Alphonse Allais (1854-1905) was France’s greatest humorist. His elegance, scientific curiosity, preoccupation with language and logic, wordplay and flashes of cruelty inspired Alfred Jarry, as well as succeeding generations of Surrealists, Pataphysicians, and Oulipians. THE SQUADRON’S UMBRELLA collects 39 of Allais’s funniest stories — many originally published in the legendary paper LE CHAT NOIR, written for the Bohemians of Montmartre. Included are such classic pranks on the reader as “The Templars” (in which the plot becomes secondary to remembering the hero’s name) and “Like the Others” (in which a lover’s attempts to emulate his rivals lead to fatal but inevitable results.) These tales have amused and inspired generations, and now English readers can enjoy the master absurdist at his best. As the author promises, this book contains no umbrella and the subject of squadrons is “not even broached.”

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

“Domestic Animals” was published by Parker Brothers; there is no date. It contains 56 cards, with pictures of domestic animals and facts about them. The object is to pair animals with similar characteristics: for example, the horse can be paired with the cow, since they both eat grass.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Guillaume Apollinaire, in his preface to a French edition of Fanny Hill, offered a look at dinner in that period. He may have paraphrased it from the book (I never read it); at any rate, here it is, in my translation.

Here is a description of a fine English dinner in the month of June.

A meal of this kind generally lasted more than four hours, and the diners were usually silent.

For the first course, the round table was laden one one side with a roast ham, resting sluggishly on a bed of fava beans. An enormous roast beef was on the other side. A plate of cauliflower adorned the middle of the table, flanked by two saucers, one with butter, and the other with a sauce of ginger and other spices. In a pot was found an undercooked stew, and, in front of it, a platter covered with chickens drowning in butter.

Then, a fat goose was served, followed by a turtle, peas without sauce, boiled in water to preserve their green color, and a sort of crunchy tart stuffed with gooseberries.

The guests had before them tumblers for the common wine, silver pots for beer, a plate, an iron fork with two tines, and a saberlike knife, rounded on one end to use as a spoon. Napkins were unknown.

After the second course, the tablecloth was removed, and dessert was served: strawberries, melon, cheese, and five or six kinds of wine. French glasses were brought, and toasts were raised, beginning with the health of the King. They continued with the health of the ladies.

Then punch was served, followed by tea and coffee, with bread and butter.

In one corner of the room was the pisspot, where everyone relieved himself without shame, and as the windows were usually kept closed, the fumes of the urine, mixing with the fumes of the liquor and wine, made the atmosphere unbreathable for any but the English.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

This incomplete deck of 18 comes with no box or explanation. I don’t know if it was a game, or simply a collection of humorous pictures. At any rate, I like the vigorous, naive woodcuts.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Casanova gives us a glimpse into etiquette in 18th century London, as only he can. Here it is, in my translation, from Volume 9, Chapter 10 of his memoirs.

Going toward Buckingham House, I see in the bushes, some twelve or fifteen steps to my left, an indecency which surprises me. Four or five men at different distances doing their necessities, and showing their behinds to all who pass.

“This is indelicate,” I say to Martinelli. “It would be better if those swine turned toward us.”

“Not at all, for then they would be recognized, and probably watched, whereas when they show us their ass, they oblige us, unless we are unusually curious about that part, not to look.”

“That is well reasoned, my friend, but it is new to a foreigner, so please excuse me.”

“You may have noticed that when an Englishman is walking in the street, and needs to make water, he does not do as in our countries, and piss on someone’s door, or alley, or courtyard.”

“I have noticed that. They turn to the middle of the street, and piss there. But those who ride by in coaches see them, and that is not good, in my opinion.”

“Who says that those who ride by in coaches have to look?”

“That is also true.”

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

A postcard taken from my book Horoscrapes can be found in the upcoming issue of Cabinet (#55). You can buy a copy, remove the postcard, and mail it, using our postal system.

My translation of Alphonse Allais’s 1893 collection, The Squadron’s Umbrella (Le parapluie de l’escouade), is due out this month from Black Scat Books. This is the master in his prime, with stories, playlets, parodies, poems, topical humor, and more, including some of his best. This is its first translation into English.

