We Are Not Sheep is now available from Black Scat Books!

This delightful collection, first published in 1896, shows the peerless French humorist Alphonse Allais in full pursuit of the ridiculous. You’ll find  a painter who trains bats to act as a parasol, the love life of a one-man band, a plan to make sandals from the skin of the poor, the military use of legless soldiers, the man who couldn’t decide where to put his beard when he slept, and much more: 44 stories, plus four extra stories elected for this edition. Translated, annotated, and introduced by Doug Skinner. Designed by Norman Conquest, and with a frontispiece by Corinne Taunay.

And it’s available on Amazon.

Bed Bug: A Magazine of the Arts is now available from Black Scat Books! Here’s the description from its editor, Norman Conquest:

As the world comes to an end, and the bed bug infestation spreads from France throughout Europe, it is time for a journal devoted to infestation, invasion, and chaos.

Featuring works by Alphonse Allais, Tim Anderson, Tom Bradley, Norman Conquest, Farewell Debut, R J Dent, Larry Fondation, Jesse Glass, Boris Glikman, Rhys Hughes, Harold Jaffe, Amy Kurman, Terri Lloyd, John-Ivan Palmer, Jason E. Rolfe, Paul Rosheim, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Doug Skinner, Yuriy Tarnawsky, Corinne Taunay, Catrin Welz-Stein, Tom Whalen, Carol White. and D. Harlan Wilson.

I contributed a translation of a story by Alphonse Allais (“An Excellent Trick”), a poem (“Lord Bedbug”), and a piano piece (“BEDBAG”). And you can find it on Amazon!

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

The Potato Farm is now available! This collection of thirty stories is my first book of short fiction since The Snowman Three Doors Down in 2018.

What happens when constellations socialize, when Faust and the Devil start drinking, when imaginary friends gain imaginary friends, when Sleeping Beauty and Rip van Winkle trade places, when Duncan paints a cockatrice, when a terrifying Werechurch roams the land? And was it really a good idea for August and Collier to start that potato farm, especially given Collier’s troubled past? You’ll find slapstick, vivid characters, fictional physics, and surprising narratives, often filtered through stringent constraints to keep the language lively. If you read only one book this year, read this one over and over again!

It’s designed by Norman Conquest, published by the delightful people at Black Scat Books, and available on Amazon.

Doug Skinner

Typo 3 is now available! For the third issue of this inimitable publication, I contributed a parody of Oscar Wilde (“Bosie’s Translation”), an article on the design of single-serve salt packets, a design for a Hawaiian Ouija board, and a translation of a letter by Aloysius Bertrand, as well as examples from my collection of antique calling cards.

My estimable fellow contributors are Tim Newton Anderson, Tom Barrett, André Breton, Jahan Cader, Norman Conquest, Farewell Debut, R J Dent, Germaine Dulac, Eckhard Gerdes, Boris Glikman, Vasilisk Gnedov, Amy Kurman, Edward Lee, Emilia Loseva, Gabriel Pomerand, R. Prost, De Villo Sloan, Robert R. Thurman, and Nico Vassilakis.

It’s edited by Norman Conquest, published by Black Scat Books, and available on Amazon.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

A Concise Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality is now out from Black Scat Books and available on Amazon! I was one of many scholars who contributed to this essential reference work. Here’s Black Scat’s description:

First came the groundbreaking Le Scat Noir Encyclopaedia in 2017. Three years later we launched the pataphysical classic Le Scat Noir Encyclopédie et Dictionnaire de la Pataphysique, des arts et du savoir humain: Volume Deux (in English of course). Today we’re pleased to announce a handy reference destined to become a bestseller among scholars and sex fiends: A Concise Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality — a conveniently sized paperback – perfect for beach orgies or boring church sermons. It’s a volume you’ll want to keep within reach in the bedroom or bath. And it’s guaranteed to answer all your questions. (If not, it’s packed with illustrations to ogle and drool over.)

