Tag: Oulipo

TYPO HAS ARRIVED!

 A truly unusual journal… 

PRINT magazine’s Steven Heller says: “Just what I’ve been waiting for.” 

De Villo Sloan in Asemic Front says: “TYPO is not another contribution to the wax museum of official culture. The editors interweave selections from what poet Ron Silliman calls the post-avant with the historic avant garde and esoteric visual-verbal examples from earlier centuries. Included are new iterations and genres in the continuum such as asemics, digital collage, neo-concrete and visual poetry as well as typographical innovations rooted in Lettrism. Accessible and highly enjoyable prose complements the flow of images.” 

TYPO #1: Journal of Lettrism, Surrealist Semantics, & Constrained Design.
Trade paperback; 148 pp., $14.95

TYPO #1

In this issue: Marc-Alain Barbot; Tom Barrett; Michael Betancourt; Isabelle B.L; Restif de la Bretonne; Mamie Caton; Norman Conquest; Caroline Crépiat; Art Dandy; farewell debut; Ange Degheest; Jean-Pierre Duffour; Luc Fierens; Jack Granath; Isidore Isou; Amy Kurman; Claude Nicolas Ledoux; Giambattista Palatino; Raymond Queneau; Reese Saxment; Karen Shaw; Doug Skinner; Corinne Taunay; John J. Trause; Tristan Tzara; Cal Wenby; and Femke van der Wijk.

Get in on the ground floor with this collector’s edition.

TYPO : Journal of Lettrism, Surrealist Semantics, & Constrained Design
Number 1.

6 x 9 inches; 148 pp.; paperback; $14.95
ISBN: 979-8-9869224-5-4

LATEST NEWS:

Typo: Journal of Lettrism, Surrealist Semantics, & Constrained Design is the first in a promised (irregular) series of anthologies devoted to oddities of typographic design history, extending from now to the 1400s, including mnemonic devices, “Forty-Five First Letters” (they’re real!), “Surrealist Sign Language,” asemic writing, and lots more from Doug Skinner, Norman Conquest, Raymond Queneau, Isadore Isou and other contributors. Visually fun to look at and filled with interesting historical factoids about printing.
— i arrogantly recommend… by Tom Bowden,
BOOK BEAT

TYPO in PRINT

TYPO hits the top of the charts on Amazon

RAVE REVIEW

“The first issue of TYPO … has arrived at an ideal moment in the evolution of avant garde and experimental art and writing. The monuments of the 20th century avant garde such as DaDa, Surrealism, Lettrism and Oulipo are enjoying healthy interest in the digital age, inspiring the creation of new genres.TYPO provides fresh insights and perspectives on these movements.

TYPO is not another contribution to the wax museum of official culture. The editors interweave selections from what poet Ron Silliman calls the post-avant with the historic avant garde and esoteric visual-verbal examples from earlier centuries. Included are new iterations and genres in the continuum such as asemics, digital collage, neo-concrete and visual poetry as well as typographical innovations rooted in Lettrism. Accessible and highly enjoyable prose complements the flow of images.”

—De Villo Sloan, ASEMIC FRONT 2

Read the full review HERE

A Dirty Story as You Like It

We’re pleased to present the 14th title in our Pocket Erotica series — a must-have edition for fans of Oulipo and innovative literature.

Oulipo’s interactive concept of “tree literature” was first implemented by Raymond Queneau in his short story “Un conte à votre façon” (A Story as You Like It). In this wickedly clever (and very funny) variation, Kim Vodicka follows in Queneau’s hallowed footsteps with a do-it-yourself text that’s guaranteed to satisfy all-comers.

In A Dirty Story as You Like It, the reader chooses from multiple plots, navigates the course to a satisfying climax, or changes direction whenever the urge strikes. Do all roads lead to ecstasy? Who knows, who cares, because getting there is half the fun.


