Strike up the band . . . stand and salute . . . a new book by experimental writer and critic Richard Kostelanetz has just rolled off the press in all its patriotic splendor. The Works & Life of Kosty Richards: An American Career will be an inspiration to every red-blooded American—especially those who aspire to the heights of literary celebrity.
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CLICK HERE to order a copy of this limited edition.
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
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.
JUST PUBLISHED: A major new collection of short fiction by Alain Arias-Misson—a master of literary mischief. These fifteen “tales of innocence” are erotic, poetic, mysterious, funny, and always surprising.
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE MAN WHO WALKED ON AIR & OTHER TALES OF INNOCENCE
“The title story of Arias-Misson’s The Man Who Walked on Air is emblematic of the fiction collection. Ruminative, cultivated, formally venturesome, smoothly (but not slickly) written, and erotic—a nuanced eroticism that takes deliciously improbable turns. A daring collection in its way, yet always engaging.”
–Harold Jaffe
“Augustus, Alain Arias-Misson’s alter ego in the book, levitates when he has an erection. Arias-Misson levitates when he writes. Take the hand he offers you. He will lead you above the coarseness and banality of much of contemporary writing to a delightfully innocent world of erotic fantasies.”
–Yuriy Tarnawsky, author of Short Tails
So begins one of the twisted tales in Samantha Memi‘s first collection of short fiction— KATE MOSS & OTHER HEROINES. OUT OF PRINT
Publisher’s Note: Read Elizabeth Archer’s interview with Samantha Memi in Black Scat Review #1.
Exciting new books are on the way and you won’t want to miss them. 
We’ve just published Samantha Memi’s first collection of short fiction: Kate Moss & Other Heroines—#7 in our Absurdist Texts & Documents series. Memi is a gifted young British writer with a unique, offbeat voice. And if we didn’t know better we’d swear she’s a relation to the great French absurdist, Alphonse Allais. Also, the forthcoming first issue of Black Scat Review features an interview with the London-based writer.
The French humorist Pierre Henri Cami (1884–1958) is virtually unknown in America and Black Scat Books is proud to be the first to publish a collection of his writings & drawings in the States. A Cami Sampler
(Absurdist Texts & Documents #9) is translated by John Crombie whose Kiickshaws Press in Paris published several exquisite letterpress editions of works by Cami. Charlie Chaplin hailed Cami as “the greatest humorist in the world,” and if that’s hyperbole… well he’s certainly right up there alongside several Black Scat authors.
Another literary event coming your way—also in the AT&D series—is a text by the Romanian-born French poet and artist, Isidore Isou, founder of the art movement Lettrism. Translated by Doug Skinner, Considerations on the Death and Burial of Tristan Tzara has never before appeared in English. Isou recounts his bizarre and humorous behavior at Tristan Tzara’s funeral. It’s a rare tidbit of renegade art history.
In December, Black Scat will publish Shattered Rainbow by the Austrian artist Monika Mori. The book features a series of stunning abstract works created on x-rays with acrylics using a palette knife.
Florence Bocherel is an experimental comic artist/writer. She was born in London, but currently lives in Montreal, Canada. Black Scat will publish her graphic novel, Post-asphyx in 2013.
That’s right, the terrorists will win.
A cheap scare tactic? Not on your life. It was a former president who instructed us to do our patriotic duty: shop till you drop.
But don’t take his word for it, just ask Ryan Forsythe, the author of IF YOU DON’T READ THIS THE TERRORISTS WILL WIN. He was tortured by the U.S. government and lived to tell this shocking (some might say hilarious) tale of faith, patriotism, and how to pitch a children’s book.
That may sound screwy, but these are screwy times. Just remember, the fate of the nation is in your hands.
OUT OF PRINT
Our sublime anthology of erotic wordplay is now available—featuring titillating works by Eckhard Gerdes, Alain Arias-Misson, Larry Fondation. Harold Jaffe, Derek Pell, Andy O’Clancy, Farewell Debut, Rusty Cuffs, Opal Louis Nations, Tara Stillions Whitehead, Samantha Memi, Shane Roeschlein, Lance Olsen, and Ryan Forsythe. [Absurdist Texts & Documents – No. 4; Edition of 50.]
Each constrained text is limited to 600 words and is subjected to an oulipian constraint of the author’s choosing. Is it wordplay or foreplay? You be the judge. You’ll also find provocative “potential” images by artists Norman Conquest and Farewell Debut. All seductively packaged and perfectly bound—52 pages of puzzling seduction and literary tricks. There has never been an anthology like it.
UPDATE: THIS TITLE IS OUT OF PRINT
blackscatbooks.com 