from HOROSCRAPES by Doug Skinner. Absurdist Texts & Documents #31.

Part Oulipian exercise, these meticulous scrapings reveal the future in all its sublime absurdity. The author approached the horoscope in his morning newspaper as if it were a puzzle, like the crossword or sudoku. By scraping out the middle part, and joining the beginning and end, he received a hidden message.
Reading outside the lines here one discovers an alternative fate more interesting than the fluff dispensed by run-of-the-mill soothsayers. Indeed, these predictions are pithy, profound, and astonishingly accurate.
In HOROSCRAPES, Doug Skinner offers up 366 clever twists of fate—something for every sign—guaranteed to alter forever how we view the universe.
Who knows what the future holds?
Doug Skinner knows.
HOROSCRAPES
by Doug Skinner
ABSURDIST TEXTS & DOCUMENTS NO. 31
$15
Perfect-bound paperback, 66 pp.
ASTROLOGY / WORDPLAY / HUMOR
Enter the bizarre world of “Jungle Captive”… a new noir sound experience that will transport you to a strange, palpitating realm where unbridled passions run wild and umbrageous desires dance in a tangled web of naked weirdness.
CLICK HERE to listen to this haunting soundtrack by DrG Supreme.
This Halloween, forget the candy…

CLICK HERE to order Sweet and Vicious by Suzanne Burns
CLICK HERE to order An Inconvenient Corpse by Jason E. Rolfe

Black Scat Books is proud to present this innovative work of fiction by Suzanne Burns.
Sweet and Vicious is a provocative and relentlessly compelling new novel.
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Suzanne Burns writes poetry and fiction in Bend, Oregon (and sometimes in Paris, France). She is the author of Siblings, Misfits and Other Heroes, and Love Songs for Las Vegas, among other books. Sweet and Vicious is her first novel.

ALPHONSE ALLAIS is the driving force (or should we say farce?) behind Black Scat Books. Allais 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 ours), Allais is needed now more than ever. His mischievous work remains fresh, funny, and always surprising.
We hope you’ll celebrate this special day with a festive drink and a few good books!
Hip! Hip! Allais!
Poet Edith Doove reading a rare edition of Allais’s Captain Cap at Plymouth Arts Centre (UK).
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PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Black Scat Books will publish Ms. Doove’s collection Mince early next year.

SCAT TRAX—the audio arm of Black Scat Books—in association with MIDNIGHT GRINDHOUSE, an experimental sound project based in Singapore, is proud to present two ‘treated soundtracks’ by artist DrG Supreme: Voodoo Sister and The Handcuffed Mind.
These noirish concoctions are created entirely from original soundtracks of B-movie noir and exploitation flicks. We invite you to enjoy these on our Scat Trax page.
Admission is free.
These absurdist stories document the author’s daily commute to and from work. They are not the sort of adventures and mishaps one commonly experiences. Quite the contrary. Readers are hereby cautioned that these deceptively brief and whimsical tales contain unexpected speed bumps. Laugh at your own risk.
Jason E. Rolfe is a worthy successor to the great French humorist Alphonse Allais.
AN INCONVENIENT CORPSE by Jason E. Rolfe
Absurdist Texts & Documents – No. 30
$16 / Edition limited to 300 copies
Perfect-bound paperback, 66 pp.
FICTION / SHORT STORIES / HUMOR
A video of Tom Whalen reading from his new novel, THE STRAW THAT BROKE …
The book is available now on Amazon