Captain Cap Sails Again!

April 1, 2013Leave a comment

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.)

Tzara in London

March 10, 2013March 12, 2013Leave a comment

Considerations on the Death and Burial of Tristan Tzara by Isidore Isou, (translated by Doug Skinner) was on display recently in London at an exhibition of DADA, LETTRISM, FLUXUS, FUTURISM, SOUND & CONCRETE POETRY, curated by Frédéric Acquaviva. Alas, we were not there for the festivities, but hear that the book was quite popular with attendees.

There are only a few copies remaining in Scat’s limited edition, so if you haven’t nabbed one … now’s the time. CLICK HERE

photos courtesy of Frédéric Acquaviva

A Rave for Captain Cap!

March 6, 2013March 6, 2013Leave a comment

Doug Skinner’s sublime translation of Alphonse Allais’s Captain Cap (Vol. I) has received a rave from the prestigious Leonardo Reviews in the UK. The complete text is now available online at this link

The review was written by Edith Doove (University of Plymouth) and here are a few excerpts:

“The translation into English of Captain Cap as the first in a series of three is both welcome and very timely. It is welcome since the Absurdist Texts & Documents Series by Black Scat Books project has filled an important void since the only other English venture into Allais’ writing, The World of Alphonse Allais, translated by Miles Kingston and published in hardback by Chatto & Windus in 1976, was made available in a paperback in 2008. But apart from long awaited, Captain Cap also comes at a timely moment because of the fact that its ironies are particularly opposite today as we witness global intellectual colonisation. The importance of not forgetting about the French context and its originality for a true understanding of this text was underlined by the former director of the National Library of France Jean-Noël Jeanneney when he launched a counter-attack against the American (U.S.A) imperialism by Google Books in which search results for European writers initially were mostly provided in English, (which resulted in the establishment of the Europeana Libraries – http://www.europeana-libraries.eu). The first book that Jeanneney showed in the course of recent documentary ‘Google and the World Brain’ (BBC, 2013) was Diderot’s Encyclopédie, which, without wanting to be overly chauvinistic, does put things in the right order. He dryly remarks (in French with English sub-titles) that on being confronted with the gift of a small thermo flask, brought to him by a Google Book VP in order to win him over, it was clear to him that they clearly did not understand who the director of the National Library of France actually was, or better, what he (commercially) represents. The documentary also identified similar misunderstandings or even better ‘misreadings’ by Google Books when, for example, the initial cataloguing of Walt Whitman’s famous book of poems ‘Leaves of Grass’ went under Gardening, and when it failed to recognize that Japanese books need to be scanned vertically rather than horizontally, turning any search result in complete nonsense. Such faux pas are hilarious after the event rather than the absurd way in which Allais’ texts actually points to – even anticipates – these kinds of dangers in an indirect or implicit way. So aside from the sheer pleasure of meeting an old friend, his observations have relevance now more than 100 years later.”

“This publication of Captain Cap is a little gem. It is wonderful that not-for profit publisher Black Scat Books, which seems to operate in true pataphysical tradition with former bookstore owner Norman Conquest (sic) as its ‘Président-Fondateur’ clearly respecting its French origins, has taken the initiative to bring Allais’ text to the attention of the English-speaking world.”

And on that note, let us remind you the edition is limited. You can order a copy here while they last.

Hooray for Captain Cap!

Coming Soon

March 1, 2013Leave a comment

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 Escudos, Stephen D. Gutierrez, Harold Jaffe, Richard Kostelanetz, Terri Lloyd, Samantha Memi, Opal Louis Nations, Derek Pell, Doug 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!

Pop (Music) Quiz

February 23, 2013Leave a comment

Q: How many Black Scat authors and contributors are gifted singers and musicians?

A: Two for certain (Doug Skinner and Opal Louis Nations)—we’ll have to ask the others. Skinner can be seen performing in the previous post. And here’s a link to a rare audio clip of Opal Nations singing Take the Easy Way Out.

Opal Nations and The Frays

CLICK TO LISTEN

Extra credit:

Q: Do they have groupies?

A: We’re putting our money on “yes.”

More of Opal’s music here: opalnations.com

Order his book, The Complete Unabridged Lexicon

It’s Nostalgia Friday!

February 22, 2013February 22, 2013Leave a comment

Here’s Black Scat author & translator Doug Skinner performing a ukulele solo: The Regard of Flight 23 — Second Homesickness Song. This clip was broadcast on TV in 1983 and is from a comedy play on tour starring Skinner, Bill Irwin, and Michael O’Connor.

