YIPPEE YI YO KI YAY!

BLAZING TALES OF COWPOKE LIT!

Rhys Hughes saddles up & blasts his way across the vast plains — kickin’ up trouble in this hog-wild collection of Western Weirdness. Using various forms (short stories, a play, lonesome poems — even a garsh-dang essay!), he roasts the genre & serves up some hearty, avant-garde grub — fresh as a dew-dappled Texas rose.

Guns, puns, cowgirrrls & tumbleweed — what more could ya ask for. CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR COPY BEFORE SUNDOWN

“Rhys Hughes seems almost the sum of our planet’s literature. He’s as tricky as his own characters. He toys with convention. He makes the metaphysical political, the personal incredible and the comic hints at subtle pain.”
— MICHAEL MOORCOCK

“A dazzling disintegration of the reality principle. Raises the bar on profundity and sets a comic standard for the tragic limits of our human experience. Like Beckett on nitrous oxide. Like Kafka with a brighter sense of humour.” — A.A. ATTANASIO

“If Hughes ever stops writing fiction I will shoot him.” — JEFF VANDERMEER

“If I said he was a Welsh writer who writes as though he has gone to school with the best writing from all over the world, I wonder if my compliment would just sound provincial. Hughes’ style, with all that means, is among the most beautiful I’ve encountered in several years.”— SAMUEL R. DELANY

WEIRDLY OUT WEST
Rhys Hughes
Absurdist Texts & Documents (No. 42)
paperback; 141 pp., $14
ISBN 978-1-7357646-1-0

SPRING FEVER

This fourth volume in our sizzling international anthology series makes delicious bedside reading. Featuring 17 gifted writers whose intimate stories excite, unsettle, amuse and transport. Here is innovative feminist fiction that explores the boundaries of female sexuality in all its myriad forms.

THE NEW URGE READER 4 includes fiction by Jeanette Bradley, Karina Bush, Debra Di Blasi, Dana Duren, Eurydice, Petra Anne Hawk, Elna Holst, E. E. King, Amy Kurman, Hélène Lavelle, Lilianne Milgrom, Grace Murray, Su Orwell, Giorgia Pavlidou, Marina Rubin, Kim Vodicka, and E. H. Warrington.

THE NEW URGE READER 4
Erotic Fiction by New Women Writers
Edited by Grace Murray
New Urge / Black Scat Books
Paperback, 131 pp., $14.95
ISBN: 978-1-7356159-5-0

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“…These stories run the gamut, they are confessional, confided, whispered, shouted, and sung. Some are delightful, some disruptive and some disturbing, yet they are connected not for the simple fact that they excite our sexuality, but in the way that they address so many of our senses. Psychologically and physically, we are moved by sex in multitudinous ways, and these tales will engage the heart, body, and mind by the same breathtaking and heartrending measure.” —from the introduction by Grace Murray

CRIME PAYS! DADA LIVES!

Never before in the annals of art forgery has there been a case like this.

TRUE CRIME: The People vs. Rrose Sélavy, compiled by Karl Waldmann, features unpublished transcripts, exhibits, color illustrations, and shocking new evidence. Fact and fiction are forged together in this seminal work of DADA excavation.

This is an expanded, “rectified readymade edition” of the original, out of print chapbook published in 2016.

TRUE CRIME: The People vs. Rrose Sélavy
Rectified Readymade Edition
Absurdist Texts & Documents #32
Color illustrations, 44 pages; $14

DO THE MATH

FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATION

The incomparable humorist is in his prime here, spinning out dark fantasies on cycling in Ancient Rome, the taste of tears, the economic advantages of germ warfare, God’s dislike of Christmas, and the proper chemicals for a chaperone’s chamberpot. The intrepid Captain Cap pitches his bizarre inventions over cocktails, and Allais sends back notes from his travels to North America and Southern France. At 65 stories, this collection is Allais’s largest—PLUS two extra stories by Allais and two by Octave Mirbeau, on the pressing issue of ambulatory vegetables.

