The Air at the Top of the Bottle

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Entries Tagged as '‘pataphysics'

How Santa Claus Operates

December 24th, 2022 · Comments Off on How Santa Claus Operates

If you’ve ever wondered how Santa Claus operates, here’s the answer. This illustration is taken from Flying Saucers Close Up, by John W. Dean, published in 1969 by Saucerian Books. Please click on it to see it better. Happy Holidays! (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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Tags: 'pataphysics · Belief Systems

Patents Pending

February 8th, 2021 · Comments Off on Patents Pending

Patents Pending is now available from Black Scat Books, and can be obtained on Amazon! The inimitable Derek Pell and I came up with a book chock-full of new inventions. I’ll let Derek give the pitch: The 41st volume in our seminal Absurdist Texts & Documents series has arrived: PATENTS PENDING by Derek Pell and Doug […]

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Tags: 'pataphysics · Books

Le Scat Noir Encyclopédie, Tome Deuxième

December 15th, 2020 · Comments Off on Le Scat Noir Encyclopédie, Tome Deuxième

The second volume of Le Scat Noir Encyclopédie is now available! This cornucopia of information, like its predecessor, is edited by Norman Conquest and published by Black Scat Books. I was among over forty contributors; my contributions include articles on Aleatoric Temperament, Boxing Kangaroo Rats, Communion Waffles, Spicy Railroad Stories, Viper Midwives, and other more […]

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Tags: 'pataphysics · Books · Education

The Pope’s Mustard-Maker

August 11th, 2019 · Comments Off on The Pope’s Mustard-Maker

The Pope’s Mustard-Maker is now available from Black Scat Books! Translated by Doug Skinner! Le Moutardier du pape was the last work that Alfred Jarry finished, a few months before his death in 1907. It was one of many operettas he worked on in his last years, and one of the few he finished: a bawdy […]

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Tags: 'pataphysics · Literature

Le Scat Noir Encyclopaedia

December 4th, 2017 · Comments Off on Le Scat Noir Encyclopaedia

Le Scat Noir Encyclopædia offers “All human knowledge in a single volume.” It contains entries from Acrostic to Zwine, and features contributors from around the world—some of whom are distinguished professors at prestigious universities. Others are Nobel Prize winners, while a few have been arrested on felony charges. Discover rare factoids, flash fiction, nubile moon […]

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Tags: 'pataphysics · Books

The Complete Works of Alphonse Allais (7-9)

July 14th, 2014 · Comments Off on The Complete Works of Alphonse Allais (7-9)

The fourth volume of Allais’s posthumous works (1968, 484 pp.) collects his column, La Vie Drôle, from Le Journal, 1897 to 1901.  The cover is attributed to Massin. The fifth volume of posthumous Allais (1968, 489 pp.) collects his contributions to Le Journal from 1901 to 1904.  The cover is again attributed to Massin.  The […]

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Tags: 'pataphysics · Alphonse Allais · Literature

The Complete Works of Alphonse Allais (4-6)

June 30th, 2014 · Comments Off on The Complete Works of Alphonse Allais (4-6)

The rest of François Caradec’s edition of Alphonse Allais’s works is devoted to the “posthumous works.” The term is not quite accurate; almost all of the material was published in Allais’s lifetime. However, it wasn’t included in the collections that Allais himself called his “anthumous works.”  By Caradec’s count, there are 1,887 articles, novels, pamphlets, […]

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Tags: 'pataphysics · Alphonse Allais · Literature

The Complete Works of Alphonse Allais (1-3)

June 23rd, 2014 · 3 Comments

Since so little is available in English about Alphonse Allais, and since I’m translating him, I think it would be useful to post a description of his complete works.  The standard edition was edited by François Caradec, and published by La Table Ronde in eleven volumes, from 1964 to  1970.  I’ll summarize it in four […]

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Tags: 'pataphysics · Alphonse Allais · Literature

Captain Cap: The Trade Edition

October 11th, 2013 · 2 Comments

  The trade edition of Captain Cap is now available!  Alphonse Allais’s hard-drinking, proto-pataphysical antihero, based on his friend Albert Caperon, bullies bartenders, swindles prostitutes, travels the world, and offers such useful inventions as the smell-buoy, the kangacycle, volatile ink, the bacteria motor, and much more.  This edition collects the four installments previously published by […]

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Tags: 'pataphysics · Alphonse Allais · Literature

Captain Cap, Volume 3

August 5th, 2013 · Comments Off on Captain Cap, Volume 3

The third volume of the adventures of Captain Cap (there will be four) is now available from Black Scat Books, in a limited edition of 125.  The adventures of the prototypical ‘pataphysical antihero, first published by Alphonse Allais in 1902, have been scrupulously translated, illustrated, and annotated by Doug Skinner; they appear in English for […]

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Tags: 'pataphysics · Alphonse Allais · Books