A sweet treat to launch the weekend. Enjoy!

A man of many talents, Doug Skinner has translated Isidore Isou’s Considerations on the Death and Burial of Tristan Tzara and Captain Cap (Vol. I.) by Alphonse Allais—both in our Absurdist Texts & Documents series. In addition, he has written numerous scores for theater and dance, particularly for actor/clown Bill Irwin. His articles, cartoons, and translations have appeared in The Fortean Times, Fate, The Anomalist, Nickelodeon, Weirdo, and Black Scat Review. His translation of Giovanni Battista Nazari’s alchemical dream vision, Three Dreams, was published by Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks in 2002.

You can follow him on his blog here.

Button Up, Button Down

February 15, 2013Leave a comment

The free Captain Cap campaign buttons have all been claimed, but we still encourage our visitors to purchase a copy of the book—a treat in itself. Besides, volume II in our three-volume series by Alphonse Allais (translated by Doug Skinner) will be coming around the mountain soon, so you’ll want to collect the set.

As for the buttons (hand-drawn by Skinner), one lucky gent chose to enshrine his:

PHOTO: JIM McMENAMIN

Ahoy Polloi!

February 11, 2013Leave a comment

Judging from the brisk sails [sic] of Captain Cap by Alphonse Allais, the good captain is developing a rabid cult following—some of whom are daring to wear Captain Cap campaign buttons in broad daylight. The book’s intrepid translator Doug Skinner has compiled The Iconography of Captain Cap over on the Ullage Group blog—complete with rare images.

Don’t miss the boat.

Tiny Baubles

February 9, 2013February 15, 2013Leave a comment

UPDATED (2/15 —9:22 am PST): All 12 Captain Cap campaign buttons are gone— but you can still order a copy of Captain Cap (Vol. I.) by Alphonse Allais – as well you should.

Hip! Hip! Allais! Alphonse! Hooray!

February 1, 2013February 15, 2013Leave a comment

[TRUMPETS BLARING; BANNERS WAVING; BABIES SHRIEKING; READERS CHEERING; etc.]

Black Scat proudly announces the publication of Captain Cap by Alphonse Allais—the first of three volumes in a series of “captails” translated from the French by grand maestro Doug Skinner—who also illustrated the edition and produced its sublime cover.

Vol. I (“Captain Cap Before the Electorate”) covers the captain’s notorious political career—including an unexpurgated appendix of his favorite cocktails**.

That this work by Allais has never before appeared in English makes this a literary event worthy of balloons, noise-makers, champagne, and an inebriated marching band.

~~And to celebrate the Captain’s launch we’re christening this limited edition by offering a FREE Captain Cap campaign button to the first twelve connoisseurs who order a copy.~~

UPDATE (2/15): All the buttons are gone, alas.

Now if you’ve read this far and are wondering who Captain Cap was, here’s a brief excerpt from the translator’s introduction:

“Many discerning readers think Alphonse Allais was
the finest humorist France ever produced. I will have
to concur. Many go further, and class him simply as a
master of the short story. I will have to agree with that
as well. And many claim that his greatest creation was
that hard-drinking adventurer and inventor, Captain
Cap. I will go along with that too, but with one quibble:
Captain Cap really existed.

His real name was Albert Jean Baptiste Nicolas
Caperon, and he was born in Paris in 1864. His father,
Paulin Caperon, had inherited a fortune in his twenties,
and devoted himself to radical politics, bibliomania,
and banking, in no particular order. It was while
practicing the last that he sold railway shares in Alsace
to a Swiss bank; when Germany annexed Alsace in
1871 after the Franco-Prussian war, Germany confiscated
the stock. The Swiss bank wanted its money
back, leaving Caperon in an uncomfortable situation.
He resolved it by fleeing to Belgium, and then to
America, where he adopted the name of Peter Coutts,
and bought land in Mayfield, California (now Palo
Alto).”

We would be remiss did we not mention that the first title in our Absurdist Texts & Documents series was Masks by Alphonse Allais, for its author embodies the spirit which inspires this small press.

Captain Cap is limited to 125 copies, so we suggest you order quickly before it’s too late.

CLICK HERE AND CAST YOUR VOTE FOR CAPTAIN CAP

And have a drink on him!

___________________
**Be sure and try the recipe for Corpse Reviver (pg. 53)