Spring Fever hath sprung with the special “Goddess Issue” of TYPO—packed with an international cast of luminaries: Tim Newton Anderson; Tom Bradley; Anton Chekhov; Norman Conquest; Caroline Crépiat; R J Dent; Max Ernst; Eurydice Eve; Luc Fierens; Leonor Fini; Théophile Gautier; Harold Jaffe; Amy Kurman; Lo; Michael Maier; Dmitri Manin; Elena Marini; Lilianne Milgrom; Opal Louis Nations; Marty Newman; Claudio Parentela; Angeleaux Pastormerleaux; Paul Rosheim; Jasia Reichardt; Doug Skinner; Phil Demise Smith; Tabarin; Lono Taggers; Corinne Taunay; Shyam Thandar; Stefan Themerson; Konstantin Vaginov, and Gregory Wallace.
We invite you to double your treasure with this pair of backlist beauties.
CHARLES CROS: COLLECTED MONOLOGUES
Charles Cros was one of the most brilliant minds of his generation, equally adept at poetry, fiction, and scientific inquiry. He wrote smutty verses with Verlaine, synthesized gems with Alphonse Allais, contributed wild prose fantasies to Le Chat Noir, and experimented with color photography and sound recording, only to die young, poor, and alcoholic. Not incidentally, he also invented the comic monologue for the actor Coquelin Cadet. This edition collects all of Cros’s monologues—masterfully translated & introduced by Doug Skinner—and includes performance notes, plus two biographical essays by his friend and colleague Alphonse Allais.
UPSIDE-DOWN STORIES
Charles Cros and Émile Goudeau were quintessential Bohemian poets. This first English translation of their inspired collaboration of “Upside-Down Stories” satirized hot topics of the 1880s such as as divorce and capital punishment with bawdy humor and wild flights of fancy. These nutty gems will surprise & delight contemporary readers.
“THE SHEER PLAYFULNESS OF CERTAIN FANCIFUL PARTS OF CROS’S WORK MUST NOT LET US FORGET THAT IN THE CENTER OF SOME OF HIS FINEST POEMS, A REVOLVER IS AIMED AT US.”—ANDRÉ BRETON
This scandalous little work appeared in France under the title “Letter to La Présidente.”
Théophile Gautier (1811-1872) was a novelist and poet, one of the champions of Romanticism. In 1850, he and his friend Louis de Cormenin visited Italy, so he wrote his friends back home a letter about their adventures. The result was a rollicking “filthy letter,” packed with jokes, slang, obsolete words, literary allusions, puns, alliterations, neologisms, Spoonerisms, verses, outrageous metaphors, and Rabelaisian lists. It was published privately in 1890, and became a clandestine classic.
A FILTHY LETTER Théophile Gautier Translated from the French by Doug Skinner, with an introduction & notes on the text Pocket Erotica Series #28 74 pp., 4 x 6 inches; 979-8-9894330-7-0
We proudly present the 15th volume in our grand Alphonse Allais Collection. Here is France’s greatest humorist in top form. This first English translation of WE ARE NOT SHEEP features 44 witty tales, PLUS four extra stories, translated by Allaisian scholar Doug Skinner, with his erudite introduction and complete notes on the text.
If you’re looking for laughter—(and, hell, who isn’t?)—this delightful edition is a gift that will long be remembered.
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, pioneered conceptual art, and created the earliest known example of a silent musical composition: FUNERAL MARCH FOR THE OBSEQUIES OF A DEAF MAN (1884). Ahead of his time (as well as ours), Allais is needed now more than ever. His mischievous work remains fresh, funny, and always surprising.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
DOUG SKINNER has contributed to Black Scat Review, The Fortean Times, Strange Attractor Journal, Fate, Weirdo, Nickelodeon, Cabinet, and other fine publications. Black Scat Books has published several books of his stories, cartoons, and songs, as well as translations of Alphonse Allais, Charles Cros, Alfred Jarry, Pierre-Corneille Blessebois, Luigi Russolo, Caroline Crépiat, and Corinne Taunay. Other translations include Three Dreams (Giovanni Battista Nazari, Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks), The Cocktail Hour (Marcel Requien and Lucien Farnoux, with Gaylor Olivier, Corps Reviver), and Principles of Cerebral Mechanics (Charles Cros, Wakefield Press).
He has written music for several dance companies; his scores for actor/clown Bill Irwin include The Regard of Flight, The Courtroom, The Regard Evening, and The Harlequin Studies.
TV and movie appearances include Great Performances, Martin Mull’s Talent Takes a Holiday, Mike’s Talent Show, Ed, Crocodile Dundee II, several of George Kuchar’s videos, and a smattering of commercials.
His albums That Regrettable Weekend, It All Went Pfft, and An Afternoon in the Arboretum are available on Bandcamp.
In this brief video, artist-writer-musician Doug Skinner talks about his collaboration with Derek Pell and AI on a collection of short stories: THE MAN WHO ATE HIS HOUSE.
We’re now accepting submissions for OULIPO PORNOBONGO #4: Anthology of Erotic Wordplay. Pucker up your lipograms and visit our submissions page for details.
Music: Alexander Nakarada / Video production: BuzzReel Studio
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