Today’s Bargain

 

This book is full of shit!

But I mean that in the best sense of the word. This rare anthology features scatological texts by the following period luminaries: Alphonse Allais, George Auriol, Georges Courteline, Edmond Haraucourt, Vincent Hyspa, Maurice Mac-Nab, and Erik Satie.

It has been tastefully compiled & translated by the great Doug Skinner—the man behind Black Scat’s sublime translation of Alphonse Allais’s CAPTAIN CAP: HIS ADVENTURES, HIS IDEAS, HIS DRINKS.

For those of you too shy to carry around the limited print edition of MERDE, the publisher has also released an electronic version which can be discreetly read on your iPad

I advise everyone to obtain a copy HERE.

excerpt from DON’T WORRY, IT’S NOT ABOUT HATS

The author pulling a hat out of a rabbit. 

 

 

from DON’T WORRY, IT’S NOT ABOUT HATS (Black Scat Books)

You can order my chapbook here

Don’t Worry, It’s Only Ten Bucks

My little chapbook. Don’t Worry, It’s Not About Hats, is back in stock in a second printing. The murky brown cover of the first edition (see below) may have given the impression that the book was in poor taste and possibly offensive. Hopefully the new version will seduce the general public into purchasing it.

Hell, it’s only $10.

Feel free to order multiple copies here.

Absurd Words, Puns, & Fun

It’s all packed into this huge collection of Captain Cap tales by the great Alphonse Allais:

CAPTAIN CAP: HIS ADVENTURES, HIS IDEAS, HIS DRINKS
Translated from the French by Doug Skinner.

370 pages -- profusely illustrated with witty drawings by Skinner, plus copious notes on the translation. In addition to the complete, unabridged text of the original 1902 French edition, the book includes eight uncollected stories featuring the good old Captain. There’s also a “Cappendix” of rare historical drawings & photos,

You can grab a discounted copy on AMAZON here.

Peppo Poster

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Taking a step back and trying to be objective, Hotel Ortolan reminds me of those early paperbacks published by City Lights… little gems like A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard  and True Minds. Or, perhaps, Breton’s illustrated novel Nadja published by Grove Press. Certainly Michel Varisco’s photographs are equally haunting.

Ortolan is the sort of slender surrealist volume one dreams of encountering at a bookshop in Paris. The door on the cover dares you to enter. And, of course, you do. You open that forbidding door, step inside and then…well, it’s too late. Whalen’s words are in your bloodstream. The book is destined to be  displayed face out on one’s bookshelf, or even under glass. It’s surely not an edition one loans to a friend, as it will never be returned. It won’t find itself in a box at a yard sale in Greenwich, or at the Salvation Army in Sacramento. Maybe, just maybe, a copy will appear in the bin outside Strand in NYC, but only because it arrived from an estate sale and was mistakenly sorted by an ignorant temp.

Limited to only 125 copies, it’s already imbued with the aura of an avant-garde classic that collectors will search for without success.

“Ever seen a copy of Whalen’s Ortolan?”

Here’s your chance, only 75 copies remaining.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER

BE FAMOUS LIKE ME

from ART (IS) FOR IMBECILES by Norman Conquest

Conquest Interview: Short & Sweet

I was interviewed recently by design guru Steven Heller for his blog at PRINT.
Here’s the LINK

On the road…

Black Scat Books is moving.

Book Club

Merdre!

HOW I BECAME AN IDIOT by Francisque Sarcey (Alphonse Allais)
Translated and with an introduction & annotations by Doug Skinner
Absurdist Texts & Documents – Interim Edition No. 00

“Francisque Sarcey (1827-1899) was, for much of his career, the most powerful theatrical critic in Paris. He was the perfect model of the blunt bourgeois, championing common sense, anti-intellectualism, and traditional values. He favored light, commercial fare, and railed against Ibsen and Jarry.

He was, predictably, a prime target for young artists. Alphonse Allais took the ridicule to new heights: from 1886 to 1893, he wrote a regular column for Le Chat Noir, which he simply signed as Francisque Sarcey. The pseudo-Sarcey became a grotesque caricature of the smug middle class, a sort of proto-Ubu: an obese, gluttonous, lecherous, hypocritical dolt, prattling on about his constipation and hemorrhoids, in loosely-knit sentences studded with clichés.”—Doug Skinner

HOW I BECAME AN IDIOT includes four of Allais’s nastiest columns,

Limited Edition of 60 copies. perfect-bound. $12.50

Don’t be an idiot, order your copy right here.

The Thinking Man’s Link

http://blackscatbooks.com/2013/04/29/there-will-be-no-june-gloom-here/

SPARKS ARE FLYIN!

