THIS TITLE IS OUT OF PRINT
Category: Absurdist Texts & Documents
The #2 Bestseller!
THIS TITLE IS OUT OF PRINT
Praise for MERDE À LA BELLE ÉPOQUE
“BLACK SCAT BOOKS has launched from the pits of lit this shameful little anthology, wonderfully translated and prefaced with futile brilliance by Doug Skinner. I was immediately disgusted and attracted by these turn-of-the-century French luminaries indulging in dirty little boy lyrics and lunatic stories, many of them in the scatological society that hung out at Le Chat Noir…” —Alain Arias-Misson, author of Theatre of Incest
“Incroyable!… Alfred (a fart man from way back) Jarry would surely relish this collection–one which combines force-feeding with delicate odoriferous leakage—something for every taste!” —Nile Southern, author of The Candy Men: The Rollicking Life and Times of the Notorious Novel Candy
“These dirty little secrets are canonical secretions of literary genius. Fin de siecle Parisian scatology at its best.” —D. Harlan Wilson, author of Hitler: The Terminal Biography, Freud: The Penultimate Biography, and Douglass: The Lost Autobiography
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This hilarious scatological anthology features stories, a song, poems, a play, a rebus, and naughty jokes by period luminaries. Contributors include Alphonse Allais, George Auriol, Georges Courteline, Edmond Haraucourt, Vincent Hyspa, Maurice Mac-Nab, and Erik Satie.
The collection has been tastefully compiled and effervescently translated from the French by Doug Skinner.
This limited edition includes notes on the translations and a brief biography of each contributor.
#2 on our Bestseller List— don’t settle for #1!
Merde à La Belle Époque
Absurdist Texts & Documents – No. 24
Perfect-bound chapbook, 48 pp.
Limited to 310 copies. – $12.50
*A discreet digital edition is also available ($7.50)
Happy Birthday, Rabelais!
In the wings, some special things (fifth edition)…
The Derangement of Jules Torquemal
by Robert Wexelblatt
“The best thing would be for me to go away. Everyone says so: Geneviève, Emmanuelle, Dr. Strouville; no doubt the milkman, the President of the Republic, and the Pope in Rome agree. The Minister might allow me a couple of weeks, but he’s been looking at me strangely of late, furtively but with intensity, as if trying to peer inside my skull and make a proper survey of the bleak thoughts to be found there…”
A daunting philosophical puzzle.
Black Scat Classic Interim Edition – No. 07
Publication: April 9
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Mud Bath
by Allan Bealy
“At last, an album of Bealy’s edgy, layered, elegant collages. Incisive, in both senses.”
– Michael Kasper
“Allan Bealy is a collagist with a profound knowledge of the form’s history, as well as art history—period. With a vision that’s wide-ranging but cohesive, he’s one of those artists who can serve up a banquet of images in seemingly disparate styles, yet you’ll always know who cooked them up. Dig in to this delectable feast for the eyes, but take the time to savor each course.”
– Peter Cherches, author of Lift Your Right Arm
Black Scat Classic Interim Edition – No. 08
Publication: May 14
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Selected Plays of Alphonse Allais
Translated from the French by Doug Skinner
Rare theatrical works by the great French humorist.
Absurdist Texts & Documents – No. 28
Publication: July 9
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And more to come.
Surrealism Lives!
We start the New Year off with a stunning collection of texts by Gisèle Prassinos—one of surrealism’s most gifted voices.
Prassinos was discovered at age 14 by André Breton who included her poetry in his seminal Anthologie de l’humour noir (1940). Breton commented: “The tone of Gisèle Prassinos is unique: all the poets are jealous of it.” Indeed, her haunting, childlike style remains unrivaled and her stories timeless.
Gisèle Prassinos reading her poems to the Surrealists (1934)
Photo © Man Ray Trust / ADAGP, Paris
Exquisitely translated from the French by Ellen Nations, this limited edition includes 20 transformative texts, plus eight original watercolor paintings by the artist Bruce Hutchinson.
That half the works in this collection were written when Prassinos was just fourteen and fifteen is evidence of how rare a prodigy she was. The surrealist’s sense of the word marvelous certainly applies to these strange creations.
Here is a taste of the text “Filial Devotion”…
He now found himself in the middle of a large lake where furniture made of mahogany, spruce and rosewood swam.Young girls in their panties gently fought each other by now and again blowing on their flushed arms.The man believed he recognized one of his daughters. But thinking it was only a hallucination, he retreated by swimming up to the adjoining door.There, he found himself in the presence of a very large and hairy stag.The stag’s eyes slowly became bigger and bigger as they gradually feasted on his whole egg-shaped face.
Only 85 copies are available for purchase.
