“The Greenwich Village Epic,” aka “Way Down South in Greenwich Village,” or “Down in Dear Old Greenwich Village” is often quoted in books on the Village. It’s usually credited to a famous Village character of the ’20s, Bobby Edwards, “the Troubadour of Greenwich Village.” (I’ve been assembling material on him, by the way; I hope to post it here […]

[Read more →]

The art of book illustration seems to have evaporated up into the ullage.  It lives on, of course, in the lively fields of children’s books and graphic novels.  But few novelists nowadays turn over a few pages to an artist to draw pictures of their stories. Which provides an excuse to post here one of […]

[Read more →]

Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639) was many things: renegade monk, heretic, revolutionary, sorcerer, proto-scientist.  He suffered exceptionally brutal torture after a failed revolution against the Spanish authorities in Naples, and spent 28 years in prison.  There, he wrote most of his works, including the classic utopian fantasy, The City of the Sun. He was also a poet, whose […]

[Read more →]

[As a postscript to “Pandora’s Music Box,” let me add this lovely imaginary instrument from Boris Vian.  It appears in his novel L’écume des jours (The Scum of the Days).  A number of artists have built plausible models of the Pianocktail; documentation can be found, here and there, on YouTube.  But let me translate the […]

[Read more →]

[As a postscript to our event about hoaxes, I’ll post this account of a memorable literary hoax that may be unfamiliar to American readers.  It’s taken from my article “Boris Vian for Anglophones,” on the life and work of that French writer/musician, in Strange Attractor Journal Two.]  The war had ended, Paris was free, and nightlife […]

[Read more →]

The speaking statue may be a uniquely Italian custom.  At any rate, I don’t know of any elsewhere. By a speaking statue, I don’t mean one that actually talks, but one that serves as a bulletin board for diatribes, slogans, and satirical verse.  An essential part of the tradition is that the statue becomes a […]

[Read more →]

There are plenty of ways to make a point quickly and emphatically, but few are as economical as a good interjection. Compared to the expressions one never runs across anymore except in Shakespeare, eighteenth century novels, and Mad Libs, most recent examples are pretty unmusical, uninspired, and linguistically dull: “wow,” “cool,” “awesome,” “Jesus.” This extends […]

[Read more →]

People lie for different reasons: cowardice (the truth can hurt), cupidity (falsehood can be more profitable), arrogance (the truth can be improved), or ignorance (the truth is unknown). I don’t know what motivated Jeanne des Armoises.  True, she got attention and cash, but she must have known it couldn’t last.  In fact, I don’t know […]

[Read more →]

Many people have asked me about a memorial service for John.  We’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, here’s a brief poem John wrote when he was sixteen.  It’s called “My Last Wish.” the thing I would like most to do is look upon my friends and hear what they say about me after my funeral ends. We’ll […]

[Read more →]

John A. Keel died a few days ago, on Friday, July 3, 2009. As some of you may know, I knew him for many years.  Larry Sloman and I were his medical proxies for the past couple of years, and did our best to help him with his legal and medical problems. He was in […]

[Read more →]