In 2008, the great Tosh Berman—author and publisher of TamTam Books—got on a plane with a single motive: “Sparks Spectacular.” It had been announced that the band Sparks would perform all twenty-one of their albums in a succession of twenty-one nights in London…a monumental experience for any Sparks fanatic. Part travel journal, part personal memoir, Berman takes us through the streets of London and Paris, observing both cities’ history and culture through the eye of an obsessive Sparks fan’s lens. Including album-by-album reviews of all twenty-one albums and beyond, Sparks-Tastic defines a place and time in music history that’s too defining to be ignored.

Tosh Berman, author of "Sparks-Tastic: Twenty-One Nights With Sparks in London" (A Barnacle Book) will be doing a small West Coast Reading & Signing Tour in April 2013.   The dates so far:

Tuesday April 23rd; 7 PM
Stories Books and Cafe
1716 West Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles (Echo Park), CA 90026-3225
Phone number 213-3733
http://www.storiesla.com/#home
Wednesday April 24th; 7 PM
City Lights Booksellers
261 Columbus Avenue at Broadway
San Francisco, CA 94133
Phone Number 415-362-4921
http://www.citylights.com/info/?fa=events
Thursday April 25th; 7:30 PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
1005 W Burnside
Portland, OR
Phone Number 800-878-7323
http://www.powells.com/calendar.html
Monday April 29; 7 PM
Book Soup
8818 Sunset Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Phone number 310-659-3110
http://www.booksoup.com/author-events?page=1

BOAR on the floor…

A posthumous collaboration with grand master Terry Southern has just launched over on Black Scat Books—HOT HEART OF BOAR & OTHER TASTES. I was honored to  illustrate the edition with eight collages. However, the lovely front cover image featuring Hermann Göring was done by Terry to accompany his unproduced screenplay, The Hunters of Karinhall—an excerpt of which leads off the collection and is where I discovered the book’s title.

I had intended to post a few of the pictures here, but decided they’re not suitable for a family blog such as this. Thus—if you’re morbidly curious—you’ll have to buy a copy to see them. But even without the illustrations, BOAR is worth owning since nothing can match Southern’s brand of satire.

The edition is limited to 125 copies and includes illuminating introductory texts by Nile Southern.

You can order a copy here.

I’ve been fortunate enough to illustrate two books by Southern—the other being Puritan Porn, which was published in 2007 by Paul Rosheim’s exquisite press, Obscure Publications.

It’s certainly rare to have been blessed with two opportunities to have my name attached to books by my idol. And for this I’m forever grateful to Terry’s son.

Thank you, Nile!

Why the hell not?

Since everybody else is running this poster…

Nostalgia

Canio’s Books in Sag Harbor, NY where I gave one of my rare performances in 1980. Founded by the great  Canio Pavone, the store had an ambience you won’t find at the mall…creaky floors, dust, overstuffed furniture, a touch of old Italy, and lots of quality lit, old and new. I use to hang there on Saturday mornings with writers Nelson Algren and Peter Fine.

It was hot java and great gab in a quiet corner by the window. Nelson held forth with unparalleled anecdotes (all of them true), e.g., the inside scoop on his affair with Simone de Beauvoir for god sakes..

Pleased to report the store is still open for business. If you’re in the Hamptons this summer be sure to drop in.

from MISSING MYSTERIES

The Scarlet Herring
Alphonse Allais
Hell Map Back edition (1921)
Subgenre: Wiggy Dog

A “wiggy dog” mystery, The Scarlet Herring was written in 1884
and published posthumously in America during the Genre
Famine of ‘21.

The Scarlet Herring has no plot per se, while the story revolves
around a fishwife found bludgeoned in Hester Prynne’s slop
sink. Inspector Luc Filet is assigned to investigate, but gets lost
on his way to the crime scene and winds up investigating a case
next door. Allais sprinkles false clues and bogus confessions
throughout the narrative, so it’s virtually impossible for anyone
to solve. Adding insult to injury, chapters appear out of
sequence, and each begins with a facetious aside, e.g.,
“The butler often contemplated killing her, yet was hunting for seaweed
at the time of the murder. Alas, good kelp is hard to find.”
An adorable map1 of the Prynne estate adorns the back



When unemployed cartographer Earl Benders first proposed the idea of putting
maps on paperback mysteries, he was rudely rejected by budget-conscious
publishers. Bennett Cerf reportedly told him, “We’ve already got shit art on the
front, we don’t need more crap on the back.” However one enlightened publisher—
Hell—saw the potential for luring illiterate readers and, in 1921, launched
the series known as “Map Backs.” The Scarlet Herring by Alphonse Allais was
the first to appear.



Dust jacket of the hardbound
edition published by
Alfred E. Knopf of The Collected
Works of Alphonse Allais:
Vol. I. The Scarlet Herring
(1920). It features an excerpt
from the novel on the back.

from MISSING MYSTERIES: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF NONEXISTENT MYSTERIES (1840-2013) by Derek Pell

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