A DIRTY STORY AS YOU LIKE IT
Kim Vodicka
Pocket Erotica #14
paperback; 40 pp.; $10
ISBN  978-1-73711-1-3

A B O U T T H E. A U T H O R

Kim Vodicka is the spokesbitch of a degeneration, “a softer-spoken, more genteel Lydia Lunch,” according to The Houston Press. She is the author of four full-length poetry collections—most recently, The Elvis Machine (CLASH Books, 2020) and Dear Ted (Really Serious Literature, forthcoming 2022). She is also the author of several chapbooks, including a poetic comic book, a 7” vinyl EP of sound poems, and a book of poetry illustrated by various artists local to Memphis. Additionally, she is a Pushcart Prize nominee and recipient of artist grants from PEN America, Poets & Writers, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and Authors League Fund. Her poems, prose, and visual art have been featured in The Thought Erotic, The New Urge Reader 4, SPREAD, Harbinger Asylum, Forbidden Futures, Best American Experimental Writing, and many others. For the past decade, she has toured the nation performing spoken word with rock’n’roll accompaniment in venues both illustrious and disreputable, including the legendary Sun Studio. Originally from South Louisiana, she lives in Memphis, Tennessee with her beloved cat, Lula. 

Scat has nine lives!

July 4th marks our 9th year of publishing. To celebrate the occasion we’ve released a special deluxe hardcover edition of our very first title, ALPHONSE ALLAIS’S MASKS — adapted and illustrated by Norman Conquest, with an introduction and notes on the text by Allaisian scholar Doug Skinner.

This revised, expanded edition features three additional chapters and over 60 color illustrations.

Join the celebration and order your copy of this collectable edition here.

ALPHONSE ALLAIS’S MASKS
Adapted & Illustrated
by Norman Conquest
With a Introduction & Notes on the Text
by Doug Skinner
DELUXE SPECIAL EDITION
hardcover; 6×9 inches; 82 pp., illustrated
ISBN 13 978-1-7357646-6-5 / $26


Yum-yum!
Another satisfied customer.

In the wings…some peculiar things

Watch for this extraordinary collection of works by the great Stefan Themerson who, with his wife, the artist Franciszka, founded the legendary Gaberbocchus Press  (London, 1948-1979). A poet, publisher, novelist, filmmaker, composer and philosopher, Stefan Themerson was a giant force in the avant-garde of the 20th century. A magus, a magician, his books are filled with wisdom, absurd humor, and dazzling ideas. His  unique vision is more relevant today than ever, and thanks to Paul Rosheim, Black Scat will be bringing you Critics and My Talking Dog: Selected Stories, Essays, Lectures & a Play.   

As the force behind Obscure Publications, Rosheim (with the guidance of British art critic, and founder of the Themerson Archive Jasia Reichardt) published a number of  limited edition chapbooks by Themerson. He is busy  compiling this seminal introduction to Stefan’s texts. The book will also  feature an introduction by noted art historian and artist Nick Wadley.

 


By the author of The Book with the Green Cover, smells like teen ‘pataphysics features signs of the phenomenon, oscillating pyramids, and  luminous vapors. This unexpurgated edition is illustrated with ubu-dystopian charts,  unpublished diagrams, newly discovered schemata, and rare illuminated photographs.  Also included  are Norman Conquest‘s groundbreaking philosophical experiments—triumphs as well as failures— which will inspire  aspiring  illuminati here and abroad.

 

Good Shit for Your Coffee Table

A deluxe ANTHOLOGY FOR THE AGES

FULL COLOR —  PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED — OVER 100 PAGES OF SUBLIME ART & LITERATURE — LARGE PAPERBACK FORMAT —

Choice selections from the international monthly journal LE SCAT NOIR, where art & literature hit the fan. Good shit guaranteed!

