The Air at the Top of the Bottle

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Children’s Card Games (249)

July 14th, 2020 · Comments Off on Children’s Card Games (249)

The venerable company Ed-U-Cards published their “Play-All Card Deck” in 1965. It’s simply a standard deck, 52 cards and two jokers, with artwork designed for children. The Jay Bird here is the Jack; the Queen and King are Queen Bee and King Lion. Each number card has relevant picture: a four-leaf clover for four, a glove for five. My, but there were some stylish designers around in 1965.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

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Bedside Nonsense

June 8th, 2020 · Comments Off on Bedside Nonsense

Bedside Nonsense is now available from Black Scat Books! This anthology, edited by Norman Conquest, offers a dizzying array of approaches to the nonsensical, by a lively group of writers and artists. I contributed “Amerigo and Isabella” (verses about the misadventures of Amerigo Vespucci and Queen Isabella) and “Deucalion’s Ark” (a story about the Greek Noah’s troubles in stocking his ark). The other distinguished contributors are Mark Axelrod, Tom Barrett, Angie Brenner, Ken Brown, Norman Conquest, Caroline Crépiat, Haley Dahl,  Farewell Debut, Paul Forristal, Ryan Forsythe, Penelope Goddard, Jean-Jacques Grandville, Simon Hanes, Rhys Hughes, Alexei Kalinchuk, KKUURRTT, Rick Krieger, David Moscovich, Jason E. Rolfe, Paul Rosheim, Bob Rucker, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Terry Southern, Yuriy Tarnawsky, Tom Whalen, and Carla M. Wilson. You can pick up a copy on Amazon, and then read it from cover to cover.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

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Pink and Apple-Green

May 20th, 2020 · Comments Off on Pink and Apple-Green

Pink and Apple-Green is now available from Black Scat Books! By Alphonse Allais, translated, introduced, and annotated by Doug Skinner! This is the first English translation, and the first annotated edition in any language. It’s 261 pages: 44 stories, plus 5 extra stories. You can get one on Amazon.

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. As Paul Verlaine said, “Who is fresh? Allais.”

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

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Children’s Card Games (248)

April 22nd, 2020 · Comments Off on Children’s Card Games (248)

“Poems,” published in 1898 by the Cincinnati Game Co., offered a deck featuring 52 poems. They were divided, like a standard deck, into four suits: America, Ireland, England, and Scotland. The American suit included Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, and Field, as well as “The American Flag” by William Rodman Drake. Ireland was represented by Thomas Moore, Thomas Davis, Samuel Lover, Ferguson, and Dr. Brennan. England was assigned Thomas Hood, Tennyson, Byron, Gray, and James Thompson (with “Rule, Britannia”). Scotland got Burns, Scott, Campbell, Tannahill, and Hogg. The backs show a vignette of Longfellow’s house. My copy came with no instructions, but I assume you could play any standard card game with them.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

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Children’s Card Games (247)

April 14th, 2020 · Comments Off on Children’s Card Games (247)

“Life,” published in 1955 by Charles M. Foust of Yates Center, Kansas, is not to be confused with the venerable board game from Milton Bradley. Mr. Foust’s “Life” consists of 98 cards, divided into 14 Repent cards, 5 Confess, 5 Believe, 5 Baptised, 20 Love, 20 Jesus, 30 Fellowship, 5 Heaven, 4 Sin, and 10 Worldly cards. The rules, as might be expected from such a list of cards, are complex. In brief, players must accumulate the right combination of cards in the right order. The order has a religious message: for example, you must play a Repent card before you can play a Confess or Believe card. As Mr. Foust explains, “The game is made to help lead people to a perfect life in Christ Jesus and to Eternity, even though it is fun to play.”

