Look: a collection of props from the puppet shows Michael Smith and I performed back in the ’90s.  There’s the wishing well; there’s the mic from Cory’s club act; there are the signs from Kevin and Jason’s fort.  Ah, memories.

It’s from “The Puppet Show,” curated by Ingrid Schaffner and Carin Kuoni at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia; Terence Gower designed the survey of puppet artifacts, “Puppet Storage.”  The show also includes a number of Doug and Mike videos.  The catalogue is now in print; the exhibition is now on tour to Santa Monica, Honolulu, Seattle, and Houston.  And our invigorating DVD, Doug and Mike’s Adult Entertainment, is still available from 2nd Cannons.

I will join my cartoonist colleagues at Jim Hanley’s Universe (4 W. 33rd St., Manhattan), August 6, 6-8 pm, to sign copies of Danny Hellman’s beautiful new anthology, Typhon #1.  (See the previous bulletin for more info on this.)  Come meet the people who draw the funny pictures!

The next Ullage Group event, “Through the Blackboard,” is slated for September.  We will regale you with dubious science toys, questionable classroom material, the evolution of the school lunch, and other curiosities about education and indoctrination.  Details will follow.

The Ullage Group has acquired an overhead projector; we can now show transparencies, as well as slides, filmstrips, magic lantern slides, and DVDs.  John Keel also gave us the slide projector used in all those New York Fortean Society meetings way back when; we will use it responsibly.

Carmen Borgia and I play Jobim’s immortal “Boy From Ipanema” in Kron Vollmer’s new video, Pieces of the True T-Shirt.  A first cut was shown recently at Chashama.  May there be many more!

(Posted by Doug Skinner)   

“Contraband” was published by the British firm Pepys — no date, I’m afraid. The objective is to smuggle valuables through customs by bluffing and lying. Many of these games are just frivolous; it’s heartening to see one that also teaches a skill.  And please note the beautiful rendition of the ullage.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

And one last, for a nightcap. There’s a verse on the back:

Here’s to your health, old man in the moon,
Here’s hoping you’ll get full again pretty soon.
Here’s hoping your last quarter’ll last through your dark days.
May you light the way homeward for good fellows always.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Our third view is “From original negatives by L. M. Rutherford. Published by P. F. Well, New York.”

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

This second view is credited to John P. Soule, 199 Washington St., Boston. It’s not clear if he was the photographer or the publisher; my guess is that he was both.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

This week we’ll salute our beloved satellite with some stereoscopic photos of the moon. The moon is really too far away for our binocular vision to kick in. But it does rotate on its axis, so that photos taken at different times during the night will show a slightly different perspective. Pop them into your stereoscope, and the moon will look like a nice round cantaloupe, beaming down on us from above.

All of these are probably from the 19th century. The first one is labeled (in tiny print): “FULL MOON.  From negative taken by Prof. H. Draper, with his silvered glass telescope. Published by C. Bierstadt, Niagara Falls, N.Y.”

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

We have here another edition of that old favorite, “Authors,” this one a 1935 miniature deck from the Russell Press. I’m not familiar with Cornelia Meigs; but a bit of research reveals that she wrote many children’s books, and taught English for many years at Bryn Mawr.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

The “Movement Print” offered a new pleasure for the discerning stereoscope owner. You inserted it, blinked your eyes rapidly in alternation, and enjoyed a brief moving picture of somebody else working.

I have no idea when these were produced. I’d like to know what other subjects, if any, were chosen.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

“ARBO: The Game of Tree Families” was published by the Scholastic Publishing Co. in 1927. The young players are directed to complete and capture suits of tree families. Thus they learn the rudiments of both dendrology and gambling.

The backs of these games are usually uninteresting; this one, though, is worth a look.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

There is a wonderful variety of short literary forms: limericks, quatrains, haiku, couplets, epigrams, anecdotes, jokes, riddles, parables, fables, proverbs, maxims, blackouts, slogans, and on and on. Some are simply passing thoughts; others pack as much meaning as possible into the smallest space.

Here, we’ll trot out the one-word poem — to be specific, the one-word poem as practiced by Abraham Lincoln Gillespie.

Gillespie (1895-1950) was active in Paris in the ’20s, an ebullient modernist who contributed to transition and other journals. He attributed his taste for Joycean puns and neologisms to a head injury, which may have cost him some critical respect. In the ’30s, he moved back to the US, and spent the rest of his short life shuttling between the Bohemian communities in Philadelphia and Manhattan, diabetic, alcoholic, and chronically unemployed.

He wrote essays and poems, but had a special penchant for one-word constructions. All of his surviving work was collected in The Syntactic Revolution, edited by Richard Milazzo, and published by Out of London Press in 1980. Copies are now scarce. My cherished copy was ruined in a flood; I’m grateful to Etienne Gilfillan for tracking down another. Thanks, Etienne!

Here, then, are the first eleven entries from “A PURPLEXICON OF DISSYNTHEGRATIONS (TDEVELOP ABUT EARFLUXSATISVIE-THRU-HEYPERSIEVING)”:

punziplaze
karmasokist
DecoYen
Pompieraeian
scaruscatracery
timmedigets
outrége
Opinducts
pretensnarrant
MustEVit
spirackrete

And, as a nightcap, a two-worder from “PIZZIKATS (SERIES 2)”:

loosiditties (Thdrink)

(Posted by Doug Skinner)