortean topics at the American Visionary Art Museum, the Morbid Anatomy Museum, the Bakken Museum of Electricity in Healing, the Christine Burgin Gallery, Lily Dale Auditorium, the New York Fortean Society, the International Fortean Organization FortFest, the London UnConvention, New York University, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Viktor Wynd Gallery.

He received a 1991 Fellowship in Performance from the New York Foundation for the Arts.

For many years, he has also maintained a tribute site to the writer John Keel, at www.johnkeel.com.

Place this in a stereoscope, blink your eyes rapidly in alternation, and watch what this young man can do.

A song about the few essential principles that guide our nation.

A song deploring the existence of film crews.

Every year, I do a show around my birthday (January 7th). This year, I turned 60, and celebrated the aging at Brooklyn’s Jalopy Theater on January 10. Doug Roesch and Ralph Hamperian joined me, on guitar and tuba respectively. We played a program of my songs and instrumental music, with a couple of covers.

I’m Still Bitter
Oh Dear, Oh Dear
How Pleasant to Know Mr. Skinner
Love Me Unconditionally

A Few Essential Principles
Let’s Ridicule the Nightingale
Your Parents
James
Son of a Gun
Peepee Caca Fucky Fuck

Bread and Honey
Get on the Grid
The Workman’s Friend (words by Flann O’Brien)
Film Crew

Descriptive Pieces
Waltz (from Barbara’s Album)
Strike a Match in the Morning (from The Donner Party)
Stumbling Block (from The Regard of Flight)
Jackpot (from Hungry for Fun)
Bugs, Not Drugs (from White Knuckle Sandwich)

Don’t Talk to Me
Poor Papa (by Billy Rose and Harry Woods)
People Like You

encore: Please Go Away and Let Me Sleep (by James T. Brymn and R. C. McPherson)

Here’s my setting of Flann O’Brien’s poem “The Workman’s Friend,” from At Swim-Two-Birds, with viola and tuba accompaniment. Stirring, I hope.

Here, if anyone’s interested, is an alphabetical list of the rounds I’ve written.

The Animals
The Bigot
Blackwell’s Isle
Captain Manning’s Catch
A Christmas Song
Common Sense
Ding Dong Bell (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
Dr. Quack (verses from a card game)
Election Day (William Butler Yeats)
Fundamentalists
Give Me Clouds! (Remy de Gourmont)
Government Without Religion
Gravity
Here’s to the Longest Night
Hero, Sword, and Fame (Ambrose Bierce)
Herrick 1-4 (Robert Herrick)
Homo Sapiens
If You Base Your Life on Money
The Imponderable Pillar of Worlds (Benjamin DeCasseres)
Janus
Laughter
A Leaf (Remy de Gourmont)
The Little Lamb
A Martyr
Merdrigal (Léon-Paul Fargue, my translation)
The Moron (traditional)
Nature’s Way
No Noel
People Like to Lie
Philosophy: The Last Phase (Benjamin DeCasseres)
The Pigeon
Proverbs 1-7 (traditional)
Remember Me
Time
To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing (William Butler Yeats)
To the Lions With Them! (Aleister Crowley)
Twelve