The Encyclopedia features this distinguished panel of 24 experts of various sexual proclivities: Tim Anderson, Mark Axelrod, Tom Barrett, Cathy Bryant, Lenny Cavallaro, Norman Conquest, Rémy Dambron, R J Dent, Eckhard Gerdes, Jesse Glass, Malcolm Green, Rhys Hughes, Victor Hugo, Amy Kurman, Michael Leigh, David Moscovich, Opal Louis Nations, Peter Payack, Derek Pell, Sourav Roy, Jessica Ross-Dreher, Paul Rosheim, Doug Skinner, and Tom Whalen.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

That remarkable Welsh writer, Rhys Hughes, edited this delightful anthology, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: light verse about life and other heavy things. I’m one of 39 contributors, with seven fables in verse. It’s published by Gibbon Moon Books, and can be found on Amazon.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

The Man Who Ate His House is now available from Black Scat Books and available on Amazon!

For this curious little volume, Derek Pell and I selected plots from the cautionary writer’s manual 101 Plots Used and Abused (James N. Young, 1945), modified and combined them in various ways, and fed them to ChatGPT. The sixteen stories that resulted are funny, surprising, and not quite human. A.I. might never replace human literature, but we’re proud of our robot pal’s efforts.

A few reactions:

“A brilliant concept: A bot writes stories based on tried-and-true tropes (that are ostensibly to be avoided under the guidance of the 1945 manual: 101 Plots Used & Abused). The stories in The Man Who Ate His House run the gamut of laugh out loud humorous, sardonic, tear-jerking, and engaging—often ending with a moral to ponder. There is a thread that runs through each story that points directly to the algorithmic life experience of the bot. As a short story writer, I am not sure whether to view A.I. as a fraud to be outed, or as a viable contender in the literary world. One thing that I do know is that if A.I. is ever given a soul, we are all doomed.” —Amy Kurman

“These delightful entertainments are funny, smart, and slick.” —D. Harlan Wilson

“You’ve heard about A.I., but have you ever read sixteen A.I. generated stories? The result will surprise and delight.” —Adrienne Auvray

“This book is a lifejacket for those who fear artificial intelligence.”—Paul Rosheim

“A tour de force of inanity.” —Tom Whalen

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

There have been many card games that direct the players to collect panels from a comic strip. The earliest I’ve seen is this miniature deck featuring Richard Outcault’s popular characters Buster Brown and Tige. The cards can also be used as a regular deck, no doubt inspiring new stories. The back is also quite nice.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Typo #2 is now out and ready to be read!

This sporadic periodical calls itself a “Journal of Lettrism, Surrealist Semantics, and Constrained Design.” I contributed brief articles on alien alphabets and the principles of double talk, the score for my musical transcription of “lorem ipsum dolor,” and translations of Guillaume Apollinaire, Pierre Albert-Birot, and Gaston de Pawlowski, The editor and designer is Norman Conquest (aka Derek Pell); the other contributors are Mark Axelrod-Sokolov, Tom Barrett, Allan Bealy, Miggs Burroughs, Jahan Cader, Janina Ciezadlo, Farewell Debut, R J Dent, Karen Eliot, Paul Éluard, Paul Forristal, Ryan Forsythe, Jesse Glass, Rick Henry, Rhys Hughes, Rory Hughes, Alfred Jarry, Richard Koman, Márton Koppány, Amy Kurman, Peter F. Murphy, Pata-No UN LTD, Harry Polkinhorn, Tom Prime, Jason E. Rolfe, Ded Rysel, Giovanni Antonio Tagliente, Félix Vallotton, Andrew C. Wenaus, Adolphe Willette, Carla Wilson, and William Wordsworth.

Available, like so many things, on Amazon.

An Afternoon in the Arboretum is now available on Bandcamp! This album contains solely instrumental music, mostly for keyboard, from as early as 1976 to as late as 2022. All selections were composed and performed by Doug Skinner, and recorded and mixed by Brian Dewan:

An Afternoon in the Arboretum (2020)
Radio Valentine (1976)
Ulterior Misgivings (2020)
Twinge (2021)
Stint (2012)
Nocturne (2012)
The Gateway to the Getaway (2022)
Aftermath (2020)
Spillover (2017)
Gilding the Pyrite (2001)
Under the Weather (1983)
A Slot Machine for Wooden Nickels (2022)
On a Theme by Lewis Carroll (1994)
Lorem Ipsum Dolor (2010)

(Posted by Doug Skinner)