Slated for later this year is my translation of The Zombie of Great Peru (Le Zombi du Grand-Pérou) by Pierre-Corneille de Blessebois. This 1697 tale of sex, slapstick, betrayal, and occult shenanigans marks the first recorded use of the word “zombie.” It will come with an introduction by Guillaume Apollinaire, also translated for the first time.

I will be doing a series of musical talks at Brooklyn’s Morbid Anatomy Museum in the spring. The general title is “Anomalous Music”; on March 25 is “Music from Ultraterrestrials” (music ascribed to fairies and aliens), on April 1 is “Music from Occultists, Secret Societies, and Fraternal Orders,” and on April 8 is “Musical Curiosities” (agricultural plainchant, Solrésol, music by Rameau’s nephew, and more). Details will follow.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

This ad, taken from the back matter in a 1920 edition of The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, proclaims that reading is “the greatest pleasure in life.” The reason, we are told, is because reading lets us escape our awful lives without having to get any exercise. Sounds good.

The Fortean Society was founded by writer Tiffany Thayer in 1931, to promote the work of Charles Fort. By sheerest coincidence, two of its founding members, Ben Hecht and Alexander Woollcott, contributed to the same anthology, Nonsenseorship, back in 1922. They both wrote essays decrying censorship, and were duly caricatured by Ralph Barton. Here, then, are these two rare caricatures, from the troubled and talented Barton.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Happy New Year!

I’m turning 60, and will mark the occasion with a program of my songs and instrumental music at the magnificent Jalopy Theater. I will be on uke, keyboard, and vocals; I will be joined by Doug Roesch on guitar and Ralph Hamperian on tuba. Come hear selections from my long and unusual career! Come hear the music I wrote when I was six! It’s at 315 Columbia Street, Brooklyn, Saturday Jan. 10, 9 pm, $10.

A postcard taken from my book Horoscrapes will be included in the upcoming issue of Cabinet magazine. Watch for it!

My next translation of the inimitable French humorist Alphonse Allais (known to the ‘Pataphysical College as the ‘Patacessor, and to Oulipo as an Anticipatory Plagiarist) will be out in February from Black Scat Books. It’s called The Squadron’s Umbrella, and includes 39 stories taken from Le Chat Noir and Le Journal.

I will be doing more lectures at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn; more details to follow.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Let us sing the simple radish,
Always chic but never faddish,
Sing its praise and not its kaddish,
Let us sing the simple radish.

Radishes are tasty, inexpensive, crunchy, high in vitamins, and low in calories.  Naturally, this makes them unpopular in the US, where people prefer bland and fatty foods.  Radishes have played an important part in the Ullage Group kitchen lately; so, in this season of nasty heavy holiday food, here is some lighter fare.

I’ve never been a fan of radishes in salad; I don’t think they go well with lettuce.  One of my favorite ways to eat them is with salt, washed down with cold ale.

Radishes have traditionally been eaten for breakfast, with bread and butter.  This is nice enough, if you like bread and butter; the radishes add some flavor to the bland tartine.  The leaves, by the way, are quite tasty, and you can top bread and butter with them too, in a variation of the old-fashioned lettuce sandwich (as jazz buffs know, Johnny Hodges’s favorite snack).

Like all root vegetables, radishes can be cooked in different ways, although I suppose you lose some vitamins.  Radishes and baby red potatoes look a lot alike; you can boil them together, and enjoy them with salt and butter.

If you’d like to saute them, you can try this.  First, saute parsley and chopped garlic in olive oil until brown.  Then add sliced mushrooms and radishes, with water and salt.  When the water has cooked away, add a splash of white wine or marsala.  You can put this on pasta, if noodles beckon.

Samuel Pepys noted in his diary that he ate buttered radishes.  This has puzzled some commentators, who assumed he ate them raw.  I suspect, though, that he roasted them.  You can do that too, by simply wrapping them in foil, or dumping them in a casserole dish, with butter or olive oil, and letting them sit in an oven for a while.  I usually add garlic, sage, and other root vegetables: potatoes, yams, turnips, carrots, parsnips.  Black radishes, which are larger and woodier, are good this way too.

If the season makes you saddish,
Cheer up with the simple radish.

POSTSCRIPT:  I have just been informed that, coincidentally, December 23 is the Noche de Rabanos in Oaxaca, Mexico.  Large radishes are carved with faces, the way pumpkins are carved for Halloween in this country.  You could try that too.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)