The ever-popular “Gypsy Witch” cards, from the U. S. Playing Card Co., added naive illustrations, and, of course, interpretations, to a standard deck.  The pig here is obviously enjoying its luck, abundance, and honors.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

As is my custom, I will be celebrating my birthday at the Jalopy Theater next month.  On Friday, January 3, you can hear a program of my songs and instrumental music, with David Gold on viola, Ralph Hamperian on tuba, Doug Roesch on guitar, and me on vocals, uke, and piano.

More books are forthcoming from Black Scat Books.  In the pipeline now are:

The Unknown Adjective, and Other Stories: a collection of my comics and picture stories.

Merde à la Belle Époque: a collection of scatological poems and stories from the heyday of boho Paris, with gastro-intestinal hijinks from Alphonse Allais, George Auriol, Georges Courteline, Edmond Haraucourt, Vincent Hyspa, Maurice MacNab, and Erik Satie, in my annotated translations.

Selected Plays of Alphonse Allais: a collection of short plays and monologues by the incomparable Allais, in, again, my translation.

I’ll also be contributing a translation of Jules Moy’s 1897 monologue “The Unicolorist” to an upcoming issue of The Black Scat Review.

Let me remind you, as well, that my massive (370 pages!) illustrated, annotated translation of Allais’s Captain Cap: His Adventures, His Ideas, His Drinks is available from Black Scat Books.  You can still obtain the limited edition chapbooks of Captain Cap, Volumes 2, 3, and 4; the first is now out of print.  And my edition of Allais’s tasteless mockery of the conservative critic Francisque Sarcey, How I Became an Idiot, is still to be had as well.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

“Le Jeu du Destin Antique,” a deck of 32 cards, was published by Piatnik in Vienna.  I obtained my copy in Prague many years ago.  The ace of hearts, the booklet tells me, indicates “welcome encounters, joy.”

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Stuffing oneself on dead bird to gloat over the genocide of the Indians, while muttering to an Imaginary Gaseous Vertebrate, doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t enjoy overeating, and dinners in my family were not happy gatherings: mostly my father would become drunk and belligerent, while I wanted to be elsewhere. So here, to mark the occasion, is a superb depiction of a family dinner by Frank Tashlin, who, in addition to directing cartoons and movies, was an inspired cartoonist. The drawing is taken from his 1951 book, The World That Isn’t. Please click to enlarge.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Many thanks to those of you who stopped by the Jalopy Theater to hear me read from my translation of Alphonse Allais’s Captain Cap: His Adventures, His Ideas, His Drinks.  And thanks also to Feral Foster, who brought the American Lemonade, the drink Cap enjoys in Chapter 40, to today’s palates.  Photos of the event, taken by Farewell Debut, can be found here.

ADDENDUM:  There is a charming review of the book at the blog Wuthering Expectations.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

There will be a reading and book launch, from and for Captain Cap: His Adventures, His Ideas, His Drinks, by Alphonse Allais: now translated, annotated, and illustrated by Doug Skinner, and published by Black Scat Books.

Allais’s proto-pataphysical antihero, the inventor and explorer Captain Cap, expounds on such subjects as the kangacycle, the antifilter, and the smell-buoy, as he rages against European bureaucracy and drinks an alarming number of cocktails.  This first English translation includes all of Allais’s 1902 edition, plus eight extra stories, notes, historical photos, over 50 illustrations by the hard-working translator — and, of course, recipes for Cap’s favorite drinks.

The reading will take place on Saturday, November 23, at 5 pm, at the Jalopy Theater, 315 Columbia St., in Brooklyn.  Books will be available for purchase.  The inimitable Feral Foster will be on hand to dispense complimentary Cap drinks.  For directions to Jalopy, look here; for Black Scat Books, look here.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

I am, for some reason, preoccupied with the many uses of that most ubiquitous and disposable of printed items, the cardboard rectangle.  The following is a selection of “escort cards,” which eligible gentlemen would once use to ask to walk a lady home.  They featured verses, illustrations, and rebuses, all in the service of formal courtship.

And, for good measure, some replies.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

We have another deck attributed to the famous Mademoiselle Lenormand (Marie-Anne-Adelaïde Lemormand, 1772-1843).  This one, “Le Petit Lenormand,” was published by B. P. Grimaud in 1976.  Yes, there is also a larger version.  As the instructions say, “Each card consists of symbolic and prophetic elements,” which may indicate either good or bad aspects, depending on their position in the layout.  A special card, representing Lenormand, is always placed in the center to represent the consultant.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

The fifth issue of Black Scat Review is now available!  This one contains “Captain Cap Plays a Trick,” an excerpt from my translation of Alphonse Allais’s Captain Cap.  It also features work by Mark Axelrod, Shane Roeschlein, Patrizia Valduga‏, Harold Jaffe, Brett Stout, Andy O’Clancy, Samy Sfoggia, Nile Southern, Robert Hahn, and Michela Martini.  And, of course, Nile Southern’s splendid cover.  You can find it at Black Scat Books.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Well, Happy Halloween.  If, that is, Halloween is supposed to be happy.  It’s a mysterious holiday.  At any rate, here’s an old Galician proverb to contemplate: I don’t believe in witches, but they still exist.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)