Featuring:
Paulo Brito, Paul Kavanagh, Erik Satie, Samuele Bastianello, Alice Pulaski, Pink Buddha, Doug Skinner, Yuriy Tarnawsky, Jason E. Rolfe, Eckhard Gerdes, Harold Jaffe, Tom Whalen, Darlene Altschul, Madalina Tantareanu, Sheila Pell, Samantha Memi, Opal Louis Nations, Alphonse Allais, Francisque Sarcey, Carla M. Wilson, Terri Lloyd, Mercie Pedro e Silva, Georges Hugnet, Norman Conquest, Paul Rosheim, Carol White, Michael Leigh, Nile Southern, Mantis Man, Tom Bussmann, Edward Lear, Mark Axelrod, Adao Iturrusgaral, Jim Johnson, Rick Krieger, Pippa Anais Gaubert, Rebecka Skog, Frank Pulaski, Jim McMenamin, Gail Schneider, Franciszka Themerson,  Raymond Queneau, Georges Perec, Italo Calvino, Tom La Farge, Theodore Carter, Nick Frost, Farewell Debut, Quixote, Robin Wyatt Dunn, Allan Bealy, Angela Pankosky, Brett Stout, Uwe Taubert, Iacyr Anderson Freitas, Desiree Jung, Andy Koopmans, Jim Meirose,  Russell Helms, Peter Payack, Adrienne Auvray, Gelett Burgess, and Eugene Ivanov.

8.25″ x 10.75″
Perfect-bound
Deluxe trade paper edition
114 pages
$29.99

This special edition is available direct from the printer. CLICK HERE to order this lavish collector’s edition.

WORD(FORE)PLAY

Pucker up your lipograms, OULIPO PORNOBONGO is here. The three limited edition volumes of this “Anthology of Erotic Wordplay” are out of print and scarce. Now the complete set has been compiled into this juicy paperback edition—Illustrated in shocking full color. Discover inspired works of constrained ecstasy by Alphonse Allais, Alain Arias-Misson, Paulo Brito, Norman Conquest, Rusty Cuffs, Farewell Debut, Tom La Farge, Larry Fondation, Paul Forristal, Ryan Forsythe, Eckhard Gerdes, Harold Jaffe, Roger Leatherwood, D.S. Macpherson, Samantha Memi, Ellen Nations, Opal Louis Nations, Andy O’Clancy, Lance Olsen, Derek Pell, Shane Roeschlein, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Maria Schurr, Lucy Selleck, Kebob G. Shoon, Doug Skinner, Tara Stillions Whitehead, and Giovanni Zuniga. OULIPO PORNOBONGO is a veritable orgy of art, text, and Oulipian mischief.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR COPY

LET THERE BE LAUGHTER!

Just in time for the holidays, THE ALPHONSE ALLAIS READER has arrived!

Drawn from Black Scat’s eight editions of the master French absurdist, this compendium is a sublime introduction to the wordplay and black humor that shocked and dazzled Bohemian Paris in the raucous “Banquet Years.” The READER includes the celebrated pataphysical text “A Thoroughly Parisian Drama”—a favorite of both André Breton and the Oulipians—as well as stories, plays, an excerpt from his only novel, and the classic exploits of Captain Cap and Francisque Sarcey. The translator, Doug Skinner, has added copious notes and an illuminating introduction.

Step into the funhouse! Laughs and surprises await!

CLICK HERE to order on Amazon.

 

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Are we bilious? Don’t be sillious!

No bile here. Make that, NO BILE!  is here!—Alphonse Allais‘s sublime collection of absurdist texts in a new translation—first publication in English!—by the great Doug Skinner.

Alphonse Allais’s third collection finds him in full anti-bilious form: love stories, revenge stories, monologues, short-shorts, and animal stories—all affronting the reader with startlingly modern absurdity, black humor, and wordplay.

“No Oulipian could fail to be enchanted by his essentially ironic tales, in which he juggles the rhetorical and narrative components of writing with rigorous logic and inexhaustibly zany results.”—Harry Mathews

Among the highlights are “Absinthes,” an internal monologue about the Green Fairy; “Poor Césarine,” a tale of obsessive love; and “A Good Society,” which proposes collecting used matches for the poor. As a bonus, six uncollected stories are included. PLUS illustrations and informative notes on the text by Doug Skinner.

So don’t be bilious, grab your copy now on Amazon. Start your summer off with blasts of laughter!

drawing by Doug Skinner

Discover all the titles in Black Scat’s ALPHONSE ALLAIS COLLECTION

CLICK TO ORDER