Book Worship

rkOn Monday 25 March, 7 pm. at McNally-Jackson, 52 Prince Street, between Lafayette and Mulberry Streets, Richard Kostelanetz will present over one dozen recent books rarely, if ever, seen before, most of them extending his earlier achievements at the intersection of literature and book-art, many of them produced with the seductive new technology of “on-demand printing” and thus reasonably priced, at least for now.

Among them are Epiphanies, two vols., 1000 pages, one story to a book page, culminating thirty years of work with resonant single-sentence climax moments in otherwise nonexistent fictions, a typographical feast for a monumental project, 8½” x 11”.

Conceptual Fictions, an extended essay with examples about the framing of implicit narratives.

Visual Fictions, collecting pages designed more than a decade ago for hisOpenings and Complete Stories, along with his Leonardo and Me.

Verbal Fictions, various formally alternative narratives that are not visually enhanced.

Vocal Shorts, an expanded edition of his texts designed for live performance for various numbers of players.

Openings Short Fictions, in the tradition of Epiphaniesthe initial sentences of otherwise nonexistent stories.

Reflections on Loving and Relationships, his aphorisms continuously on right-hand pages against drawings of men and women made by the prominent choreographer Frances Alenikoff.

Furtherest Fictions, which reprints, revised, an earlier collection of his exploration of radically alternative narrative well beyond what every other fictioner is doing.

A Universe of Sentences, a continuous selection of lines by others worth remembering, the whole representing a universe of experience.

1001 Stories Enumerated, single-sentence fictions that, unlike Openings andEpiphanies, are meant to be complete in themselves.

Erotic Minimal Fictions, a variety of prose alternatives constituting the apex of avant-garde erotica.

Fields/Arenas/Pitches/Turfs, which completes the publication of geometric poems—with four, eight, and sixteen words to a large book page–begun thirty years ago.

1-99: A Book, another Kostelanetz narrative, in the tradition of Exhaustive Parallel Intervals (1979), composed only of numerals.

Ghostories, which are fictions created by boldfacing certain letters within a single word (e.g., address).

Homophones: Stories, where narratives are composed from two or sometimes more words that sound alike if spelled differently.

To & Fro &, where the reader’s discovery of narratives depend upon turning the book’s pages.

Ops & Clos, where opening and closings words, each pair with its own typography, are interspersed amidst each other.

English, Really English, in which he collects English words that seem incredible—over five thousand of them alphabetically in several perfectbound volumes.

What I Didn’t Do, which epitomizes intellectual nonhistory as Kostelanetz’s record of proposals that were never supported.

A Book of Eyes, photocopied and velobound, which explores the richly various ways that the single letter between H and J appears in contemporary typography

His presentation may also include such slightly older books as Skeptical Essays (Autonomedia), his latest collection of mostly severe criticism; Three Poems (NY Quarterly), where his experiments with three strains of one-word poetry appear interspersed; Micro Fictions (Archae), a limited-edition hardback with 900 pages of Louis Bury’s imaginatively designed narratives all three words and less; the reprint of his classic anthology of alternative expositions, Essaying Essays (AC Books); and maybe some others.

In May, Black Scat will publish Richard’s new book The Works & Life of Kosty Richards: An American Career in our Absurdist Texts & Documents series (#15)—thus adding to this vast library of experimental fiction.

Southern Discomfort…

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A yummy treat (for those with strong stomachs) is coming soon in our Absurdist Texts & Documents series…a new collection of strange  “tastes” from the late master chef Terry Southern:

HOT HEART OF BOAR & Other Tastes

We’ll be serving it fresh—piping hot and throbbing—in a limited edition of only 125 copies. First come, first served.

The book features rare unpublished texts, including an excerpt from The Hunters of Karinhalla screenplay that, sadly, was never filmed. It’s a bloody masterpiece, and we do mean bloody. There’s also a private letter to William Burroughs; a vomiting priest; “K.Y. Madness,” and more.

In addition to the author’s culinary delights, you’ll find illuminating introductory notes by Nile Southern, as well as tastefully explicit illustrations by Norman Conquest.

In short, it’s a full-boar feast for famished fans of black humor.

Prepare to dig in.

The Public Poem

EDITOR’S NOTE: THE WEEK OF  MARCH 11TH IN NEW YORK, THE CITY OF HIS CHILDHOOD, ALAIN ARIAS-MISSON WILL BE PRESENTING SEVERAL EXCITING EVENTS: THE FIRST IS A SHOW AT EMILY HARVEY FOUNDATION WHERE HE USED TO SHOW HIS WORK IN THE LATE ’70’S EARLY EARLY ’80’S. THERE WILL ALSO BE AN EVENT AT WHITE BOX (SEE PREVIOUS POST HERE.) MORE NEWS TO FOLLOW. IF YOU’RE IN THE AREA OR PLANNING TO VISIT, ALAIN WILL BE THERE TO GREET YOU WITH A SMILE.