We’re tickled and thrilled to bring you the 12th title in our Alphonse Allais Collection: 2 + 2 = 5 —translated, with an introduction and notes on the text, by the absurdly gifted Doug Skinner.

Alphonse is in his prime here, spinning out dark fantasies on cycling in Ancient Rome, the taste of tears, the economic advantages of germ warfare, God’s dislike of Christmas, and the proper chemicals for a chaperone’s chamberpot. The intrepid Captain Cap pitches his bizarre inventions over cocktails, and Allais sends back notes from his travels to North America and Southern France. At 65 stories, this collection is the humorist’s largest—PLUS two extra stories by Allais and two by Octave Mirbeau, on the pressing issue of ambulatory vegetables. What does it all add up to? . . . Hilarity!

2 + 2 = 5
Alphonse Allais
Translated from the French by Doug Skinner
Original cover painting by Lilianne Milgrom
Trade paperback; 289 pp., $14.95

Buy Now

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About the Author
ALPHONSE ALLAIS (1854-1905) was a peerless French humorist, celebrated posthumously by the Surrealists for his elegant style and disturbing imagination. In addition to composing absurdist texts for newspapers such as Le Chat Noir and Le Journal, he experimented with holorhymes, invented conceptual art, and created the earliest known example of a silent musical composition: Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man (1884). Truly ahead of his time (as well as our own), Allais is needed now more than ever. His mischievous work remains fresh, funny, and always surprising.

Other books by Allais you’ll enjoy. . .

BRIGHT IDEAS

“…a magnificent work. Precise, absurdist, hilarious.”

—Rhys Hughes, author of The Smell of Telescopes

The 41st volume in our seminal Absurdist Texts & Documents series has arrived: PATENTS PENDING by Derek Pell and Doug Skinner, with an Afterword by Alphonse Allais. An illustrated compendium of ingenious inventions so ahead of their time they may never be available to the public – not in this world, nor the next. Discover pataphysical gizmos such as the OUIJA BILLBOARD, HELIUM BOMB, IMPOSSIBLE PICTURE FRAME, TROMPE L’OEIL MAGIC KIT, and many others. For now, these inspired concepts are but speculative prototypes – strange dreams haunting the drawing board of destiny – but thanks to this book you may study and savor them, and imagine a future far brighter than the present.

PATENTS PENDING
Derek Pell & Doug Skinner
with an Afterword by Alphonse Allais
Absurdist Texts & Documents No. 41
paperback; illustrated, 112 pp., $14
ISBN-13 : 978-1735615936



ARMCHAIR TRAVEL

“You must travel… I can’t travel… I’ll travel”

We are all armchair travelers now. The question is: Where do we go?

If you’re looking for answers, let 28 imaginative writers & artists from around the globe take you places you’ve never been. Find your getaway in BLACK SCAT REVIEW 21 — The Travel Issue.

FEATURING: Alphonse Allais, Robert James Cross, Farewell Debut, S. C. Delaney, John Oliver Hodges, Rhys Hughes, Harold Jaffe, E.E. King, Olchar E. Lindsann, Charles J. March III, Carmelo Militano, Opal Louis Nations, Peter Payack, Persefone, Roger Pheuquewell, Agnès Potier, Collin J. Rae, Jason E. Rolfe, Paul Rosheim, Charles de Rosières, Doug Skinner, Kristine Snodgrass, Ben Stoltzfus, Corinne Taunay, Ed Taylor, Michel Vachey, Tom Whalen, D. Harlan Wilson.

UFOs (Unidentified Flying Odes)

John Pitaro has written an illuminating review of our SELECTED POEMS OF EDWARD D. WOOD, JR.
(Absurdist Texts & Documents #26).

It appears in the current issue of SENSITIVE SKIN magazine.