An internet search revealed nothing about “Life” or its creator, so perhaps copies were only circulated to a select few.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

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Black Scat Review 19

April 5th, 2020 · Comments Off on Black Scat Review 19

The 19th issue of Black Scat Review is now available! This issue’s theme is “ecstasy.” I contributed “Two and One” (a story about a love triangle, told entirely in three-letter words), “Up to the Summit” (in which Owen’s daily mountain climbing is interrupted by his mother’s sudden wedding), and “C11H13NO2” (an alliterative consideration of a certain hallucinogen). Other contributors include Peter Ruric, Yuriy Tarnawsky, Eurydice, Catherine D’Avis, Galya Kerns, Tom Whalen, Bob McNeil, Nicole Scherer, Tom Bussmann, Paul Rosheim, William Minor, Norman Conquest, Adam Matson, Dynamic Wang, Alexandr Ivanov, Jim McMenamin, Rhys Hughes, Amy Kurman, and Emiliano Vittoriosi.

It’s available on Amazon, and there’s more info at Black Scat Books.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

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Children’s Card Games (246)

March 31st, 2020 · Comments Off on Children’s Card Games (246)

Rube Goldberg’s cartoon panel “Foolish Questions” followed a simple formula: an idiot asked an obvious question, and received a sarcastic answer. And yes, Al Jaffee did appropriate the idea for his later feature “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.” Sometime around 1912, the Wallie Dorr Company published a card game derived from it. The game was as simple as the premise: players tried to match the foolish questions, from a booklet, to the sarcastic answers. The backs of the cards, appropriately, showed a man asking a foolish question.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

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Memorable Magazines (17): Bottoms Up

March 8th, 2020 · Comments Off on Memorable Magazines (17): Bottoms Up

Bottoms Up billed itself as “The Paper for People Who Drink… and Eat” and “Long Island’s Favorite Tavern Weekly.” It was edited by Ted Kay, of Roosevelt, NY; I haven’t been able to find out more about him.

The issues I’ve seen are from 1957, and run 8 or 10 pages. They consist mostly of ads for Long Island bars, restaurants, and night clubs, with occasional bits of gossip about restauranteurs, and a few photos of women in swimsuits.

Among the revelations about Long Island nightlife is the taste in music: many clubs offered dancing to a live organist or pianist, sometimes with a Solovox, a short-lived early Hammond synthesizer. Country, Western, and “Hillbilly” music seem to have been the most popular, although Latin was also represented. There were many small combos, now probably forgotten: the Viking Trio, the Rhythm Rangers, the Hi-Liters, the Versatile Trio, the Cacti’s, the Three Jacks, the Escorts, the Hipsters, the Gum Drops, the Rhum-Bops. In addition, the Shadow Box in Mineola featured “Mixologist Wally Walcott Playing the Bottles.” Shuffleboard was often offered: the Shuffle Inn in Uniondale and the Rustic Tavern in Mineola had 24-foot boards, but Jimmy Flynn’s in Hempstead had one that was 28 feet. The food ran mostly to “Businessmen’s Luncheons,” steaks, seafood, “delicious Italian cuisine,” and cocktails. Music was live, the food was simple, and you were on a first-name basis with your hosts, who often worked in pairs: Tom and Andy, Pete and Fred, Helen and Vinnie, Emily and John.

Here’s a sample page; please click on it to make it larger.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

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Children’s Card Games (245)

February 17th, 2020 · Comments Off on Children’s Card Games (245)

“Logomachy” was published by the venerable firm of McLoughlin Brothers in 1889. As in many similar games, you make points by forming words from the letters on the cards. Less common letters are worth extra points.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

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A Combinatorial Psalter

January 22nd, 2020 · 4 Comments

The Psalter in Metre and Church Hymnary, was “prepared by a Committee consisting of representatives of the Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland, the United Presbyterian Church, and the Presbyterian Church in Ireland,” and published by Henry Frowde in 1899. This is the 1909 edition.

The second half of the book is a standard hymnal, but the first half is cut so worshippers can mix and match texts and tunes. They’re given the choice of 221 tunes, and 222 texts in the same meter (all 150 psalms, 67 “paraphrases,” and 5 additional hymns).

The principle is the same as Raymond Queneau’s Hundred Thousand Billion Poems, in which the ten lines of ten poems can be rearranged, or the many children’s books that combine parts of animals. Here’s one example; here are two taken from an advertising booklet, Kellogg’s Funny Jungleland. The first is from the 1903 version, the second from 1932.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

→ 4 CommentsTags: Music