THE PUBLIC POEM by ALAIN ARIAS-MISSON

Alain Arias-Misson, born in Brussels, educated mostly in the U.S., describes himself as “a real fake-American, a fake real-Belgian”—a dual identity which extended into his life’s work: American novelist by vocation with seven books of experimental fiction, and European artist by accident-as one of the initiators of the visual poetry movement in the early sixties in Spain, Belgium, France and Italy. His works are represented in museums and galleries throughout Europe and the United States. His invention of the Public Poem in 1966-67, however, was a singular poetic experience: he decided he could “write on the street like a page”. His Public Poems or street-texts have since disrupted city life in a score of cities in Europe and the U.S.. 

The exhibition consists of a graphic-documentary illustration of his Public Poems and a video of seven Public Poems—on the occasion of the publication in the current issue of Performance Arts Journal of his Public Poems as the Artist’s Drawings section. Arias-Misson has deliberately enacted his Public Poems outside the “performances” circuit, in order to avoid an elitist art context: always taking place in the city streets, focal point of signs and polis, political-cultural milieu, the Public Poem uses minimal linguistic elements (such as grammatical symbols, let­ters, cartoon balloons) and iconic signs (masks, figures, materials) to point to or to frame an underlying city-text—in the symbolic and the functional aspects of traffic, police, monuments, public buildings, business, political and art institutions etc.. The public he addresses in the first place is the public in the street. Having begun this “street-poetry” in the Sixties, an era of cultural and urban effervescence, he feels that today with “Occupy Wall Street” and mass street demonstrations, his work again enjoys an aesthetic-social dynamic.

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Madrid 1971                                                         Berlin 1991

THE PUBLIC POEM

(40 years of a street poetics)

 a one evening presentation/screening of documents & videos

Emily Harvey Foundation
537 Broadway
Thursday March 14th, 6 – 9 PM

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AND MORE… what a lineup! Don’t miss this on March 15th!

Literary Evening 1

Start celebrating early — read THE MAN WHO WALKED ON AIR & OTHER TALES OF INNOCENCE

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White Box Rocks on March 16th

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On Saturday, March 16, 2013, for one night only, White Box (329 Broome Street, New York, NY 10002 | Tel: 212-714-2347) will present an evening, subject to impromptus, of video-film presentations, performances (including the shortest musical piece in the history of music), readings and interpretations in what could only be described as a not-to-be-missed ‘Avant-Garde Variety Show’, orchestrated by the one and only Alain Arias-Misson.

Alain Arias-Misson, a Belgian-American living in Paris and one of the inventors of visual poetry in the early sixties, will comment on a brief video-film of his notorious Public Poems, street-texts that have disrupted city life in a score of cities; and will read a short story from his seventh (erotic) book, The Man Who Walked on Air & other Tales of Innocence, published by Black Scat Books.

Frédéric Acquaviva, self-taught experimental French musician and performer living in Berlin, has published 17 single CDs of his work and written 30 compositions performed at institutions in Europe and the U.S. He will perform the shortest musical piece in the history of music, and read a text in Google Translation English regarding his discovery of this DNA of sound. He will show his hieratic/demotic short videos and a music video of a piece performed at the Fenice Theater of Venice, accompanied by
yawns.

William Niederkorn and Yolanda Hawkins, musicians, performance artists and founders of the True Comedy Theatre Company of NYC, which has staged original plays over the past three decades, will present an excerpt from a work in progress: a couple of artists at a party discuss the situation of the East Village, overrun by students mortgaging their lives to go to NYU, Wall Street types revving up the housing market, curators phoning them to get them to donate their lives’ work to the nonprofit institutions that afford the curators summer residencies in Provence.

Coming Soon

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Ah, the merry month of March hath arrived, and that means the “Pleasure” issue of Black Scat Review will soon be available. In addition to its provocative cover photograph by Eleanor Bennett (a British sixteen year old of astounding talent), the magazine features nearly 80 pages of pleasurable art & fiction by Alain Arias-Misson, Jonathan Baumbach, Guy R. Beining, Miggs Burroughs, Pierre Henri Cami, John Crombie, Farewell Debut, Jacinta EscudosStephen D. Gutierrez, Harold Jaffe, Richard Kostelanetz, Terri Lloyd, Samantha Memi, Opal Louis Nations, Derek PellDoug Skinner, and D. Harlan Wilson.

This is one issue you won’t want to miss, and to avoid such a catastrophe simply enter your email address in the box in the column at left (below “Join the Underground”).  How hard is that?

March on!

