Allais was going to Breuil with Gandillot, who had a trunk. Allais only had a shirt. “You can put it in my trunk,” says Gandillot. “What?” says Allais. “And I, do I ask you to put your trunk in my shirt?
—Jules Renard
You’ll find more wit and wisdom in CAPTAIN CAP: HIS ADVENTURES, HIS IDEAS, HIS DRINKS by Alphonse Allais, translated from the French with an introduction & illustrations by Doug Skinner.
We’ve jumped the gun and released our mammoth deluxe trade paperback edition of Alphonse Allais’s CAPTAIN CAP: HIS ADVENTURES, HIS IDEAS, HIS DRINKS—translated by Doug Skinner. This is the complete & unabridged edition of the original 1902 French classic. 370 pages, including eight uncollected “Captain Cap” stories, plus a “Cappendix” of rare historical pictures.
The book is profusely illustrated with witty drawings by Doug Skinner, in addition to his extensive notes on the translation and swashbuckling introduction.
If you missed any of the limited edition capsized Captain Cap chapbooks in our Absurdist Texts & Documents series, you can get the whole kit and caboodle now, plus oodles more.
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ALPHONSE ALLAIS (1854-1905) was a peerless French humorist, celebrated posthumously by the Surrealists for his elegant style and disturbing imagination. In addition to composing absurdist texts for newspapers such as Le Chat Noir and Le Journal, he experimented with holorhymes, invented conceptual art, and created the earliest known example of a silent musical composition: Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man (1884). Truly ahead of his time (as well as ours), Allais is needed now more than ever. His mischievous work remains fresh, funny, and always surprising.
DOUG SKINNER has written numerous scores for theater and dance, particularly for actor/clown Bill Irwin (The Regard of Flight). His articles, cartoons, and translations have appeared in The Fortean Times, Fate, The Anomalist, Nickelodeon, Weirdo, Black Scat Review, and other periodicals. His translation of Isidore Isou’s Considerations on the Death and Burial of Tristan Tzara was published by Black Scat Books.
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ARE YOU IN THE UK? CLICK HERE TO ORDER
ARE YOU IN FRANCE? CLICK HERE TO ORDER
ARE YOU IN GERMANY? CLICK HERE TO ORDER
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Spoil them now while there’s still time. Give them something to do. Or read it yourself. It’s the breakfast of Duchampions.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER this luxurious little book of dreams.
A Black $cat Scholastic Classic.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Peppo Bianchessi is a multimedia artist from Italy. He is a “mittel-European”, a funny intellectual strongly influenced by Japanese culture. In Italy, Multimedia Artists have been around since the Renaissance and, before Apple Computers and multi-tasking, they were simply called Renaissance Men. When he was 20, Peppo went to the Venice Art Biennale for the first time. He was surprised to see that some of the so-called “young artists” were over 50. Recently he returned to Venice and discovered some teenagers were considered “young artists.” Peppo is now 45 years old and has never been a young artist. And it’s probably too early to consider him an Old Master, but he’s working on it. That is, to become old, not a Master. On many occasions he has tried to be a contemporary artist, but his timing was always wrong. Thus, he has accepted his real vocation: undermining the education of children (and adults) through funny and provocative books.
Contemporary Art For Rich Kids is his first book to be published in the United States.
Scat happens.
Be here October 1st.
Ahoy mates! —the fourth and final volume in the Captain Cap Collection has arrived—more madcap tales by the great French absurdist, Alphonse Allais. His hard-drinking, philosophizing, womanizing, & pioneering Captain Cap sails again to some hilariously strange shores. The pun-filled text has been brilliantly translated (and profusely illustrated) by Doug Skinner—and includes a penetrating preface and extensive notes on the text.
If you’ve never heard of “crocodile bridges” or “smell-buoys”, then you simply must read this literary landmark—the first English translation of “…one of the great masterpieces of humorous literature.”—nooSFere Littérature.
Come on in, the water’s fine…
CLICK HERE TO ORDER A COPY OF THIS LIMITED EDITION
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PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Volumes I – III are out of print..
Nothing like a good book on a summer’s day.
Even better, reading a sublime paperback from Black Scat Books.
Better still, enjoying How I Became an Idiot by Francisque Sarcey (actually written by one Alphonse Allais), translated from the French by the venerable Doug Skinner. Mr. Skinner is seen here exhibiting his fine taste in summer reading matter while relaxing in the Hamptons. (NOTE: This photo was not taken in the Hamptons, but it could have been had Mr. Skinner gone there.)
How I Became an Idiot is filled with biting wit and scatological humor. It’s the perfect beach book, as long as it’s read upside down so the title cannot be detected. After all, no one wants to be mistaken for an idiot.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: THIS TITLE IS OUT OF PRINT
Hang on to your caps, folks, the Captain is back in a capsized edition designed to tease—Volume III in our hilarious 4-volume series.
Captain Cap: The Antifilter & Other Inventions by Alphonse Allais, translated and illustrated by Doug Skinner. This literary landmark is the first publication in English featuring Allais’s hilarious, booze-cruising captain of the high seas—the unthinkably unsinkable Captain Cap.
Over 100, profusely illustrated pages, The Antifilter is packed with strange, pataphysical inventions, quirky cons, cocktails, wordplay and absurd pranks. In short, it’s a feast for landlubbers and lover’s of French lit & humor.
DISCOVER:
and much, much more!
110 pages, perfect-bound. Limited to 125 copies. $21.50
CLICK HERE and climb aboard.
Black Scat Books is delighted to bring this ancient classic back into print in a perfect-bound edition designed for the modern connoisseur. Facetiae is a collection of humorous and indecent tales by Renaissance humanist Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459), first published in 1470. It features such stories as “Of a Fool, Who Thought His Wife Had Two Openings” and “Visio Francisci Philelphi,” the earliest recorded version of Carvel’s ring. This limited edition includes a hand-lettered cover by artist Jana Vukovic.
Over a hundred pages of lascivious mirth!
If you haven’t been collecting our Black Scat Classic Interim Editions, now is a good time to start.
A Bishop is Reassured Regarding his Loose Teeth
An old bishop, whom I knew, complained that he had already lost a number of his teeth, and that others were shaking so badly that he feared to lose these also.
At this a man of his district said: “Have no fear that you will lose your teeth.”
“Why not?” the bishop asked curiously.
“Well, my testicles have been hanging loose for the last forty years seeming always on the point of falling off, yet I have never lost them.”
from
The Facetiae Erotica of Poggio
by Poggio Bracciolini
Illustrations by Jana Vukovic
Coming in July in a Black Scat Classic Interim Edition
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
Read more about forthcoming Interim Editions on the Bookends page here.
blackscatbooks.com 