The Pope’s Mustard-Maker is now available from Black Scat Books! Translated by Doug Skinner!

Le Moutardier du pape was the last work that Alfred Jarry finished, a few months before his death in 1907. It was one of many operettas he worked on in his last years, and one of the few he finished: a bawdy three-act farce loosely based on the medieval legend of Pope Joan, with a huge cast and lively songs bubbling with rhymes and wordplay.

Readers who know Jarry only from Ubu or his novels may be surprised that he wrote operettas, but his are fully Jarryesque, with his usual gusto for smutty jokes, legend, folklore, puns, wild invention, and popular theater. In his hands, Pope Joan becomes Jane, who runs off with her lover and disguises herself as pope. How will she pass inspection on the slotted chair? What will she do when her husband shows up? And has there ever been another production number celebrating the spiritual virtues of enemas?

This is the first translation of this major work! I also provide an introduction and notes, and scrupulously rendered all of Jarry’s rhyming verse into rhyming verse. Available from Amazon or Black Scat Books.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

True or False, subtitled “Factual Stories of the Impossible,” lasted for two issues in 1958. This is the first, proudly carrying on its cover “an actual unretouched photograph!” that was obviously retouched with a red pen. It was one of the many publications due to the industry of Myron Fass, who began his career as a comic book artist, and went on to specialize in the sensational, with such titles as Quick, Flick, Pic, Uncensored, True Sex Crimes, Jaguar, Shock Tales, and Tales from the Tomb.

In addition to the articles promised on the cover, this issue offers an article on fluoridated water (“Are You One of America’s 28,000,000 Guinea Pigs?”), a photo feature on how to stop hiccups, a Brazilian UFO contactee story, a picture story on “The World’s Only Fishing Pig,” a “Sports Feature” called “A Winning System for Betting,” and articles on religious miracles, shipwreck treasure, and the psychic Cheiro. I don’t know how much of this is either factual or impossible, but it does seem like a lot of entertainment for 35 cents.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Flash-News Illustrated was a monthly that came out in 1964. I assume only two issues were published; searching the internet turns up only these two. It was published by Correspondent News Service, and edited by Earl H. Dempsey and Charles McBain. Further searches turn up nothing about either publisher or editors.

The editorial policy was firmly, even fervently, committed to the sleazy. Articles on orgies, prostitution, strippers, and nudists alternate with news about murders, suicides, and birth defects. As the editorial in the first issue explained, “Here you will find the bizarre, the exciting, the violent, sometimes even the hideous, but you will also find cross-sections of people’s lives that will be much like your own experiences.” This would be particularly apt if you too had a thumb growing from your stomach, or enjoyed partying on the “nude, lewd Riviera.”

The second issue in particular contains a few surprises, among them interviews with Roberto Rossellini (a hatchet piece) and Federico Fellini (a puff piece), and a desert island cartoon by “Severin.” This looks to me like veteran cartoonist John Severin, rather than his equally prolific sister Marie, but perhaps their fans can clarify. I wasn’t aware that either of them drew magazine gags!

(Please click to enlarge.)

(Posted by Doug Skinner.)

Here’s another of Anton Romatka’s curious publications. This one is A History of Versification, 16 pages of a meticulously lettered, rather eccentrically written, history of poetry. I’ll give you the front cover, first page, and back cover, the last of these an ad for Romatka’s other publications. The “Merit” at the top of the cover is a bit of a puzzle; I suspect he used a border meant for a school prize, bought from a stationery store. His densely lettered pages were printed at 8 1/2 by 11 inches; please click to enlarge them.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Instrumentarium is now available from Black Scat Books! This delightful volume collects the drawings of imaginary musical instruments I contributed monthly to Le Scat Noir, plus many previously unpublished. Among the 180 selected here are such inventions as the Painpipes, the Sprinkler Trombone, the Flugelflute, and the Cavalry Harmonium.

As our culture grows ever more reductive and conformist, this celestial orchestra brings to you the almost forgotten pleasures of musical variety. Available from Black Scat Books or Amazon.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

And here follow the last four pages of Calligraphs, a small hand-lettered poetry magazine published by Anton Romatka in 1935. The last two pages advertise Romatka’s services as publisher, editor, teacher, and calligrapher. Googling reveals little about Max Berman or Gussie Perlman, but turned up the interesting fact that Harvey W. Flink contributed his poems fairly regularly to Weird Tales.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

We continue our examination of Anton Romatka, who led a curious bohemian existence providing poetry, writing workshops, and calligraphy in Greenwich Village in the ’30s and ’40s. Here are the next four pages of his hand-lettered magazine Calligraphs, from 1935. They include one poem by Romatka, and an acrostic on his name by Richard Zeydel. A quick Googling reveals that the N.Y. Daily News called Zeydel the “unofficial poet laureate of New York’s transit system” (7/14/57). Further searches show that the others were also active: Gertrude Callaghan, for example, published several collections, including Witch Girl and Inheritance; Mario Speracio sold poems to the pulp magazine Love Story.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Here are the next four pages of Calligraphs, Anton Romatka’s curious little hand-lettered poetry magazine from 1935. One of the poems is by Romatka himself, and another about his “poetry forum”; the others, I assume, are representative of the Greenwich Village esthetic of the time.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Anton Romatka published a number of poetry magazines in Greenwich Village, in the ’30s and ’40s. Calligraphs, from 1935, was small in both size and page count, being only 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ and sixteen pages. Like his other publications, it was flamboyantly written and meticulously hand lettered. Here are the first four pages.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

I’ll be part of the lineup for Profane Illuminations, a day of talks at NYU organized by Mark Pilkington of Strange Attractor Press. I’ll present my talk “Music from Elsewhere,” discussing and playing music attributed to fairies, trowies, banshees, aliens, spirits, and angels; as well as music from alchemists, occultists, Cathars, cryptographers, secret societies, and dreams. Other speakers include Erik Davis, Peter Bebergal and Gareth Branwyn, Amy Hale, Kristen Gallerneaux, and Dave Tompkins.

It’s on Saturday, April 27, at Einstein Auditorium (34 Stuyvesant St., at 9th St., between 2nd and 3rd Avenues), NYC, and it’s free. The talks run from 12 to 8 pm; I’ll be on at about 3:30. More info here.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)