The thirteenth issue of Black Scat Review is out! It is, fittingly, devoted to the subject of superstition. It also contains my short story “Find a Penny,” which is also fittingly devoted to the same subject. And I am one of thirteen contributors; the other twelve are: Paulo Brito, Eckhard Gerdes, Harold Jaffe, Soren James, […]

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Bill Ectric has interviewed me about my translation of The Zombie of Great Peru, by Pierre-Corneille Blessebois, published earlier this year by Black Scat Books. It’s over at a site called Red Fez.

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Black Scat Books has just released its eighth broadside, “Limerickshaw: Haiku for the John.” I’ve selected sixteen classic dirty limericks, and rewritten them as haiku. Cleansed of rhyme, each haiku reveals the laconic narrative at the core. Norman Conquest’s design incorporates an equally classic erotic Japanese print, showing a heteronormative couple generating children. It’s suitable […]

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Although Poe’s poem “The Raven” is a nice piece of work, it is rather insistent with its rhymes. Therefore, I’ve removed them for your reading pleasure. I’ve fixed the whole poem, but I’ll post only the first two stanzas. THE RAVEN UNRHYMED Once upon a midnight gloomy, while I pondered, weak and sleepy, Over many […]

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Here’s the first page of a talk on Charles Fort and his influence, which I gave at the Morbid Anatomy Museum on September 10, 2015. I tried to cover as much fortean history as possible in 45 minutes.

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The Blaireau Affair is now available from Black Scat Books! Alphonse Allais’s only novel, first published in 1899, has never been out of print in France, and has inspired four movies. It’s summer in the provinces, and Blaireau, the local poacher, is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. There are futile political squabbles, a […]

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Although Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” is an excellent work in its way, it doesn’t rhyme. I’ve remedied that with the following verses. I post here only the first and last sections. 1 I sing myself, and as I celebrate, I’ll just assume that you reciprocate; For all my atoms also are in you, So […]

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Here’s another excerpt from The Doug Skinner Dossier. Since it’s puzzled a couple of readers, I’ll point out that both the letters and words are complete alphabets, just not in alphabetical order. ALPHABET F is a vapor Z is an elk U is a paper S is a whelk I is a chukka W is […]

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Here’s another excerpt from The Doug Skinner Dossier (see last post). It’s the first bit of “Trevor’s New Job.” TREVOR’S NEW JOB “I didn’t think I’d need a job in the afterlife,” said Trevor. Mr. Wallingford smirked at him from across his desk. “Didn’t you need a job in life?” he asked. “Well, yes,” said […]

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The Doug Skinner Dossier is now available from Black Scat Books! This blessed compendium features articles, short stories, verses, columns, literary essays, alphabets, metrical translations, monologues, talks, cartoons, rounds, lipogrammatic smut, a puppet show, a ventriloquism routine, and a one-act play. 248 pages of pure, unadulterated Skinner. Holy cow!

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