Latest Scat Happenings Around the Globe

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MOVEMENTS IN MOTION

Frédéric Acquaviva writes from Berlin to inform us of the above exhibition in the UK on March 4th. Anyone planning to be in London should make a point of attending. Visitors can eyeball & sniff rare specimens  of DADA, LETTRISM, FLUXUS, FUTURISM, SOUND & CONCRETE POETRY. You’ll also spot Black Scat’s Considerations on the Death and Burial of Tristan Tzara by Isidore Isou  which—like a talisman–will hang  suspended from the ceiling in a plastic envelope. For those unable to attend, we’ll be posting  photos from the show.

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AIR FRANCE: MISSON IMPOSSIBLE

We’ll also be posting photos of Alain Arias-Misson when he travels to New York City from his home in Paris.  There will be many gala events from March 12-19th: an art exhibition, performance of his Public Poem, as well as a series of readings from his new fiction collection,  The Man Who Walked On Air & Other Tales of Innocencepublished by Black Scat. The book is now available on Amazon in Europe as well as here in the USA.

We will post  details of Alain’s whirlwind tour in the near future.

While you’re waiting…

Pornobongo, Mon Amour

coming

…What’s that sound?…

The sound of Oulipo Pornobongo 2 stirring in the darkness?

Lunging, thumping, humping…

Yes, sequels are never subtle.

We will be publishing this sequel to the original Anthology of Erotic Wordplay later this year, and are currently searching for appropriate texts spiced with hot oulipian constraints.

Stay tuned.

If you’d like to view last year’s lovely pornobongo trailer, click here.

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A Note of Interest to Pornobongoids:

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Tomorrow, New Directions will officially release the 65th anniversary
edition of Raymond Queneau‘s inspirational classic Exercises in Style, translated by the late-great Barbara Wright. This edition includes previously unpublished exercises as well as episodes composed in the author’s honor by Frederic TutenLynne TillmanHarry Mathews, and others.

A splendid treat, despite a typo on the copyright page that credits Stefan Themerson‘s memorable cover image to “Stephen.”

CLICK HERE to order

Our Man in Panama

panamaThe legendary literary maestro, Alain Arias-Misson, has disappeared from Paris. Well, no, that’s not quite accurate… he hasn’t vanished in the sense that, say, a CIA operative might suddenly leave the scene. No…Alain is basking in the balmy breezes in Panama. He and the lovely Karen avoid the nasty winters in France by disappearing  (escaping) to their undisclosed hideout (is there any other kind?) on the Pacific. Actually, their hideout looks like a love-nest, oui?

At the Black Scat Books bunker in northern California, we’re all rather jealous of M. Arias-Misson since temperatures have dipped to 30-degrees! In other words we’re freezing our butts off but cannot afford to escape.

To make matters worse, Arias-Misson sends taunting emails from Panama wishing us warm regards, etc. We took revenge, however, and made certain his vacation was interrupted by a lot of work, i.e., we gave him stiff deadlines for compiling his collection of short stories: The Man Who Walked on Air & Other Tales of Innocence. 

This, by the way, is a significant edition featuring 15 “innocent” tales, spanning 195 pages — experimental, erotic, poetic, passionate, obsessive, and hilarious. But that’s stating the obvious… damn it, the man is bloody brilliant and we’re honored to be unleashing the book any moment now. (No joke, check back here today.)

Why a winter pub date you ask?

Once the new book rears its head on Amazon in the U.S. and Europe, the author will head to New York where he’s always in demand for readings and performances.

And NYC is cold as hell in winter.

🙂

The Perils of Science & Other Divertissements

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Les périls de la science

We’re giddy over our lineup of new titles for 2013. Among the offerings…

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• Adventures in Pataphysics—an anonymous classic of “imaginary solutions,” profusely illustrated in a deluxe limited edition. You can reserve a copy now by sending an email to blackscat@outlook.com  No payment necessary, simply indicate that you’d like us to set one aside for you. The book is guaranteed to sell out quickly.

• Also in the wings, Captain Cap (Volume One) by the great Alphonse Allais.  Faithfully translated from the French by Doug Skinner, this is the first in an exclusive, multi-volume series. This is the only English translation—a literary landmark—and a must-have for fans of the master absurdist.

• To start 2013 off with a grand guffaw, we’re serving up A Cami Sampler on New Year’s Day. Consider this a spicy dessert by a slightly mad French chef: ten cockeyed microdramas by Pierre Henri Cami, including 9-pages of his rare drawings. Translated by Paris-based Cami-connoisseur John Crombie, this collection is a scrumptious treat by a writer Charlie Chaplin hailed as “the greatest humorist in the world.”

And that’s just the tip of the smorgasbord, as Black Scat is also publishing works by Pedro Carolino, Florence Bocherel, Farewell Debut, Alain Arias-Misson and others. Plus new issues of Black Scat Review.

pata-smileSolution imaginaire: Décodage sourire de Mona Lisa  (from Adventures in ‘Pataphysics)

Happy New Year, All!