Get inspired with over 100 pages of ingenious inventions ….
“…a magnificent work. Precise, absurdist, hilarious…”
Rhys Hughes
GOT INSPIRATION?
Category: great inventions
BRIGHT IDEAS
“…a magnificent work. Precise, absurdist, hilarious.”
—Rhys Hughes, author of The Smell of Telescopes
The 41st volume in our seminal Absurdist Texts & Documents series has arrived: PATENTS PENDING by Derek Pell and Doug Skinner, with an Afterword by Alphonse Allais. An illustrated compendium of ingenious inventions so ahead of their time they may never be available to the public – not in this world, nor the next. Discover pataphysical gizmos such as the OUIJA BILLBOARD, HELIUM BOMB, IMPOSSIBLE PICTURE FRAME, TROMPE L’OEIL MAGIC KIT, and many others. For now, these inspired concepts are but speculative prototypes – strange dreams haunting the drawing board of destiny – but thanks to this book you may study and savor them, and imagine a future far brighter than the present.
PATENTS PENDING
Derek Pell & Doug Skinner
with an Afterword by Alphonse Allais
Absurdist Texts & Documents No. 41
paperback; illustrated, 112 pp., $14
ISBN-13 : 978-1735615936
THE CROS FLIES!
CHARLES CROS: COLLECTED MONOLOGUES
It’s back to cool with the great French monologist, humorist, poet, and inventor—in a trenchant translation by Doug Skinner.
***FIRST PUBLICATION IN ENGLISH!***
Born in1842, 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. In these strikingly spontaneous and modern sketches, he introduces a gallery of fools and obsessives—The Clean Man, The Fencing Master, The Capitalist, The Friend of the Family—all nattering away, assaulting the audience with trivia, and blithely unaware of their own failings.
This edition collects all 22 of Cros’s monologues—masterfully translated & introduced by Doug Skinner—and includes performance notes by Coquelin, plus two biographical essays by his friend and colleague Alphonse Allais.
“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
Rare Classic Back in Print!
“A badass work of concentrated hallucination.”—Nile Southern
Just in time for the pataphysical New Year, a faux facsimile edition of Aventures dans la ‘pataphysique, which was originally published in Paris in 1951 by Éditions du Sagittaire.
Released in the U.S. by Black Scat in 2013, the limited edition of ADVENTURES IN ‘PATAPHYSICS (Absurdist Texts & Documents #13) sold out quickly. We’re pleased to announce a reprint of that rare edition.
Discover the Jarryesque joys, thrills, and perils of science in a bizarre classic of “imaginary solutions.” With French text and illustrations throughout, this anonymous gem happens to be one of the strangest books we’ve ever published (and that’s saying quite a lot).
$15.00 / $7.50 digital edition
Perfect-bound, illustrated, 64 pp. / Second Printing
‘PATAPHYSICS / SCIENCE / ART / ABSURDISM / FRENCH LITERATURE
A Gala Reading of CAPTAIN CAP
Doug Skinner read from (and signed copies of) his sparkling translation of Alphonse Allais’s Captain Cap: His Adventures, His Ideas, His Drinks at the Jalopy Theater in Brooklyn tonight. By all accounts it was a delightful performance and Alphonse would have been proud—not to mention inebriated, as Captain Cap cocktails were on the house.
If you missed the performance, don’t miss the book which is available on Amazon here.
<< Photographs by Farewell Debut. >>
The Ten-Percent Solution
Get 10% off our huge, Cap-sized edition of Alphonse Allais‘s CAPTAIN CAP: HIS ADVENTURES, HIS IDEAS, HIS DRINKS. This is the complete and unabridged translation of the original 1902 French classic, plus eight uncollected “Captain Cap” stories and a “Cappendix” of rare historical pictures. The book is illustrated throughout with witty drawings by Doug Skinner, in addition to his extensive notes and lively introduction.
Words for Today via Alphonse Allais
Allais was going to Breuil with Gandillot, who had a trunk. Allais only had a shirt. “You can put it in my trunk,” says Gandillot. “What?” says Allais. “And I, do I ask you to put your trunk in my shirt?
—Jules Renard
You’ll find more wit and wisdom in CAPTAIN CAP: HIS ADVENTURES, HIS IDEAS, HIS DRINKS by Alphonse Allais, translated from the French with an introduction & illustrations by Doug Skinner.
The Grand Madcap Edition of CAPTAIN CAP has Launched!
We’ve jumped the gun and released our mammoth deluxe trade paperback edition of Alphonse Allais’s CAPTAIN CAP: HIS ADVENTURES, HIS IDEAS, HIS DRINKS—translated by Doug Skinner. This is the complete & unabridged edition of the original 1902 French classic. 370 pages, including eight uncollected “Captain Cap” stories, plus a “Cappendix” of rare historical pictures.
The book is profusely illustrated with witty drawings by Doug Skinner, in addition to his extensive notes on the translation and swashbuckling introduction.
If you missed any of the limited edition capsized Captain Cap chapbooks in our Absurdist Texts & Documents series, you can get the whole kit and caboodle now, plus oodles more.
***
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, 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.
DOUG SKINNER has written numerous scores for theater and dance, particularly for actor/clown Bill Irwin (The Regard of Flight). His articles, cartoons, and translations have appeared in The Fortean Times, Fate, The Anomalist, Nickelodeon, Weirdo, Black Scat Review, and other periodicals. His translation of Isidore Isou’s Considerations on the Death and Burial of Tristan Tzara was published by Black Scat Books.
***
ARE YOU IN THE UK? CLICK HERE TO ORDER
ARE YOU IN FRANCE? CLICK HERE TO ORDER
ARE YOU IN GERMANY? CLICK HERE TO ORDER
Captain Cap Rides Again!
Hang on to your caps, folks, the Captain is back in a capsized edition designed to tease—Volume III in our hilarious 4-volume series.
Captain Cap: The Antifilter & Other Inventions by Alphonse Allais, translated and illustrated by Doug Skinner. This literary landmark is the first publication in English featuring Allais’s hilarious, booze-cruising captain of the high seas—the unthinkably unsinkable Captain Cap.
Over 100, profusely illustrated pages, The Antifilter is packed with strange, pataphysical inventions, quirky cons, cocktails, wordplay and absurd pranks. In short, it’s a feast for landlubbers and lover’s of French lit & humor.
DISCOVER:
- a new way to give microbes what they deserve
- a successful ascension, without a craft
- a machine that travels 234 kilometers an hour
- the secret of a truly modern house
- the art of shoeing horses on the Australian pampas
- a strange theory on the formation of coal
and much, much more!
110 pages, perfect-bound. Limited to 125 copies. $21.50
CLICK HERE and climb aboard.
Misson Accomplished
Alain Arias-Misson, author of the hot new Black Scat erotic fiction collection, The Man Who Walked On Air & Other Tales of Innocence, will be traveling from Paris to New York next month for a series of readings (see this post).
Rumor has it he will be driving.
Did we say driving from Europe?
Yes we did. In a Skycar.
If you think this is sci-fi or some craven attempt at humor, it’s no joke.
blackscatbooks.com 