OUT OF PRINT
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Ellen Nations, translator and photographer, grew up in Norway and has for many years made her home in the San Francisco Bay Area where she lives with her husband Opal Louis Nations. Together they published the experimental literature and art magazine Strange Faeces. In addition to her translations of Gisèle Prassinos, she has translated works by Alain Jouffroy, Paul Nougé, Raymond Radiguet, Joyce Mansour and others.
Bruce Hutchinson created the watercolor paintings in Surrealist Texts while in his mid-20s as part of his weekly correspondence with Opal and Ellen Nations. He wrote his letters on small pieces of paper with ink drawings on one side, original watercolors on the other. His artwork has appeared in many small press publications.
Naughty & Nice
OULIPO PORNOBONGO 2: ANTHOLOGY OF EROTIC WORDPLAY makes a uniquely naughty stocking-stuffer—ideal for lovers of Oulipian mischief and literary foreplay.
Available in both print ($10) and digital ($5), this Black Scat Classic Interim Edition chapbook is packed with titillating texts and full-color art.
Yum!
Are writers insane?
Only a few copies remain of this illuminating—albeit baffling—illustrated edition of Bacon’s text. If you’re considering a career as a writer (or have already taken the plunge), this book is a wake-up call from another century.
If it strikes you as a dangerous book… well, it is.
back cover
“Utterly baffling, yet brilliant.” —The London Times
The Wait is Over!
“It is upon this one comedy that Balzac can lay any claims as a dramatic artist.”
—The New York Times
The literary event of the season has arrived—Mark Axelrod’s sublime translation of this obscure (but highly influential) comedy by Honoré de Balzac.
Originally presented under the title Mercodet or The Good Businessman, this play in three acts was perhaps the inspiration for the unseen character in Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.
102 years before Godot ‘s debut, Mercodet opened at the Theatre du Gymnase-Dramatique in Paris on August 24, 1851. Curiously enough, it featured a character named “Godeau” who never appears.
A comic coincidence? One of life’s little absurdities? Translator Mark Axelrod was determined to find out.
He met and corresponded with Beckett. And in Waiting for Godeau we present a rare, unpublished letter from Beckett in which the burning question is answered.
Or is it?
You be the judge.
Waiting for Godeau
by Honoré de Balzac
Translated from the French by Mark Axelrod
Absurdist Texts & Documents – No. 22
138 pp. Edition limited to 250 copies
$25.00
Play Dough
From Italy with love comes Peppo Bianchessi‘s CONTEMPORARY ART FOR RICH KIDS—a richly illustrated activity book. It’s a whirlwind tour of contemporary art and lucre, designed for those born with horns, forked tongues, and silver spoons in their mouths. It’s crammed to the till with fun and games, and guaranteed to be profitable—at least for the author. The flaming full color will dazzle your eyeballs. A surprise on every page!
There’s no government, but at least there’s still Art…
Pamper them with oils, swaddle them in the spoils of war. Watercolors, pastels, collage, découpage, gouache and the glory of riches. Feed their pointy little heads with the visions of well-heeled contemporary masters. Shower them with glitter from the gods. Smother them in dark museums and galleries. Clobber the slobbering blobs with sculpted urns, lash them with brushes dripping illusions. Give them the gift of fab, fame and fortune! Bestow upon them this Fun and Profitable Activity Book by one of Italy’s greatest living artists—Peppo Bianchessi.
CONTEMPORARY ART FOR RICH KIDS is a full color, illustrated guide to modern rat and the wonders of creation’s maze. Let the kiddies ogle, spit, guffaw and squirm as they learn and play. Remember: rich kids represent the future of the planet. These little amorphodytes are our future landlords & banksters; they are budding mobsters, jihadis, politicians, investors, meth-heads and speculators. They were born to remake the world spin in their own greedy image.
Spoil them now while there’s still time. Give them something to do. Or read it yourself. It’s the breakfast of Duchampions.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER this luxurious little book of dreams.
A Black $cat Scholastic Classic.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Peppo Bianchessi is a multimedia artist from Italy. He is a “mittel-European”, a funny intellectual strongly influenced by Japanese culture. In Italy, Multimedia Artists have been around since the Renaissance and, before Apple Computers and multi-tasking, they were simply called Renaissance Men. When he was 20, Peppo went to the Venice Art Biennale for the first time. He was surprised to see that some of the so-called “young artists” were over 50. Recently he returned to Venice and discovered some teenagers were considered “young artists.” Peppo is now 45 years old and has never been a young artist. And it’s probably too early to consider him an Old Master, but he’s working on it. That is, to become old, not a Master. On many occasions he has tried to be a contemporary artist, but his timing was always wrong. Thus, he has accepted his real vocation: undermining the education of children (and adults) through funny and provocative books.
Contemporary Art For Rich Kids is his first book to be published in the United States.
