The James Dean of Lettrism is back in this disruptive chapbook. The spirit of Dada lives in Doug Skinner’s first English translation of Considérations sur la mort et l’enterrement de Tristan Tzara—originally unleashed in 2012 in a limited Black Scat edition of 50 copies. Here Isou recounts his bizarre and humorous behavior at Tristan Tzara’s funeral in France.
Isidore Isou, the founder of the artistic movement Lettrism, was a great admirer of the Dadaist Tristan Tzara. So, when Tzara died in 1963, Isou disrupted the funeral to give the great provocateur a properly raucous sendoff. Isou’s lively account of the proceedings is both a polemic against traditional funerals and a warm declaration of his affection and admiration for Tzara.
A little compendium stuffed with inspired infestations of inanity — from subtle emanations to cartoon lunacy. It’s sprinkled with squirmy absurdist specimens. Indeed, this is an anthology to cherish, worship, and drool over, featuring a range of deranged artists & writers, including Ivars Balkits; Tom Barrett; Michael Cheval; Norman Conquest; R J Dent; Boris Glikman; Rhys Hughes; Mark Kanak; Allan Randolph Kausch; Amy Kurman; David Macpherson; Catulle Mendès; T. Motley; David Paddy; Doug Skinner; Lono Taggers; and Phil Demise Smith.
Lost souls frozen—albeit pointlessly— in sporting poses; suspended in time like extra innings. Poor lost souls waiting to come home while the world has vanished.
Norman Conquest is a verbo-visual artist based in Northern California. His work has appeared in many publications in the U.S. and Europe. He is the author of over 40 books, including the underground classic, A Beginner’s Guide to Art Deconstruction (Permeable Press) and, most recently, Smells Like Teen ‘Pataphysics (Black Scat).
Farm Team Ballet Norman Conquest Illustrated; chapbook, 46 pp., paper, $12 Absurdist Texts & Documents #49 ISBN 979-8992382655
When a tsunami of smut floods the city of London, the Anti-Smut Brigade is at sixes and sevens. Scotland Yard yanks Sir Reginald Fuzz out of retirement, for he is their last best hope of saving the Empire.
Can the foremost moralist, expert on the perils of porno, and ex-chief of the Anti-Smut Brigade (par excellence), stem the tide of this degenerate invasion?
Or… will Great Britain go to hell in a handbasket like the Roman Empire?
Time is running out. Big Ben is ticking . . .
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR FUZZ AGAINST SMUT
“Time Trip Incarnate! I thought my fingers (and brain) would explode—this classic Infernal Machine is reignited!… Magnificent!” —Nile Southern, author of The Candy Men: The Rollicking Life and Times of the Notorious Novel Candy
“Fuzz Against Smut reanimates what has become an endangered subspecies of comedy: madcap, manic, wildly absurd, sublimely subversive humor. (As exemplified by – among others – the Marx Brothers, Lenny Bruce, William Burroughs, Terry Southern, Lord Buckley, and Akbar del Piombo.) This is a zany, quirky and very funny book, an antic fable for our fractured times and a balm for weary minds.” —Gregory Stephenson, author of Alias Akbar del Piombo
“In 100 years, hipsters will take college classes on Terry Southern, Roland Topor, and Derek Pell. This book will be required reading. Playing the long game, Pastormerlo and Pell’s masterstroke does for smut what Trump did for infectious diseases.” —Paul Rosheim
“The original ‘Fuzz Against Junk’ text was funny and its images were engaging; this takeoff is even funnier, and more deeply and intricately illustrated. A topnotch homage.” – M. Kasper
“FUZZ is a wonderland of literary confusions that will enrich your soul.” —Doug Rice
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
Scheduled for publication in 1917, this illustrated text was banned in France for its antiwar and anti-military—(dare we say pro-rat)—stance. Thus, Descaves’ incendiary little chapbook did not appear until 1920, when the censors finally waved their white flag and surrendered to reality.
Alas, THE RAT WINS! is a potent work of black humor which will remain relevant as long as humans walk the earth.
Read it in peace.
THE RAT WINS! Lucien Descaves Illustrations by Lucien Laforge Translated from the French by Doug Skinner Chapbook; 41 pp.; $12; ISBN 979-8989433063 Absurdist Texts & Documents #47 FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Lucien Descaves (1861-1949) was a prolific novelist, journalist, and playwright, and a constant activist for anarchism and pacifism. His antimilitary novel Sous-Offs (Non-Coms), published in 1889, earned him and his publisher arrests for insulting the army and offending morals. He was a founding member of the Académie Goncourt and the utopian community la Clairière de Vaux, and the literary executor of J.-K. Huysmans. His autobiography, Souvenirs d’un ours (Memoirs of a Bear), was published in 1946.
Lucien Laforge (1889-1954) contributed cartoons and illustrations to many periodicals, particularly for the anarchist press. He was uncompromising and often destitute; he was discharged twice in World War I after feigning insanity. His books include illustrations for Rabelais, Perrault, and Baudelaire, as well as his alphabet Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz (1924).
Doug Skinner has translated many wonderful books for Black Scat Books, Wakefield Press, Corps Reviver, and Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks, as well as contributing to the Fortean Times, Nickelodeon, Cabinet, and other fine magazines. His latest book of short stories is The Potato Farm, from Black Scat.
After years of exhaustive field work amongst “the others” and a deep-dive into the primary literature of the tribe, the author here offers – for the first time – new tools to assist the reader in complicating their lives and excavating their souls.
“Terrible advice, artfully told.” – Larry McCaffery, author of Lit-Crit.
PEOPLE TO AVOID Jim McMenamin Absurdist Texts & Documents No. 46 112 pp., $12
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jim McMenamin is a writer and self-care Guru stationed in Southern California.
We don’t like to play favorites and with a list of some 200 titles we can’t. But we thought you might like to know which titles have been the most popular. So here is a list of our Top Ten. All are in print, so if you missed one just click on its cover.
10 Oulipo Pornobongo (2016)
9 Le Scat Noir Encyclopedie et Dictionaire (2020)
8 Captain Cap, Alphonse Allais (2013)
7 Le Scat Noir Encyclopedia (2017)
6 Critics & My Talking Dog, Stefan Themerson (2019)
blackscatbooks.com 