How to Write the Suicide Note

The following is an excerpt from Doktor Bey’s Suicide Guidebook, just published in a Black Scat Classic Interim Edition,  part of the Absurdist Texts & Documents series. Limited to 85 copies.

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THE SUICIDE NOTE

Here are ten tips to aid you in writing your suicide note, a particular often overlooked.

  1. Use of the first person is generally preferred.
  2. For maximum impact and credibility, always write in the past tense. (Example:: I was a failure in business.)
  3. If you are without family, friends, or even enemies, address the note “To Whom It May Concern.”
  4. When possible, use a typewriter. Far too many notes are indecipherable.
  5. Keep a carbon copy in your pocket, in case the original is misplaced.
  6. Do not concern yourself with the “beginning-middle-end” rule. Just concentrate on the end.
  7. Keep in mind that these are your last words. They should be commensurate with your social position.  They should reverberate in the reader’s mind!  Avoid such clichés as “Goodbye cruel world” and “To be or not to be . . .” Strive for the poetic.
  8. Self-pity, slang, and obscenity are acceptable.
  9. If artistically inclined, attach a self-portrait.
  10. Be brief. Nothing is more boring than a long goodbye.


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Doktor Bey's Suicide Guidebook

CLICK HERE TO ORDER A COPY

The Original How-To to End All is Back!

Doktor Bey's Suicide Guidebook

Long before Dr. Kevorkian was turning off the lights and the Hemlock Society was stocking up on helium—before jihadis were blowing themselves to smithereens—there was DOKTOR BEY’S SUICIDE GUIDEBOOK—the inspiration behind the worldwide assisted suicide movement. Indeed, the SUICIDE GUIDEBOOK (originally published by Dodd, Mead & Co. in 1977) is the world’s first, lavishly illustrated how-to to end all. Written by the notorious Doktor Bey, it has everything you need to know—including tips on composing the suicide note.

Black Scat Books is pleased to make this long out of print classic available to a new generation of the chronically depressed. With the world in chaos, DOKTOR BEY’S SUICIDE GUIDEBOOK is a welcome alternative to waiting around for Armageddon.

It’s a foolproof shortcut to god knows what.

BUY NOW

The Idiot Hath Arrived!

No, not that idiot, this idiot…

How I Became an Idiot

Esteemed French drama critic (and the butt of derision at the cabaret Le Chat Noir), Francisque Sarcey reviewed the premiere of Alfred Jarry‘s Ubu Roi with this visionary verdict: ”…a filthy fraud which deserves nothing but the silence of contempt.”

Writer and humorist Alphonse Allais transformed Sarcey into an Ubuesque piñata in a series of wicked columns published under Sarcey’s name in the newspaper Le Chat Noir. 

Never before in English, this rare collection is introduced and translated from the French by Doug Skinner. Edition limited to 60 printed copies. #00 in our Black Scat Classics sub-series.

How I Became an Idiot reminds me of Félix Fénéon’s excellent Novels in Three Lines… the unexpected is suddenly present, and there is rudeness, as well as a savagery of attack that we simply can’t imagine anyone doing to any well-known columnist of today and getting away with it.”
—Jeff Bursey, author of Verbatim: A Novel
Prepare yourself for some nasty laughs.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: THIS TITLE IS OUT OF PRINT.

May Allais

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Doug Skinner has shared some delicious Alphonse Allais tidbits—including a very rare photo of the master at his desk—over on the Ullage Group blog.

Meanwhile, volume three of Mr. Skinner’s translation of Allais’s Captain Cap is in the works.

For those interested in collecting the entire 4-volume set, copies of the first two are still available.

Captain Cap (Vol. I): Captain Cap Before the Electorate

Captain Cap (Vol. II): The Apparent Symbiosis Between the Boa and Giraffe

There will be no June Gloom here…

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Get out your markers and circle June 1st. That’s publication day for How I Became an Idiot by Francisque Sarcey. Sarcey (1827-1899) was an esteemed French drama critic and the butt of derision at the cabaret Le Chat noir. He reviewed the premiere of Alfred Jarry‘s Ubu Roi with this visionary verdict: “…a filthy fraud which deserves nothing but the silence of contempt.”

Yes, he was a visionary idiot.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S IRONY.

In the good hands of Alphonse Allais, Sarcey became an Ubuesque piñata for the avant-garde artists and writers of Montmartre. The absurdist master wrote a series of wicked columns for the newspaper Le Chat noir under the name Francisque Sarcey and, as you might imagine, merdre hit the fan. Pies and fists were flying and high society was aghast.

