There will be no June Gloom here…

April 29, 2013December 29, 2013Leave a comment

ubu

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.

good_pschitt

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.)

Look it up!

March 20, 2013February 11, 2021Leave a comment

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

___
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

Southern Discomfort…

March 13, 2013March 19, 2013Leave a comment

cover12a

A yummy treat (for those with strong stomachs) is coming soon in our Absurdist Texts & Documents series…a new collection of strange “tastes” from the late master chef Terry Southern:

HOT HEART OF BOAR & Other Tastes

We’ll be serving it fresh—piping hot and throbbing—in a limited edition of only 125 copies. First come, first served.

The book features rare unpublished texts, including an excerpt from The Hunters of Karinhall—a screenplay that, sadly, was never filmed. It’s a bloody masterpiece, and we do mean bloody. There’s also a private letter to William Burroughs; a vomiting priest; “K.Y. Madness,” and more.

In addition to the author’s culinary delights, you’ll find illuminating introductory notes by Nile Southern, as well as tastefully explicit illustrations by Norman Conquest.

In short, it’s a full-boar feast for famished fans of black humor.

Prepare to dig in.

When in Rome…

February 24, 2013Leave a comment

vote for Peppo!

Poster courtesy of Peppo Bianchessi

Happy Allais Day!

February 15, 2013February 17, 2013Leave a comment

Laughter & Cheer for the New Year!

January 1, 2013April 10, 2024Leave a comment

A Cami Sampler

We proudly present a New Year’s treat—#9 in our Absurdist Texts & Documents series: A CAMI SAMPLER, translated from the French by John Crombie in Paris. The collection includes 10 zany, Dadaesque microdramas by Pierre Henri Cami, plus nine pages of his rare drawings. This is the first collection of Cami’s mini plays to be published in the U.S.

From the introduction by John Crombie:

“Though blissfully ignored for most of his life by the
English-speaking public, Cami (Pierre Henri) remained
for four full decades one of France’s most prolific,
and acclaimed, comic authors. Hailed by his idol and
admirer Charlie Chaplin as ‘the greatest humorist in the
world,’ Cami was somewhat willfully omitted by André
Breton from his Anthologie de l’Humour Noir—no doubt
on account of his huge popular success—but admired
by other Surrealists. Between 1910, when he founded
Le Petit Corbillard Illustré, the ‘humorous organ of the
corporation of undertakers,’ and his death in 1958,
Cami published well over forty volumes of minidramas
and comic novels—notably The Memoirs of God-the-
Father, The Adventures of Loufock-Holmes, The Son of
the Three Musketeers, and the travels of his perhaps most
famous creation, Monsieur Rikiki and the Rikiki family—
as well as countless songs, strip cartoons, screenplays
and even operettas. Many of these he also illustrated.

But Cami was best known for his ‘dramatic fantasies,’
written mostly for La Vie Drôle, the humorous column
published weekly by Le Journal, where he had stepped,
somewhat belatedly, into the shoes of that column’s
immortal co-founder, Alphonse Allais. Self-styled
microdramas of everyday life, of legend, of history
(and even of geography), of true (and false) romance,
and more often than not of volupté, these screwball
skits look backward to the music hall and Alfred Jarry,
sideways to the Marx Brothers and forward to, in
England, the Goons and, in France, to the Theatre
of the Absurd.”

Edition limited to 100 copies.

THIS BOOK IS OUT OF PRINT

Word-Freaks of the World, Unite!

December 30, 2012February 11, 2021Leave a comment

Lexicon

A new year, a new imprint: Black Scat Scholastic Classics (“A Wealth of Knowledge at Your Fingertips”), our premiere educational reference series.

We’re pleased to announce the first volume in the series—The Complete Unabridged Lexicon by Opal Louis Nations. Excerpts from this seminal (albeit eccentric) dictionary have appeared over the years in obscure little magazines and avant-garde broadsides, but now Black Scat Books unleashes the entire unexpurgated edition in a deluxe 128-page trade paperback. OUT OF PRINT

lexicon-cover

As for the OED…it’s time to toss that dusty dinosaur in the dumpster and make room for this contemporary masterpiece which, according to The Brighton Daily Herald “…gives new meaning to the word definition.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

photo by Ellen Nations

Opal Louis Nations was born in Brighton, England. During the mid-1960s he worked as lead vocalist in London clubs with the late Alexis Korner’s Band, and later his own group, The Frays. He helped popularize American soul-based R&B and gospel music in Great Britain. After brief periods with various London R&B bands, he turned his back on singing and began a career as an experimental fiction writer. His textual work, sometimes strange, sometimes humorous in nature, appeared in over 200 small press magazines around the world. He is the author of over 30 books of fiction, including The Strange Case of Inspector Loophole (Véhicule Press), Stabbed to Death with Artificial Respiration (Coach House Press), and Etiquette for Ladies and Gentlemen of Good Society (Obscure Publications), as well as drawings and collage. As an editor, he brought to the public’s attention fresh young poets and writers, both in the publication of books and through his literary magazine periodical, Strange Faeces. Nations currently spends his time interviewing gospel performers, writing articles on a regular basis for Blues & Rhythm, Soul Bag, and Dr. Jazz magazines (to name a few), conducting music research and compiling CD reissues for English and U.S. record companies.

This Book Has Legs

November 8, 2012November 16, 2012Leave a comment

Sexy legs and a whole lot more.

Let yourself be seduced by a new comic voice. Meet talking Tampax, rebellious stilettos, singing lizards, weeping Lamborghinis, and heroines to die for—Guinevere, Marie Antoinette and, of course. Kate Moss.

These eight twisted tales by British writer Samantha Memi will dazzle, shock, and surprise.

CLICK HERE to order.

Black Scat News from London, Paris, Montreal & Austria

November 1, 2012November 8, 2012Leave a comment

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.