One of my insomnia books recently has been The Queer, the Quaint, and the Quizzical: A Cabinet for the Curious, by Frank H. Stauffer.  It’s a compendium of odd facts, superstitions, linguistic curiosities, and folklore, published by David McKay in 1882.  Stauffer, according to what I could find, was a journalist and children’s author; with this book, he promised “Strange customs, cranks and freaks, With philosophy in streaks.”

Among its revelations was the following method of divination from the Book of Proverbs:

I’d heard of other methods of bibliomancy, but this was new to me.  I turned to my Bible and found the 31st chapter of Proverbs.  I was born on January 7th, so I read the 7th verse: “Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.”  That doesn’t sound very promising.  Maybe yours will be better.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Richard Toronto has written the definitive work on the artwork of Richard Shaver, in two volumes, with over 300 illustrations.  I wrote the introduction for the second volume, linking Shaver’s preoccupation with stones and pareidolia to the long tradition of scrying and lithomancy.  You can find it on Amazon.  Here’s Toronto’s description:

In 1960, science fiction writer Richard Sharpe Shaver discovered “rock books” on his Wisconsin farm. He concluded they were not just rocks, but intelligently designed documents, the recorded history of an ancient, pre-deluge civilization. For 15 years he decoded the rock book texts and images he found embedded in stone, and soon began painting and photographing what he found. It was an alien world that few other than Shaver could see. Shaver also wrote essays to complement his paintings. He wrote of the people and customs of Earth’s pre-history—the half human, half fish Mermen and women—documenting their daily lives in intimate detail. He left behind a body of work that has languished in obscurity for decades. Richard Toronto has gathered together the largest collection of Shaver’s art ever to see print. Presented in two volumes, with more than 300 illustrations, Rokfogo: The Mysterious Pre-Deluge Art of Richard S. Shaver presents the paintings, photographs, and essays that made up Richard Shaver’s ante-diluvian cosmology. Now considered an Outsider artist, Shaver was a pulp fiction writer during Amazing Stories’ golden era. Shunned by mainstream science fiction fans for his radical ideas, Shaver died in obscurity in 1975, leaving behind his legacy of the “sensual art of the ancients.”

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

“The Game of Birds” was published in 1897 by the Cincinnati Game Co.  That was, of course, before we killed all the passenger pigeons.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Look: happy readers!  Won’t you join them?  My translation of Selected Plays of Alphonse Allais is available from Black Scat Books.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

I’ve selected, translated, and annotated a choice selection of plays by Alphonse Allais for this book. First aired in the cabarets and theaters of Paris in the rollicking 1890s, these plays include satire, absurdism, he-she sketches, a burlesque operetta, even a play for dogs.  You’ll find ten monologues, three one-act plays, and twelve shorter skits drawn from Allais’s columns for Le Journal, Le Chat Noir, and other papers.  It also includes my introduction and notes, a frontispiece I drew, and photos from the original 1899 production of The Miserable Wretch and the Good Genie.  It’s 124 pages, and it’s available from Black Scat Books.  It’s proto-Dada at its most delicious!

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

I’m happy to report that my book The Unknown Adjective and Other Stories has been selected as an editor’s choice in the current issue of The Ironic Fantastic.  Take their suggestion, why don’t you?

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

The eighth issue of Black Scat Review is now out!  It contains my short but unpleasant story “Hardwood Mulch,” as well as seductive works by Suzanne Burns, Doug Rice, Steven Teref, Kurt Cline, Charles Holdefer, Paulo Brito, Jhaki M.S. Landgrebe,Tara Stillions Whitehead, Maria Morisot, Fox Harvard, Charlie Griggs, Monika Mori, and Tom Whalen.  You can find it at Black Scat Books.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

I (Doug Skinner, that is) will be participating in a show of artwork by Carousel contributors at the Dixon Place Gallery on September 3.

R. Sikoryak’s Carousel is Dixon Place’s longest continually running performance series, featuring a wide array of comic strip makers, graphic novelists, visual artists and luminaries from the downtown New York Theater and music worlds, presenting work in front of a live audience. It seems only natural to show these artists’ work on Dixon Place’s Gallery walls. The exhibition will feature gag cartoons, graphic novel pages, painted storyboards and more, on subjects including autobiography, classic literature, anatomy, and other heady topics.

The opening on September 3 will be followed by the Carousel performance series in the theater at 7:30 pm, with live appearances by artists showing work in The Gallery. I will be reading from my book The Unknown Adjective; Shae D’lyn and Ralph Hamperian will join me. Other artists include Brian Dewan, Emily Flake, Danny Hellman, Miriam Katin, Jason Little, Jim Torok, Kriota Willberg, and, of course, R. Sikoryak.

Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street, NY NY 10002

Opening Reception Wednesday September 3, 2014.  6 pm-7:30 pm. On view: August 29 – October 3, 2014.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

We have another “Old Maid” deck, the 30th in our survey.  This one came to me without box, date, or name of publisher; the cards are perforated, so they were probably sold as a sheet.  Sad Sam is joined by such cheerfully derogatory characterizations as Fat Fanny, Jitterbug, Sissy, and Uncle Rube; a couple of them, School Marm and Aunt Lizzie, look a lot like the Old Maid.  And for some reason, there are two Old Maids.  I suppose it’s good to have an extra.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Georges Perec followed his masterful novel La Disparition, a lipogram without the letter E, with Les Revenentes, which avoided all vowels except E.  And Les Revenentes is hilarious, bending all rules of grammar, spelling, and syntax in its rigorous pursuit of univocalism (and becoming increasingly smutty in the process).

But there is a stray O.  It was apparently not intentional, just a typo.  Remember, univocalists: be diligent!  It’s on page 81 of my copy (Julliard, 1991).