The Quotidian Kerfuffle is now available on Bandcamp!

The latest issue of Paranthropology is now out, with articles drawn primarily from Shannon Taggart’s 2025 symposium at Lily Dale, NY. I contributed “Richard Shaver: A Personal Mythology of Secret Caves and Ancient Rocks.”

The other contributors are Sharon Hatfield, Annebella Pollen, John Baker, Emily Leon, Jack Hunter, Beth Saunders, and Jean-Michel Abrassart. It’s edited by Jack Hunter, and it’s available for purchase or free download here.

TYPO 15 is now available from Black Scat Books! For this issue, I contributed translations of Alphonse Allais (“The Theatrical Crisis”) and Paul Valéry (“Beauty Is Negative,” “Test,” and “The Astonished Angel”) and a portfolio of my travel sketches.

As usual, I’m joined by a stupefying array of international writers and artists: mIEKAL aND, Erik Belgum, Steve Biersdorf, Terry Bradford, Geoff Cebula, G-O Châteaureynaud, Alex Cigale, Norman Conquest, Farewell Debut, S. C. Delaney, Shawn Garrett, Edward Gauvin, Vasilisk Gnedov, Daniel Y. Harris, Paul Kavanagh, Irene Koronas, Amy Kurman, Emilia Loseva, Louis Pons, Agnès Potier;,Bernard Quiriny, Jason Brandt Schaefer, Corinne Taunay, Igor Terent’ev, Froylán Turcios, Michel Vachey, Paul Verlaine, Tom Whalen, and Danny Winkler.

And as usual, the whole thing is designed and edited by Norman Conquest, and is available from Black Scat Books.

This rousing number teaches the importance of thrift. There aren’t enough songs about thrift. Here’s the first verse:

This little tale can be found in my collection Papa Bach and Other Stories. Here’s how it begins…

As the title indicates, this song laments life’s disappointments.

Hidden Door Journal 002, edited by Lewis Gittus, Sarah Jones, and Sarah Walker, is now available! I contributed an article on Project Hermes, the attempt by fans of the visionary writer Richard Shaver to build the telepathy machines described in his stories. The journal is published in a handmade edition of 40, and only a few remain.

It debuted at the Melbourne Art Book Fair, as you can see here.

In 1982, I was performing in The Regard of Flight, with Bill Irwin and Michael O’Connor, at Lincoln Center. To publicize the show, I was sent to be interviewed by Joe Franklin. As requested, I sang the old song “Pasadena,” which we used in the show.  Another of the guests was publicizing a tribute to Kate Smith, so Franklin, in his inimitable way, turned to me at one point and asked point-blank if I had any thoughts on Kate Smith. As it turned out, I didn’t, so I wittily stammered that she was great.

Some fooling around with scratchboard, from an old sketchbook.