Be prepared for some nasty laughs in How I Became an Idiot. Never before in English, this rare collection has been translated from the French by the great Doug Skinner and is being issued in an extremely limited edition of 60 copies.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:  THIS TITLE IS OUT OF PRINT

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Read more about forthcoming Interim Editions on the Bookends page here.

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Good Humour

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If you’ve missed any of these, now’s the time to stock up. Remember, good humour is hard to find.

Click to order HOT HEART OF BOAR & OTHER TASTES
Click to order CAPTAIN CAP – VOL. II
Click to order THE NEGLECTED WORKS OF NORMAN CONQUEST
Click to order COLD IN THE BRAIN
Click to order THE COMPLETE UNABRIDGED LEXICON
Click to order IT’S FUN TO BE RICH IN AMERICA
Click to order A CAMI SAMPLER
Click to order CAPTAIN CAP – VOL. I
Click to order A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO ART DECONSTRUCTION

Captain Cap Sails Again!

Captain Cap (Vol. II)

Climb aboard and pop your corks, Captain Cap (Vol II) sets sail today!

We recognize the inherent risks of launching a book on the first day of April, yet we’ve decided to push ahead—(or should we say shove off?)—since it’s entirely appropriate when the author is Alphonse Allais, the great French innovative humorist. Moreover, on this very day in 1897, Paul Ollendorff christened Allais’s Album primo-avrilesque (April Foolish Album)—a portfolio featuring seven monochromatic paintings which anticipated abstract art. Sadly, the album has gone unnoticed by so-called “art historians,” but we’ll leave that fight for another day.

Presently, this second volume—(two more to follow!)—gets down to the nitty-gritty, i.e., Allais’s legendary stories peppered with bizarre inventions, tall tales, philandering, and—oh yes—frequent liquid refreshments. Come to think of it, the phrase “traveling the high seas” may well have been coined in honor of the good captain’s bar-hopping.

Now’s your chance to discover a whole world of exotic trivia, such as…

  • THE SECRET BEHIND MEAT-LAND
  • UNKNOWN FACTS ABOUT GIRAFFES
  • HOW TO PAY ONE’S AMOROUS DEBTS
  • EXPERIMENTS IN HYPNOTISM
  • NAME THAT ORANGUTAN
  • INTERSTELLAR COMMUNICATIONS
  • HOW TO RECYCLE CONFETTI

And much, much more.

The Apparent Symbiosis Between the Boa and Giraffe has been painstakingly translated  by the versatile Doug Skinner. who has illustrated the book with 17 original drawings done in true Allaisian spirit. He also provides an enlightening introduction and extensive notes containing historical tidbits that bring La Belle Époque alive.

At over 100 pages, this collectible edition marks a watershed moment for the Absurdist Texts & Documents series, and is one of several reasons why the word “chapbook”  should be thrown overboard.

So don’t miss out on this gala voyage. Click here and order a copy.

We wish you all a happy April Fool’s! (And that’s no joke.)

Look it up!

lexicon-cover

Masonic
Sound or sounds which pass rapidly through brick and stone walls

Matinee
A church service of morning prayer followed by a Biblical movie

Mausoleum
Hard floor-covering made of ground cork and linseed oil on a canvas backing, found in many large, imposing tombs throughout Asia Minor

Maximum
A full-time working mother with a large family

Mayonnaise
The sophisticated dance routine of a Central American Indian tribe who had formulated a highly developed civilization

Mazurka
A lively dance through a confusing, intricate network of pathways bordered with neatly kept topiary

Mediocre
The 15th Century sport of pissing in another’s glass of mead

Megger
A female mugger

Melancholia
A tonic made from cantaloupes prescribed to relieve extreme depression

Membranophone
A telephonic apparatus for transmission of sound or speech to a distant point through a pliable series of layers composed of animal or vegetable tissue (a soft house-phone)

Mercantile
A lizard-like reptilian found in many polluted waters

Mermaid’s purse
(Slang) A rather wet, slobbery kiss

Mesopause
The split floor area of a low story between two other stories of greater height in a building

Mesopeak
A mountain summit of lesser altitude than those which overshadow it on one or more sides

Metallurgy
A hypersensitivity to specific alloys such as brass or bronze

Metaphor
An imaginary apparatus for conveying objects and concepts which do not literally denote, in order to suggest comparison with another object or concept by means of mental signals, as a bright idea, the radiance of which may be changed

Methanation
An aggregation of Methodist persons of the same ethnic family, often speaking the same language or cognate languages

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from The Complete Unabridged Lexicon by Opal Louis Nations

The Brighton Daily Herald says “Nations gives new meaning to the word definition.”

OUT OF PRINT