Avant-garde composer & poet, Mirtha Pozzi in Paris.
Don’t miss the current issue of TYPO: The International Journal of Prototypes, featuring the first English translation of a novelette by surrealist André Pieyre de Mandiargues, and previously unavailable translations from a diverse selection of neglected literary masters: Marcel Schneider, Bernard Quiriny, Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando, Walter Serner, and others. Plus art and startling surprises.
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.
ON SALE NOW!
Number 50 in the Absurdist Texts & Documents Series.
Alphonse Allais’s collected stories were published in eleven volumes between 1892 and 1902. He called these books his “Anthumous Works.” With the publication of Feeding Time, Black Scat has now issued all of them—all first English translations by Doug Skinner.
Our stellar, 17-volume Alphonse Allais Collection is now complete and includes six additional volumes: Captain Cap: His Adventures, His Ideas, His Drinks; The Blaireau Affair, Allais’s only novel; Selected Plays of Alphonse Allais; I Am Sarcey, his stories featuring Francisque Sarcey; Alphonse Allais’s Masks: Deluxe Special Edition. (an illustrated version of one of his stories); and our sampler, The Alphonse Allais Reader.
If you haven’t discovered France’s greatest humorist, dig in!
FEEDING TIME
Alphonse Allais
Translated by Doug Skinner
Paperback; 168 pp.; $14.95
ISBN 979-8-9923826-4-8
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 man books, including the underground classic, A Beginner’s Guide to Art Deconstruction (Permeable Press) and, most recently, The Absurd World of Norman Conquest (Black Scat).
Farm Team Ballet
Norman Conquest
Illustrated; chapbook, 46 pp., paper, $12
Absurdist Texts & Documents #49
ISBN 979-8992382655
OUT-OF-PRINT
Reach for quick relief with TYPO #8, a timely remedy for your anxiety and depression. Bring feelings of joy back into your life with its mixture of fictions, poems and artworks from different times and countries. Also it’s a perfect holiday gift for the connoisseurs in your family.
PACKED WITH PROTOMORPHS, DADA, SURREALISM, COLLAGE, FUTURISM, EXPERIMENTAL FICTION, CRIME SCENES, STOLEN LOVE POSITIONS, VISUAL POETRY, BILITERAL ALPHABETS, CONSTRAINED TEXTS, MAD FOLD-INS, FRENCH LITERATURE, ABSURDIST HUMOR, SOUND POEMS, SILENT CINEMA, FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, & MORE.
This issue features contributions by Tim Newton Anderson; Tom Barrett; Terry Bradford; Steve Carll; Peter Cherches; Norman Conquest; Lynn Crawford; Jeanne Devlin; Jean-Christophe Duchon-Doris; Albert Ehrenstein; James Montgomery Flagg; Shawn Garrett; Edward Gauvin; Vasilisk Gnedov; Michael Gould; Allan Randolph Kausch; Amy Kurman; Julia Lillard; Emilia Loseva; George MacLennan; Zach Keali’i Murphy; Opal Louis Nations; Grasset d’Orcet; Bernard Quiriny; Paul Rosheim; Marcel Schneider; Doug Skinner; Lono Taggers; Mark Valentine; Renée Vivien; Tom Whalen; Paul Willems; Carla M. Wilson; Danny Winkler; Mark Wyatt.
TYPO #8: The International Journal of Prototypes
155 pp., trade paperback; ISBN: 979-8-9908521-9-8
$20
We are elated, delirious, tickled, thrilled, and ecstatic to announce the 16th volume in our acclaimed Alphonse Allais Collection. This first English translation of Allais’s Pour cause de fin de bail has been exquisitely prepared and introduced (with notes on the text) by master translator Doug Skinner.
This wickedly amusing collection contains fifty-three absurdist tales—packed with phantom limbs, floating brothels, tapeworms, ostrich shoes, and other remarkable things. It makes a jolly beach read, or to browse in your hammock whilst sipping a cool glass of lemonade—or better yet, a jug of absinthe.
So, if you haven’t already begun gathering your personal Allais collection—shame on you!—now is the time to start. Scroll down and you’ll find unadulterated links to each edition for convenient purchasing.
Happy Summer!
Le propriétaire
My Rent Is Due!
Captain Cap: His Adventures, His Ideas, His Drinks
Selected Plays of Alphonse Allais
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 . . .
“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
“A fun read.” —John Coulthart
Fuzz Against Smut: The Saga of the Anti-Smut Brigade
Angelo Pastormerlo & Derek Pell, with collages by Norman Conquest
Absurdist Texts & Documents #48
Paperback, profusely illustrated; 105 pp., $15
Spring Fever hath sprung with the special “Goddess Issue” of TYPO—packed with an international cast of luminaries: Tim Newton Anderson; Tom Bradley; Anton Chekhov; Norman Conquest; Caroline Crépiat; R J Dent; Max Ernst; Eurydice Eve; Luc Fierens; Leonor Fini; Théophile Gautier; Harold Jaffe; Amy Kurman; Lo; Michael Maier; Dmitri Manin; Elena Marini; Lilianne Milgrom; Opal Louis Nations; Marty Newman; Claudio Parentela; Angeleaux Pastormerleaux; Paul Rosheim; Jasia Reichardt; Doug Skinner; Phil Demise Smith; Tabarin; Lono Taggers; Corinne Taunay; Shyam Thandar; Stefan Themerson; Konstantin Vaginov, and Gregory Wallace.
IN THIS ISSUE:
· TYPOGLYPHICS
· THE LOVES OF PHARAOH
· GODDESS OF NOIR
· MAX ERNST & LEONOR FINI LOVE LETTERS
· MEXICO’S SURREALIST GODDESSES
· SEXY PRINTER ORNAMENTS
· THE LOUIS XIII JOKESHOP
· CONJOINING WORDS
· SEMANTIC POETRY
· THE WOMEN OF ROME
· A BILINGUAL ACROSTIC REBUS
and much more
TYPO #5: The International Journal of Prototypes
edited by Norman Conquest
trade paperback; 152 pp., illustrated; $20
ISBN 979-8-9894330-5-6
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
This scandalous little work appeared in France under the title “Letter to La Présidente.”
Théophile Gautier (1811-1872) was a novelist and poet, one of the champions of Romanticism. In 1850, he and his friend Louis de Cormenin visited Italy, so he wrote his friends back home a letter about their adventures. The result was a rollicking “filthy letter,” packed with jokes, slang, obsolete words, literary allusions, puns, alliterations, neologisms, Spoonerisms, verses, outrageous metaphors, and Rabelaisian lists. It was published privately in 1890, and became a clandestine classic.
A FILTHY LETTER
Théophile Gautier
Translated from the French by Doug Skinner,
with an introduction & notes on the text
Pocket Erotica Series #28
74 pp., 4 x 6 inches;
979-8-9894330-7-0