Here’s a snippet:

“Within this mix of emotional upheaval and splintered symbolism, Wood closes the chapbook with a particularly notable piece, one indicating his inclusion in both the literary underground and the LGBTQ community as well as the sorrowful reality of unsuccessful arts careers. It is dubbed “Howl” (page 25) and opens with a sharp, satiric awareness of Ginsberg:

I saw the best flicks of my generation destroyed/by critics/ranting hysterical mutants/
Dragging directors in drag through the mud like/blood-thirsty bullies

Here, Wood deems himself “the angel-headed genius in the orange neon dusk of Hollywood”, and observes his audience both laughing at and cheering him in the cinema before

They staggered off into the sunset strip/
Leapt off the Hollywood sign into the bliss of the curvaceous cult-womb/
That wrapped them forever in its loin-lit angoric embrace “

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL REVIEW

CLICK HERE to buy the book and weep with laughter. Inspired satire, guaranteed.


Read My Lips . . .

Lawrence Hamilton has selected spicy excerpts from an anonymous English translation of Denis Diderot‘s satiric libertine novel, Les Bijoux Indiscrets (The Indiscreet Toys, 1749). Our edition, titled  From Their Lips to His Ear, is # 6 in the Pocket Erotica series— little,  4 x 6-inch editions, lovingly designed for collectors, yet priced inexpensively.

Denis Diderot was a highly celebrated 18th century French  philosopher & editor of the groundbreaking Encyclopédie. In 1748, in need of  money, he wrote this scandalous and amusing libertine allegory whose hero, a sultan, is in possession of a magic ring. When aimed at female genitals, the ring prompts these private parts to speak — revealing a woman’s deepest sexual desires, experiences, and indiscretions. In this precursor to The Vagina Monologues, the women  are portrayed  as  powerful beings through their liberated  ideas and sexuality.

“…filled with the strings of sexual metaphors (both explicit and concealing) … a linguistic tour de force, a rhetorical experiment in verbalizing the obscene, and a representational puzzle, signaled by that deliberate act of veiling and unveiling.”

FROM THEIR LIPS TO HIS EAR
Denis Diderot
Pocket Erotica No. 6
71 pp., perfect-bound; $10
ISBN 978-1-7356159-1-2

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please email blackscatbooks (AT) icloud (DOT) com

Hogarth’s Cottage

 “…what makes an artist great is having the courage to provoke and challenge.” —The New York Times

 

CLICK HERE for more titles in the Pocket Erotica series.

Happy New Year!

A smart start to a pataphysical new year.

from Belgium with love
Portugal

Bonne Patannée 2021!
Time to celebrate imaginary solutions. — Linda Klieger Stillman
Boudoir Reference

This volume contains all the knowledge you’ll ever need to have a successful life of the mind. Profusely illustrated, featuring entries by an international roster of distinguished experts from the arts, sciences, university and academia.

“An encyclopedia ought to make good the failure to execute such a project hitherto, and should encompass not only the fields already covered by the academies, but each and every branch of human knowledge.” —Diderot

“Today everyone wants to know everything – and preferably in alphabetical order.” —François Caradec

Le mot encyclopédie a été utilisé en français pour la première fois par Rabelais, mais ce n’est que lorsque Norman Conquest en a édité une qu’il a pris une dimension sublime.”—R. Queneau

Distinguished contributors from around the world include: Adrienne Auvray, Mark Axelrod, Tom Barrett, Norman Conquest, Caroline Crépiat, René Descartes, Peter Gambaccini, Eckhard Gerdes, Charles Holdefer, Rhys Hughes, Tractor Inspector, Alfred Jarry, M. Kasper, Richard Kostelanetz, Amy Kurman, Librairie Larousse, Michael Leigh, Olchar E. Lindsann, Opal Louis Nations, Daren Elsa Nibelly, Dr. Novalis, Pata-No , Richard Peabody, Mercie Pedro, Derek Pell, Charlotte Porter, Frank Pulaski, Jason E. Rolfe, Sourav Roy, Dr. I. L. Sandomir, Paulette Single, Doug Skinner, Maddy Smith, Linda Klieger Stillman, Corinne Taunay, Text Fixer, Kimberly Vodicka, Tom Whalen, Femke van der Wijk, Carla Wilson.

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