We here at the Ullage Group are intrigued by the extremes of literature. For that reason, we’ll occasionally raise a toast to an exceptional example. In this series, those will be works that are unusually short or long. The long poem is an unpopular form these days. Long movies and TV serials do well. Novels […]

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(We conclude here a short story by Paul Vibert, translated by Doug Skinner.) I can repeat the celebrated procedure of the rats’ father, a prosthetic graft, and so join together two elephants, or two whales; then, when the graft has taken, all I need do is cut a small incision for communication; and as I […]

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(We present here the second part of a short story by Paul Vibert, translated by Doug Skinner. Please read the first part for your greater enjoyment.) Obviously, there can be no question of a spacious apartment, but simply a small lodging, warm and convenient. It could be relocated at will; and man would thus solve […]

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(We have a serial for you this week: a short story by Paul Vibert, carved into three portions, so you won’t get sick by eating it all at once. I know almost nothing about Vibert, except that he wrote stories in the 1890’s, often based on scientific fantasy. His curious tales can sometimes be found […]

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Several years ago, an unusual character was leaving packets of his outpourings around Manhattan. He was apparently never discovered by the Outsider Art establishment; so I did a slide show about him, which I showed in a number of places around New York. It was also picked up by a website called “Word,” which is […]

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Translation is the ullage of literature. It’s never too respectable, although many fine writers have done it. Baudelaire probably improved Poe. I regret that Tristan Tzara never finished his version of Marlowe’s Faustus. It is, alas, impossible: you just can’t move meaning from one tongue to another; lexical fields are loose fits, syntax won’t transpose. […]

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During a dark night — both literal and figurative — I came across this passage, which I now translate: “Those who say that life is no more than an assemblage of misfortunes must find life itself a misfortune. If it is, then death is a blessing. People do not write such things when they have […]

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Fort fans will be intrigued to hear that a new biography of Charles Fort, by Jim Steinmeyer, is due out soon.  I’ve just read an advance copy, and urge you to keep an eye out for it.  Steinmeyer has scoured the archives, and come up with much fresh material; Fort’s delightful letters alone are worth the trip.  Fort’s […]

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The circle is a rich and potent symbol: of knowledge (Charles Fort’s “One measures a circle, beginning anywhere”), of divinity (the proverbial “God is a circle whose center is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere”), and of futility (those “vicious circles”), to name a few.  I know of only one passage, however, that literally dissects the circle, […]

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