I know that people occasionally strap on wooden feet to hoax bigfoot tracks, but had never seen any until I found this pair at the flea market.  They measure 19 inches, and are roughly carved from a knotty wood (I assume pine, but someone else may know better), and are untreated.  They show some cracking and water damage.

The previous owner put picture wire on the backs, so they could be displayed.  But you can see, on the toes and heels, holes showing they were once screwed onto something else, presumably so they could be worn.  I suspect that they were not just a woodworking project, but were used.  The man who sold them to me said he bought them at an estate sale in upstate NY, where they had indeed hung on the wall, but had no further information.

(Posted by Doug Skinner.  Thanks to Mark Pilkington for the photos, which, by the way, you can click to enlarge.)

This early edition of “Authors” dispenses with the writers’ portraits, offering instead these colorful and decorative designs.  The authors represented are Ouida, Thomas Carlyle, Wilkie Collins, and George Eliot.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Black Scat Books has just released my translation of Isidore Isou’s “Considerations on the Death and Burial of Tristan Tzara,” as the eighth of their elegant little chapbooks, “Absurdist Texts and Documents.”

Isidore Isou is little known to American readers, and few of his writings have been translated.  In the late 1940s, he founded a new literary movement, Letterism, devoted to reducing poetry to letters and phonemes.  He and his associates took to the clubs of post-war Paris to declaim their creations, often at high volume.  You can see them interviewed by Orson Welles here: that’s Isou in the middle, with Maurice Lemaître to his right, doing the talking, and Jacques Spacagna to his left.  (The club performance that follows is by Gabriel Pomerand.)

Tzara was one of Isou’s artistic heroes; in this article, he recounts his sad, hilarious, and embarrassing behavior at Tzara’s funeral.  My translation (plus introduction) is published in a limited edition of fifty copies, and available from Black Scat Books.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Our old friend Mark Pilkington is in town, on a visit from London.  We had planned to organize a second film festival, and show some of his film work, with other material.  However, his planned talk at that fine institution, the Observatory at Proteus Gowanus, has been canceled, due, as you might guess, to the hurricane.

So, we’re turning the afternoon over to him, to talk about his book Mirage Men, and his research into the ways that military and intelligence operators have shaped and exploited the UFO culture.  It will be at 2 pm, Sunday, Nov. 11, at The Jalopy Theater, 315 Columbia St., Brooklyn.  Departing from our usual practice, we will charge $10; we’ll turn it over to Jalopy for their hurricane relief fund.

Here’s more from Mark:

In his book Mirage Men: An Adventure into Disinformation, Paranoia and UFOs, author Mark Pilkington details his experiences in the UFO community, and his discoveries of the ways in which military and intelligence operators have shaped and exploited beliefs in UFOs, ghosts, monsters, vampires, and elements from folklore and conspiracy theory to create an armory of supernatural weapons of mass deception, capable of manipulating consciousness on a grand scale. He traces the inspiration for these toys, tools and techniques to a range of sources which include fiction, cinema, stage magic, advertising and occultism, and uncovers the ways in which they have–for many of its intended and unintended targets–altered their very perception and understanding of the world around us.

Mark Pilkington is the author of two books – Mirage Men: An Adventure into Disinformation, Paranoia and UFOs and Far Out: 101 Strange Tales from Science’s Outer Edge and has written for Fortean Times, the Guardian, Sight & Sound, The Wire, Frieze, The Anomalist and a host of other magazines and journals. Mark also runs Strange Attractor Press, editing and publishing its occasional Journal, and organizing events and exhibitions.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

First of all, we haven’t posted much here lately because we were hacked, and it took a couple of weeks to clean and update the site.  Our sibling sites, johnkeel.com and dougskinner.net, were also affected.  Many thanks to Kai McBride and Anthony Matt for fixing the problem.

On November 5, at 8:00, Doug Skinner will give a comics reading as part of “The Moon at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival.”  It’s in the Back Room at Public Assembly, 70 North 6th Street, in Brooklyn.  Also reading will be Gabrielle Bell, Julia Wertz, Lisa Hanawalt, Jon Rosada and Bob Walles.  There’s more info over at The Moon.

The Ullage Group will present its Second Film Festival on Nov. 11 at the Jalopy Theatre, at 2 pm.  Mark Pilkington is in town from London; so we’ll show some of his work, as well as material from Anthony Matt, Doug Skinner, John Keel, and Tiffany Thayer.

Doug Skinner will also start a new round of ukulele classes at Jalopy on Nov. 15; and will perform there with the very good violist David Gold on Nov. 24.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

This edition of “Animal Rummy” was published by Whitman.  There’s no date, but I guess it was from some time in the ’60s.  Merry Monkey, Zippy Zebra, and other brightly colored anthropomorphic animals urge you to collect them in groups of four.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

“Slap Jack” is one of those enduring children’s games that seem to quietly survive under the radar.  Of course, you can play it with a normal deck; but you may as well let a designer have fun with it.  This 1965 Whitman version uses paisley and other patterns for most of the deck, and a rather dressy chimp for the Jack.  The cards with the older Jacks are a nice touch.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Our film festival proved to be an enjoyable way to sit in the dark on a Sunday afternoon.  We were particularly happy to screen some of the films of John Keel, which had not been seen since the 1970s.  Thanks to all who attended.

I will be showing comics and picture stories, projected on the wall so that all can see, on the next “Carousel,” hosted by R. Sikoryak.  (I’ve decided that we need a moratorium on the word “curated.”)  It will be at 7:30, on Wednesday, Sept.12, at Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie St, NYC.  There is more info on the Carousel site.

Now that summer is over, you may want to head over to Jalopy, in Brooklyn, to brush up on your ukulele skills.  I’ll be teaching three levels, starting Sept. 13.  Private instruction is also available, for those who can’t stand the ruthless competition of a group class.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Here, in case you missed it, is an interview about the upcoming event, as residents of Michigan look longingly eastward.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

There’s one in every crowd.  (Please click to enlarge.)

(Posted by Doug Skinner.  The photo is from Master Course in Hypnotism, by Harry Abons, Power Publishers, 1948.)